Enough already!

Well, we just had a fun summer BBQ event – and with it, a lot of the usual host’s worrying about enough. Do we have enough burgers? Will there be enough people even though it’s hot? Will the whole event feel like enough, to match the work we’re doing to plan it? So many ways to worry about enough. What happens when you don’t think you have enough? Or that you don’t think you are enough? What does God have to say about those questions?

All of that comes into play with that gospel story we just heard. The story begins when Jesus hears about John the Baptist being arrested and killed. John is his kinsman, his mentor, the one who baptized him, the forerunner. So Jesus is grieving, and he heads off alone in a boat to deal with the news. But then everyone else comes along. Maybe they’re looking for Jesus to help them; maybe they too heard about John the Baptist and are grieving. But somehow they find Jesus, and they all spend the day together, out there in the wilderness in their brokenness and need. And towards the end of the day, the disciples, worrying or micromanaging or just plain tired of it all, tell Jesus he really needs to send these people away, back to town where they can fend for themselves. But Jesus responds differently: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” You can almost hear the spluttering as the disciples reply, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish!” You want us to feed all these people? All we have is this little bit here – there’s not enough.

Jesus gives them a task; the disciples protest they don’t have enough to do it. It is the perennial dialogue between God and humanity.

It’s a dialogue we see repeated many times in scripture. In nearly every great story of God calling someone to do a big thing – from the patriarchs Abraham and Moses to the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah to Mary the mother of God herself, the pattern goes something like this: God says, ‘I want you to do something for me.’ The human says, ‘I can’t, and let me explain why, since you, God, clearly don’t understand the situation.’ I’m too young; I’m too old; I’m not good at public speaking; I’m not even married; there’s not enough to go around. I’m too broken to help. I’m not enough. Please, go ask someone else.

This story of the feeding of the 5000 is one of the few miracle stories that occur in all four gospels, nearly identical in each one. The place where it is said to have happened by the Sea of Galilee has been a place of Christian pilgrimage since the early centuries after Jesus. In each telling, it is evening in a deserted place, the disciples are worrying about the people, all they have are five loaves and two fish, and with that Jesus feeds 5000 men (plus women and children) with twelve baskets left over. In Matthew and in Mark there’s even a second version of the same story with different numbers. Something about it said something so essential about Jesus, something so essential about God’s way of being with us, that all four gospel writers had to include it. 

It is also one of those miracle stories that make us want to ask ‘how.’ How did it happen, this feeding of thousands of people with only a few pieces of bread and fish? After all, the problem of hunger is a real one in our world – wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could somehow duplicate this miracle ourselves and feed all those who need to be fed? But the text doesn’t really tell us how. Maybe all those gathered there to hear Jesus had food of their own stashed away in their pockets, and when the disciples gave up their food in front of them all, they were moved to bring out what they had and share it – and there was more than enough for all. Maybe Jesus used divine power to make more food than what they initially saw before them. But whether this is a miracle of turning people’s selfish hearts or a miracle of God through Jesus producing food for many from very little, it tells us something we need to hear. 

If we take the first interpretation, it’s a miracle about what is possible for human beings – a group of people, tired and hungry at the end of the day, who instead of keeping what little they have to themselves hand it over to Jesus and so on to all the others present – and when they do so, there is more than they need, enough to fill 12 baskets full. That would be a miracle because we humans usually think there is not enough to go around. Right from the earliest stage of fighting with our siblings, we act as if life were a great cosmic game of musical chairs, and we’d better make sure we have our seat, that we have enough for ourselves first before giving anything away. But this story says the opposite – that when everyone there gave it away, there was more than enough for everyone, for those who brought nothing and for those who had plenty. That’s the message throughout scripture about tithing, giving God the first fruits, because we trust there will be plenty more for what we will need as well.

If we take the second interpretation, then the feeding of the 5000 is a miracle that shows us what is possible for God – God who led and fed the Israelites all those years in the wilderness –pouring out water from the rock and dropping manna from the sky for them to eat. That same God through Jesus now feeds the crowd of people in the wilderness, the deserted place, from only a few loaves and fishes. God’s generosity is so abundant, God gives us so willingly what we need and more, even when we behave at our worst. It seems that God’s very nature is to feed and care for us, even when we’re broken and all is desolate and we think there is nothing there.

Either way, the story tells us: with God, there is always enough. All of God’s people, gathered together and hungry, will always be fed more than they need. God never runs out of anything – the very idea of scarcity with God is impossible. And when God calls upon us to step up to the plate and perform some seemingly impossible task, it is because God knows that we have enough to do the task set before us. The generosity we are capable of is amazing; the abundance of God is overwhelming. God is more of everything than we can ever fathom; God contains all and more besides. With God, Jesus says, there is life abundant, good measure, shaken down and running over in our laps.

There is always enough. Jesus tells those fretful disciples, ‘Bring what you have here to me.’ Bring me what you think isn’t enough. Give what you have to me and I will bless it and break it up. And there is an extravagance of food, abundant leftovers. The disciples become witnesses of the abundance they didn’t trust was there – and they become ministers of that abundance to others. Just as God’s servants have been throughout the ages despite what they thought were their limitations – just as Abraham became the ancestor of a great nation even though he was too old, and Jeremiah became a powerful prophet even though he was too young, and Mary became the mother of God even though she was an unmarried virgin.

These are our spiritual ancestors, and this is the good news of God for us. For each of us in our own lives, when we feel like we don’t have enough or we aren’t enough ourselves, God’s message is always abundance. And for us as a church, too, as we seek ever more ways to better serve the community around us – even though you might feel tired, burdened with other things, hoping that someone else will do the work. The only way this community can live out its call here is to step forward, with all that feels meager and not-enough, and to offer that to God. And God will make something of it, even when it feels like a scary stretch. Because God’s voice in our hearts calls us to something new, something risky and unknown – giving something up we thought we needed, giving more than we thought we could, letting go of some old way of seeing ourselves and our lives and stepping forward in faith. Hey, God says, I need you to do this. Give what you have to me and see.

The story of the feeding of the 5000 tells us what it’s like to hang around with Jesus – and what it is that will be asked of us when we do. Every time you tell it, the five loaves and the two fish always turn out to be enough in this story; every time we’re asked, what we have and who we are turns out to be enough for God’s purposes – enough when and if we give it over and let it all be broken and blessed. It’s a risky proposition…but look, there is more than enough. Eat and be filled, and see how much still remains.