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"Love and Life for the World"
2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21
Do you ever
find yourself wondering what actually happened in these stories we just heard? A man comes to Elisha bringing food from the
first fruits: twenty barley loaves and some fresh ears of grain. Elisha says,
“Give it to the people and let them eat.” But his servant can’t see how that
will be enough. Elisha had heard God’s
promise: “Thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’
Would you
have believed Elisha?
The Bible
tells us that Elisha served the twenty barley loaves and the grain, and the
hundred people ate, and there was more than enough.
There are
similar themes in the gospel lesson we just heard.
The gospel lesson we just heard is one of the few stories
that John and the other gospel writers tell in common. It’s the only miracle story that appears in
all four gospels. So, it must have been important to the early church.
After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of
Galilee. The verses leading up to
today’s gospel lesson set the context. The crowds are following because they
saw Jesus perform SIGNS. Jesus has healed the official’s son and a man by the
pool. The amazing things Jesus has been doing create a sense of anticipation for
what is to come.
A
large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on
the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain and sat down with his disciples.
Jesus
looked around at the large crowd and asked Philip, “Where are we to buy bread,
so that these people can eat?
John
tells us that Jesus said this to test Philip, as he already knew what he would do.
Philip
answered Jesus, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread wouldn’t be enough for each
of them to get a little.”
Then Andrew said, “There’s a boy here who has five barley
loaves and two fish--but what are they for so many?” Andrew sees the possibilities, but he’s still
concerned that they don’t have enough.
Jesus
said, “Have the people sit down.” John
mentions that there was a lot of grass in the area, which made it a comfortable
place to sit down and have a picnic.
There
are four gospel stories that tell about Jesus feeding 5,000, and Matthew’s and
Mark each add a similar story about Jesus feeding 4,000. In all six stories, there
are lots of left-overs!
At the
center of the story is a miracle.
Now, if I
were to tell you that it happened exactly the way the story says it
did, some of you might get a
little cranky. Some folk have a hard time believing
that sort of thing… or would tell us that nothing like that has ever happened
to you.
The way some people get more comfortable with
this story is to explain that of course many of the five thousand people had a
little food tucked away in their tunics—something they planned to sneak off and
eat by themselves—but that Jesus got them to share what they had, so that there was
plenty for everyone, with twelve baskets left over. According to that kind of thinking, the MIRACLE
is that Jesus got them to share.
I think that
interpretation has some merit, and it’s helpful to some folk who struggle with
how to interpret the miracle stories in the Bible.
But that’s
not what the Bible says. and that when
the people saw it, they knew who he was.
They understood the feeding of the five thousand as God’s divine hand in
human affairs—God’s supernatural interruption of the natural order. There was bread where there hadn’t been any
bread…fish where there hadn’t been any fish.
That proved who Jesus was to them…and established their faith in
him. The miracle made people
believe. It gave them faith where
there had been no faith—the same as it gave them food where there had been no
food.
I’m not
going to try to tell you how it happened that Jesus was able to feed thousands
of people that day in the Galilee, because I can’t explain it in a pat,
rational way that would satisfy everyone.
But I believe the gospel writers when they say that something amazing
and extraordinary happened, and that many hungry people got fed-- when it
looked like there wouldn’t be enough. In
the midst of what looked like scarcity, there was abundance!
I think it
was C.S. Lewis who said that a miracle is something that takes your freedom
away along with your doubts… something that leaves you no choice but to
believe. You witness a miracle—or, as
John the Evangelist would say, a "sign"-- and it makes you have
faith.
But I’m not
so sure about that. Without faith, there
are always other explanations for even the best of miracles. You say you heard the voice of God? It sounded like ordinary thunder to me. She was healed of her illness? It was probably psychosomatic in the first
place.
Come to think
of it, though, is there proof for anything that really matters in the
world? Are there homegrown, ordinary miracles
you can think of—that there’s no evidence for… nothing that could prove them to
anyone else…or to you—if you didn’t believe in them first.
Could it be
that we’ve gotten it all backwards somehow?
Maybe faith doesn’t come after miracles—but before them? Perhaps what makes something holy--what
makes it a glowing and life-giving wonder—isn’t something about it…but about us.
In today’s
gospel lesson we hear echoes of the Passover-Exodus story. Chapter five ended
with complaints about a shallow, superficial understanding of Moses. But
chapter six intends to show a deeper, fuller understanding of Moses and the
Passover, which is now revealed in Jesus.
When Jesus
miraculously feeds the multitude in the wilderness, the people remember the
promise that God will raise up a prophet like Moses, and they confess that
Jesus is that prophet. What they fail to realize what this sign actually
reveals. Instead of seeing in Jesus the embodiment of God’s glory, love, and
Word, they see a king…a political or military figure they hope will serve their
desires. The crowds are missing the point of what’s happening. They see Jesus’
gracious gift--but they want him to manifest a glory that fits into their
assumption and serves their goals.
