7-25-18 - More Than Enough

(You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.)

How do you feed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish? Ask people to sit, and get started.

Jesus 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. Then 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.

As Luke tells the story, Jesus has people sit in groups of fifty, and the disciples distribute. It’s more manageable to feed 50 than 5,000, right? When a challenge feels overwhelming, we can break it down into pieces – much as the bread was broken. No one can eat a whole loaf without breaking it up; no one can feed a crowd without breaking it down.

Once the people were seated, they were fed. But how? There were only five loaves and two fish. As Andrew said, "But what are they among so many people?”

What they were was plenty – we’re told people got as much of both bread and fish as they wanted. Jesus and his followers just kept giving them out, and there kept being enough. This story appears in all four gospels, and in no version does it say Jesus prayed and created a gigantic pile of food that was then distributed. No, he took what they had, blessed it and gave it out, and everyone had as much as they wanted – AND there were leftovers:

When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.

Abundance is a principle of God’s realm. As Jesus demonstrated the Life of God, there was always more than enough – vats of water turned into wine, twelve baskets of food left after 5,000 people or more were fed to satisfaction. To people living under the cruel thumb of the occupying Romans, over-taxed to the point of starvation, Jesus said, “Trust in God’s way – it is the way of enough and to spare.”

Abundance may not apply in every situation, but we should always expect it and look for it as we move in faith. Usually when we don’t experience abundance it’s because we didn’t move in faith, but rather on our own steam. And I have found that when I do expect it, I experience it more often. And when I expect “not enough,” that’s often what I find.

Many churches and people are locked into “not enough” thinking, oriented to scarcity. That’s a zero sum game that often leads us to squander the assets we’ve inherited without generating new resources, because who wants to give to an institution that sees itself as lacking? We shrink our missions budgets and pour money into aged, leaky buildings, while the world goes hungry for lack of the Bread of Life we have to share. How might we turn around, take the loaves and fishes we have, and get out there and start feeding people?

Where in your life do you experience abundance? And where does scarcity rule? 

How might we invite God to shift our expectations toward abundance in all areas? Sometimes that requires dealing with the very real losses and disappointments we’ve experienced. It takes a lot of courage to hope for more than enough.

Yet I have found that when I do, that’s when the leftovers pile up. 

To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here.