When Little Becomes Enough: John 6:1-21 - 10th Sunday after Pentecost

Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ²A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. ⁵When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹²When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
 
  ¹⁵When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

  ¹⁶When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. ¹⁸The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. ²⁰But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” ²¹Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

The windmill and the barley by Ken Douglas on flickr.  CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

One of the hardest parts of visiting a congregation for the first time is the communion.  Every church is different in how they do it.  Even Lutheran churches are different.

When do you come forward?  Where do you go?  Do you stand or kneel?  What if they use common cup?  What if the wine’s sour?  What do you do if you eat your bread before dipping it into the chalice—or if you drop it in?

If you go to a Presbyterian Church, they may give you communion in the pews.  But do you need to wait because they eat and drink all at the same time?  And how do they manage to cut the bread into perfect little cubes?

Perhaps you’re not allowed to take communion—because you’re not a member of their church.  What if the church doesn’t believe in the real presence of Christ in the sacrament—and it’s just a memorial feast.  Should you still take it?

These are just a few of the many communion conundrums we Christians so aptly create.  But to me, the biggest communion conundrum is that our tables are empty.  Wine and loaves abound—but relatively few are coming to the feast.

This is the opposite of the conundrum facing Jesus and his disciples in today’s Gospel.  A crowd of 5,000 people has followed Jesus out into the middle of nowhere, on account of the signs he was doing for the sick. 

Immediately, Jesus asks his disciple Philip, “where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” 

Philip says, “Six month’s wages wouldn’t be enough to give everyone even a little.”  And with Giant Eagle and McDonalds 1,900 years away, no one would have that much food at the ready.

Just then, Andrew points out a little boy who has five loaves and two fish.  A small amount of food for him and his family; and merely crumbs amid so many people…

Nevertheless, the child hands over the food to Jesus—and you know what happens next.

When people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “this is indeed the prophet who is come into the world.”

That’s what this is all about.  Yes, Jesus can feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish.  But the sign isn’t that Jesus is the world’s first and foremost purveyor of fast food. This is a sign that Jesus is God’s son; the Word made flesh, full of grace and truth.  This is also a sign that people’s hunger matters to God.

But still I wonder about this little boy…  Why did he do what he did?  Because he saw the signs Jesus was doing for the sick?  Or was it because he knew people were hungry and wanted to help?

Would you have done this while you’re standing in the middle of nowhere with thousands of hungry people around you?  I know I couldn’t.  If that’s all I’ve got, and I certainly cannot afford to lose it!

But Jesus shows the crowd who he is through the meager gifts this little child hands over.  And it turns out that five loaves and two fish were enough.

As we face our dilemma of plenty of loaves but no one to eat them, Jesus is testing us as he did his disciples on that grassy hillside.  The Feast of Life is spread before a world full of broken, lost, and rejected people.  For all the sheep without a shepherd…  God’s children are hungry for food and longing for shelter in the age of plenty.  What will you do?  What will we do?

The easiest thing to do, of course, is nothing.  Just stay the course and see what happens.  We can wax nostalgic about the days when the church was at the center of people’s lives and the stores weren’t open on Sundays; we can look at fast-growing megachurches and wish we could be like them… We can surrender ourselves to the situation—that there’s not enough and that we aren’t enough. 

Or, we can recognize Jesus present among us and BELIEVE that he is determined to give himself away as bread for the hungry.  We can believe that our neighbor’s struggles, pains, and unmet needs matter to him—and act. 

A child’s meager offering of food was enough to feed the five thousand when it was put into Jesus’ hands.  Jesus is still working these kinds of signs.  I’ve seen a get-well card bring a nonbeliever to faith in Christ in this church. The best day in a child’s life happened when he put on a hooded sweatshirt he found in our clothing closet.  Lives shattered by the death of a loved one have been healed. 

Furthermore, we have young people in our congregation who trust Jesus like the boy with the five loaves and two fish.  On our first day of Vacation Bible School, we challenged the 52 children in attendance to bring their friends.  The very next day, we had eighty children.  Every time we’ve challenged our young people to invite others, they’ve always come through in a big way.  We have a lot to learn from our young people!

We’re here to help each other recognize all the gifts Christ has brought together and to encourage each other to use them and share them with the confidence that Jesus can accomplish far more with them than we ever could ourselves!

Ministry is all about seeing the signs Jesus is doing and being the signs for the world. The adventure of ministry is going out of our comfort zones, facing our fears, and trusting Jesus to accomplish what we ourselves cannot.  When it comes to Christ, loaves abound.  He wants all to be fed and know that they matter to God.  And Jesus wants you to be that sign that says to another, Jesus is real, he loves you too, and he can raise the dead.