How often
do we fail to see the depths of what God is doing, because we’re focused on
what serves our desires? How often do we fail to realize how graciously God is
acting among us, for our sake and for the sake of the whole world?
We only see
partially and in distorted ways. We need the continuing word of Jesus and the
gift of his presence, if we are to move more deeply into God’s glory.
When the
story moves to the next scene, we hear more echoes of Passover.
Jesus,
knowing that the people in the crowd wanted to make him king by force, had
withdrawn again to a mountain by himself. Then, when evening came, his
disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across
the lake. A strong wind was blowing, and the waters grew rough. When they had
rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking
on the water…and they were frightened.
But Jesus
said to them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Or, more accurately, we could read Jesus’ response as “I am.” “I am” and
“Don’t be afraid” are the language of theophany.[1] I think Brian Peterson is right when he
suggests that, in John’s language, it’s a “sign,” a window into the glory of
God present in this world through Jesus.[2]
Like the
crowds in John 6, we have been fed by God’s grace and mercy and care and
steadfast love. Like them, we often fail to see what God is doing among us. We
look for a Messiah or king who will serve our desires or our agendas.
But God is
up to something far greater than anything we could imagine. Jesus comes to
dwell among us, full of grace and truth, to reveal to us God’s love. Jesus
comes across the fearful, lonely, empty, dangerous times and places and says,
“Don’t be afraid. I am.”
He calls us
to feed the hungry--to provide food and clean water to those who lack the basic
things of life. But we look around and we’re afraid that our resources aren’t
sufficient to meet all the needs. We’re
afraid there won’t be enough.
Perhaps part of the miracle of our life of faith is that we
creatures are able to make use of our freedom:
to believe in spite of our doubts…to have faith without proof…and that because
of those capacities in us, miraculous things do happen from time to time. Some of them are extraordinary. But most of them as ordinary as the voices of
our fellow human beings telling us that we are loved…that we are precious in
their sight and God’s…that they want to link their lives with ours…that together
we can, with God’s help, change the world.
Together,
we can practice trusting in God’s abundance and grace. Together, we can receive
from Jesus’ hand what he gives and go out into the world with the gifts.
All life
and all good gifts come from God. Jesus keeps coming to us to open our hearts
and our hands to those around us…to open our eyes to his presence. He keeps
encouraging us: “I am. Don’t be afraid.”
In the epistle lesson we heard, we hear Paul praying that
the church, according to the riches of God’s glory, “may be strengthened in your inner being with
power through God’s Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love… that you may have the
power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and
height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
As Gentile
readers of the twenty-first century, do we get it? This message is for us, no less than to the
ancient church in Ephesus. God has a
plan for us, for us to be strengthened in our inner being with power through
God’s Spirit…for Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith…for us to be
rooted and grounded in love…for us to be filled with the fullness of God. We come together to be fed…filled…to open our
lives to God in prayer…and to be transformed by God’s power.
Do we believe
in that kind of miracle-- the kind of miracle in which we believe enough in
God’s grace and power to risk giving our lives in prayer?
The GOOD
NEWS is that—if we give our lives in prayer—we can begin to comprehend that God
is within and around us. We’ll begin to
see ourselves and everyone else differently.
When we give ourselves in prayer, we begin to see the world in terms of
God’s economy of abundance. When we give
ourselves in prayer, I believe the things that break God’s heart break our
hearts too…and we begin to comprehend what Jesus meant when he said, “How
blessed are those who mourn! How blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness! How blessed are the peacemakers!”
When we’re
weary from responsibilities with family, work, and church, the vision of God
leads us back to the way of love and LIFE.
When we
pray, God gives us the courage to risk.
We learn to trust not in ourselves, but in something far bigger than we
are. We live with what Brett Younger
calls “a muffled but persistent sense of the holy.” [3]
What kind
of a miracle might we experience if we pray for a bigger vision of God? What kind of a miracle might we be a part of--
if we pray that we will see our life in the center of God’s goodness…that
Christ might dwell in our hearts? What
kind of a miracle might it be if God overwhelms us with grace and it overflows
in our lives and makes a difference in the world?
So… let us
pray for faith in God’s power working in our world and in our leaders. Let us pray for God’s power in us to do
everything that we can do to stop terrible hatred and violence in our world. Let there truly be peace on earth, and let it
begin with you and me.
Now, to the
One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far
more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in
Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.
Amen!
Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor
Littlefield Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
July 29, 2018
[1] Exodus
3:14; Isaiah 43:10, 25; 4`:12; Genesis 15:1; Exodus 14a;13.
[2] Brian
Peterson, Commentary on John 6:1-21 at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3749
[3]
Lectionary Homiletics, July 30, 2006, p. 80.
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