Food: getting enough of it to people who need it, while reducing the amount hoarded or wasted, is one of the most critical issues facing humankind. On a local level, there are all kinds of technologies being developed to help people with too much food to get it to people who are hungry. Food rescue volunteers pick up leftovers at restaurants and caterers and deliver them to soup kitchens and shelters; food banks coordinate with community gardens to get fresh produce to food pantries.
Jesus had a pretty good distribution plan 2000 years ago.
Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. 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. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
I love the way this story combines the practical and the spiritual, the pragmatic and the miraculous. Jesus breaks the crowd into manageable divisions – no one has to feed 5,000 people; they’re each feeding 50 or 100. That’s not such a daunting proposition.
And then Jesus blesses the bread (after a heavenward glance – what was he thinking? “Father, you sure about this?” or “Okay, bring it on...”), and he breaks it and gives it to his disciples to distribute. Jesus does not multiply the food so that enormous mounds of bread and fish appear. He just has them give it out, and it keeps not running out. Not only does it not run out – there are leftovers, twelve baskets full of bread and fish.Lest any one of Jesus' disciples not get it, he had his own basket of leftovers to bring the lesson home.
Our God provides. And not by half-measures and just enough – God provides fully enough, and sometimes even to spare. Nobody got left out of this feast, and nobody had to make do with a morsel. “And all ate and were filled,” we’re told.
Can you think of examples of abundance in your life, of finding you had more than enough when you were concerned you would run short? More than enough time? Support? Money? Supplies?
And can you recall times when you did in fact come up short? What was different about those circumstances than the experience of abundance?
Are there things you never worry about being short of?
What do you suppose distinguishes those areas from the ones that cause anxiety?
Where does your prayer life come into this exploration? I find when I remember to pray, I trust in "enough."
If we’ve known too much emptiness, it can be hard to put our faith in this promise of being filled. But that is what our God is about, my friends – filling us to the brim, first with the Holy Spirit, and then, as we allow God’s life to take root in us and strengthen our faith, we find we are filled with all kinds of other gifts – hope, peace, joy, love… and sometimes even bread and fish. Enough and to share.
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