The Ordinary Can Do the Extraordinary
Posted on Jul 29, 2018 by David Whetter
If I can make a suggestion, you might want to make sure you have a little breakfast before you come for the next several weeks, because today is the first of five weeks in a row in which we will read from the Gospel of John about food and specifically about bread and its importance in our lives.
Now before we begin talking about the text itself, I think it is important to get an understanding of the normal diet of the ancient Jews. According to what we know from archeological finds and from ancient writings, the diet of the ancient Israelites was pretty much the same for over 1,000 years. The main staples of these people's diet were bread, wine, and olive oil. Oh, they ate other things, such as legumes, fruits, vegetables, dairy, fish, and meat, but because of their religious beliefs and their desire to remain faithful to the Law, their diet stayed basically the same, and the one thing that was eaten routinely was bread. Bread supplied a large portion of their energy needs and in Chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, John explains how Jesus, the Bread of Life, is the one staple we need in our lives. Personally, I would have preferred Jesus was the “steak of life,” or the “chocolate mint ice cream of life,” but the fact is, regardless of what I want, what John will stress over the next several weeks is that all any of us really need is the Bread of Life.
With the understanding of the importance of bread to the people, our five-week story begins today with the words, “After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee…” (6:1). Jesus had been in Jerusalem for the Passover and while there he healed a man on the Sabbath, which as we know already was not a smart thing to do because such an act was frowned upon by the religious authorities. Now, because he did this John tells us in a previous story that the religious leadership began to “persecute” Jesus (5:16). But that wasn’t all Jesus had done while in Jerusalem for the Passover. He had also began using language in referring to God like “my Father” and the leadership believed he was making himself equal to God which made them want to kill him even more. To try and help them understand what he meant Jesus tried to explain that the only reason he could do what he was doing was because he was doing what the Father wanted (5:19), but that only infuriated the leadership even more because again, he was insinuating that he and the Father were one, which Jesus will actually say later in this Gospel. The more Jesus tried to explain how, why, and what he was doing, the more the religious leadership wanted Jesus dead, and so he left Jerusalem and traveled about 75 miles to the Sea of Galilee so he could cross to the other side, non-Jewish territory. According to John, the next time Jesus returns to Jerusalem (11:56), it will be his last.
Now, although the leadership didn’t like what he was doing, John tells us that the “crowds,” that is the everyday people, loved what he was saying and the “signs” he was doing, and they kept following him. You see, Jesus was healing the sick, he was offering a hope-filled message to a people that had no hope, and so they followed and they wanted more, and Jesus was willing to offer them more and John shares with us the story of the Feeding of the 5,000. Jesus knew that the people had to eat, but there was no food to eat and no one had the money to buy food even if there was food to buy. This was a hopeless situation. The only thing to do was to break up this “love-fest,” but Jesus used this opportunity to once again offer a “sign” that God wanted God’s people to be nourished so they could continue to be God’s people.
So, in the midst of this hopeless situation, Jesus learns that one poor boy has five barley loaves and a couple of fish. Now you might be wondering, how do we know he was poor, after all he had quite a bit of food in his position? Well, bread made of barley was the bread of the poor. And so, with these mere scraps, Jesus first takes the time to thank God for this gift and then he proceeds to feed the people with the five loaves and two fish. John tells us that everyone ate until they were full and that there were still twelve baskets left over.
Now, we all have heard this story, and whenever we read of miraculous acts like these that Jesus did, I often have people say to me afterward, “Pastor, why don’t those kinds of things happen today?”, to which I often like to reply, “who says they don’t?”. You see, our story today invites us think about how individuals and communities are nourished and sustained by God, and also imagine how we might become those vessels, like that poor boy, that can and do share the abundance with which God has so richly blessed us. This story today invites us to see how God has prepared us, ordinary people, to use ordinary gifts (food, clothing…) to share the love of a God that is present in this community. And if you think such things cannot happen today, let me share a true story with you.
Not long ago, there was a couple from a very small, poor country who desired to move to the United States so they could offer their children a better life. The couple was well educated, both had college degrees, but in their country they would always be poor. So after much red tape and hard work, they obtained the legal paperwork to move to this country. But, when they arrived here, they quickly learned that even though they had college degrees, they were still foreigners in a strange land. The husband was an engineer, but as is often the case, his education was not recognized here and so work here was not available to them. His wife had the same issue. They attempted to work hard, but they could not earn enough to support and feed their family. They needed help, and one day, they heard about a food program where they could go to receive free groceries. And so they swallowed their pride and began receiving free food. Week after week, month after month, they showed up and received the food they so desperately needed. Then one Thursday morning, about three weeks ago to be exact, the man walked through the front doors of this sanctuary where those working the Pantry Pack program that day expected he would get another bag of groceries, and he did the unexpected. Instead of taking food, the man handed the workers a check for $100.
You see, he finally had gotten a job and out of his very first paycheck, he wanted to return to this ministry from his newfound abundance. I am sure he still had many bills to pay and many expenses to cover, but what this man knew and recognized was that in his time of need, God provided for him and his family the food they desperately needed from the scraps that we offered. Yes, I said the scraps. I don’t think any of us have gone hungry, or had to sacrifice to make this program work, and yet, out of our scraps, many are fed. And to show his thankfulness, the first thing this man wanted to do was to thank God and to offer his mere five loaves of barely and two fish so that others might, too, come to know of God’s abundance.
Brothers and sisters, through a very ordinary place, occupied by very ordinary people, using very ordinary things, God’s love is being shared here in many ways. Today, we are invited to see that even though we believe we do not have enough, even though we cannot see everything we want to see, God is here with us, and through us, God’s presence is revealed to the world in very ordinary ways. Today we are invited to experience what it means to be rooted in God’s sustaining love and to proclaim this love to the world.
Can miraculous events like the feeding of the 5,000 happen today? Absolutely they can and they do every day. All we need to do is be willing to recognize that we are those God is using daily to bring about extraordinary events. Thanks be to God. Amen.