Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Preached on August 5, 2007 by Winton Boyd
Mark 6:30-44 (see text at end of sermon)
Winton Boyd

As I was driving one of my children around yesterday, they asked what I was preaching about. When I responded I was preaching on the story of the loaves and fishes and the attitude of abundance verses the attitude of scarcity, they responded – “I have no idea what you are talking about, I’ll just have to listen tomorrow.”

I then recounted the regular and predictable conversation in our household over whether or not we have any cereal in the cupboard or not. If we have recently gone shopping, there may be 6-10 boxes of various kinds of cereal, mostly unopened. If we have not recently gone shopping, there may be 4-6 boxes of cereal partially eaten.

For some people, like my children’s grandfather, 6-10 boxes are not only enough, but they provide too many choices. For others, like my college friend Frank, 4-6 boxes of cereal is heaven. As one who loved to mix and match cereal, this would multiple combinations. For others, 4-6 boxes of partially eaten cereal means they have tried everything, have not been enthusiastic, and therefore what they see is “nothing”. In our house, we have realized, of course, is that arguing whether or not there is cereal has little to do with the facts, and mostly to do with perspective.

So it is with our story from Mark this morning – a story about perspective as much as it is about facts.

This is a familiar story. The disciples harried and frazzled – “no leisure even to eat.” And it is for good reason; as they had been “working” hard.
The people following Jesus were excited but without direction – “sheep without a shepherd.”
The disciples appear let their fatigue cause them to feel lonely, discouraged, tired, and increasingly focused on themselves. They are “peopled out.” They want the crowds to go away, or at least for Jesus to send them away.

What does Jesus say in response to their concern and complaint – “you give them something to eat.”

One can here the disciples moaning under their breath, “Where is the compassionate Jesus for us? Is he an workaholic teacher, over extended, with poor boundaries, unable to say NO?”

From the vantage point of the disciples, the tone is less, “come, let’s follow Jesus;” and more “come on, Jesus, enough is enough. Give us a break.”

This is a story written long after it happened. It is being re-told not just to tell us the facts, but to make a point, to teach a lesson, or at least as a reflection of what the writer of Mark saw as important in Jesus’ interactions with his disciples and the crowd.

I always wonder with stories like these why Jesus’ disciples, the ones writing the stories, would make themselves look irritable, shallow, and shortsighted. I understand that the point is to lift up Jesus – but why at the expense of the disciples?

But as I read this very familiar story this week, I see it less as a statement about the disciples and more as a statement of the reality they lived in, the daily world that shaped their lives. There wasn’t enough compassion, there wasn’t enough food and drink, enough time, or enough money. In theological terms, their reality is experienced and depicted as a world of scarcity.

This story is about the constant battle then, and now, between a theology of insufficiency and the theology of abundance. In this story are both realities – the reality of fatigue, poverty of spirit, despair, and discouragement; as well as the reality of possibility, hope, delight.

I don’t know about you, but I often live in the first half of the story. I know how easy it is to feel tired, stressed, deprived, lonely, harried, directionless. When I was first married, I could attribute to working and going to school at the same time. Later I could attribute it to having three young children. Later I could pin it on being in a new city, in a new home.

So, I appreciate first hand this story and this miracle, because it is set in the world we know and often live. It is not a world of make believe, but hard reality. We struggle with all kinds of scarcity all the time – with money, time, opportunity, enjoyment…

Jesus doesn’t say they shouldn’t be tired, they shouldn’t be cranky. He does, however, walk them down another path. He doesn’t deny the impossibility of the task, he simply doesn’t let it hold him back.

“You give them something to eat!” To which the disciples reply, “we have no money.”

“How many loaves are there?”

“Only five, and two fish.”

Have patience, Jesus is saying. That is enough. That is in fact abundant.

A few months ago I was reading a story about the working environment at Google. Google receives more than 1,500 applications each day.

It’s a casual workplace with plenty of ways to unwind, including casual lounges, work out rooms and three free, organic meals a day.
Employees are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their time working on projects that contribute to their personal growth. Massages and doctors are free for employees.

I wondered how working in that kind of environment differed from those such as the Madison Public schools, where funding is being cut each year; or the state government where many wonder if there will be a job for them or if they want the job due to how much it has changed or evolved because of shrinking funding; or other industries where change brings uncertainty and a very cloudy future?

It is easy to feel, know, and live into abundance when life is full of resources, variety, profusion, and excess. Jesus addressed those times in our lives. But this is not what he is doing here. This story is written not for the “Google” settings of our lives, but the “always short of funding and doing the jobs of two people” area of our lives. This story is retold precisely because it speaks to faith amidst poverty, possibility when there is no prosperity.

There are many miracles in this story, and the first is ability to remain hopeful. It is to see, that with the grace and fullness of a life of faith, with the heart grounded in faith based compassion - a belief in plenty, enough, and even abundance is not only possible, but also necessary.

As the story is retold, we are invited into its spirituality.

When we are tired, Jesus invites us to “come away by yourself to a lonely place and rest awhile.”

When we are discouraged and feel as though we have nothing left to give, Jesus reminds us we can yet, “give them something to eat?” He starts from where we are (“how many loaves have you?”) and combines that with the abundance of community and the abundance of God.

Reading this story all these centuries later, we are invited to consider the miracle in our lives, waiting to happen when we evoke abundance thinking instead of scarcity thinking?

As we read this story in the gospels, we know it is foreshadowing the way in which this miracle of abundance played itself out in Jesus’ life. This story foreshadows that night when Jesus shared a meal and promised his disciples that his dying would not mean the end – in fact it would result in more – more faith, more compassion, love, more hope. It is foreshadowing a day when these very same run down and frustrated followers would be the source of amazing growth, insight, courage and possibility.

This story, combined with the last supper it point to – remind us that whether we don’t have bread and need to gather it; or we do have bread and need to break it and share it – what matters is a trust that in God, there is enough, and then some. Amen.

Mark 6
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.
31 He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
32 And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.

33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.
34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
35 When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late;
36 send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.”
37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?”
38 And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.”
39 Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass.
40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties.
41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all.
42 And all ate and were filled;
43 and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
44 Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.