A woman was hosting a dinner party and at the table she asked her six year-old daughter to say grace. “But, I wouldn’t know what to say,” the girl responded. “Just say what you hear Mommy say,” replied the mother. The little girl nodded, bowed her head, and prayed, “Dear Lord, why in the world did I invite all these people to dinner?”

I think many of us can identify with that mother. The routine of cleaning and maintaining all our stuff saps our energy from things that bring us joy. The answering machine has seven messages – all of them bad. The pressure mounts, and we get frustrated. We get tired and irritable. We look around at the demands on us, and say, “Oh Lord, why in the world is this on my shoulders?” Certainly Jesus felt that kind of pressure. Everywhere he went, crowds pressed in on him, demanding his attention. Today’s passage tells the story of Jesus leaving the crowds behind to find some time alone. Mark’s account of the story in chapter 6 of his gospel tells us that Jesus had compassion on the crowds and taught them. Then as the day drew to a close, Jesus seemed to make an impossible decision to feed all these people. Thus Jesus and his disciples are faced with an absurd task. I believe that from Jesus’ response, we can draw two principles for facing up to the pressure of life: the principles of thanksgiving and abundance.

Of all the miracles of Jesus, the feeding of the 5,000 is the one that is recorded in all four gospels. In addition there are two more recordings of the feeding of 4,000.  Anytime, the bible repeats itself that many times, you can bet that the early church thought that it was important you know this about Jesus.  This is during the height of Jesus’ popularity.  Everybody wants to hear and see this miracle man from Galilee .  The disciples and Jesus get in the boat to get away from the crowd, but along the shorter part of the northern edge the crowd is actually able to beat them to the shore.  Everybody is tired but the disciples are learning the demand of ministry – that “our lives are not our own.”  That’s still true for all disciples, including you and me.  Our time, our talents, and our resources are not our own.  They are at God’s disposal, which drives me to a question.  Do you see your life as something everybody is trying to get a piece of, your resources as something that everybody’s trying to get from you?  If so, you are likely to be highly frustrated as a disciple of Jesus Christ, for the world’s need is insatiable.  The thief says, “What is yours is mine, I’ll take it.”  The miser says, “What is mine is mine, I’ll keep it.”  Gospel love says, “What is mine is yours, I’ll give it.”  People can’t extract from you what you have already given away.  That’s a much better way to live.

So Jesus begins to teach the people.  He is a phenomenon and everybody listens carefully.  But the disciples have heard this before and they remind him that it’s getting late and the people need to go get something to eat.  Jesus says to them words that baffled them, “You give them something to eat.”    The words are striking because Jesus uses the emphatic here, meaning “You YOURSELVES give them something to eat.”  No wonder the reaction of the disciples is what it is:  “There is no way.  It would take eight months of wages to feed all these people.  Bottom line from the finance committee and administrative council:  There isn’t enough.”  Theme: You can’t give what you don’t have.

God’s abundance comes in unexpected ways. None of the gospel writers gives us any idea really how this miracle happened. Did the food miraculously reconstitute itself as it was passed around? Did it stretch as each person tore off a hunk? Was it placed in baskets that suddenly filled to the rim? We don’t know. We can be sure that it was unexpected. Certainly the disciples didn’t see it coming. We saw this same truth in the turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana . We saw it again when the whole town of Samaritans came out and believed on the testimony of the woman. When Jesus provides abundantly, he often does so through unexpected means. Our challenge then is to keep our minds open enough to receive the abundant blessing when it comes.

There are really two main schools of thought on this parable.  (PICTURE: Fish and loaves) One is that among the 5,000 people there were indeed only five loaves and two fish and that Jesus multiplied that miniscule amount of food into enough for everybody and then some.  That’s an important angle for those of us who tend to live with a “pie perspective” on life and our resources.  There is only so much pie and so many resources and we just have to make sure we get what we can.  It’s a perspective based on deprivation – “If you get more, I get less.”   One way to apply that then is “I will only help you get more, if you are able to help me get more.” 

A statistic that amazes me is that five wealthiest American families have the same income as the poorest 40 countries in the world, in which 600,000,000 people live.  The pie game.   How different that is from Jesus -  “Give and it shall be given to you.”  We give our energy in the name of Christ for that which is worthwhile and energy is multiplied.  We give our time in the name of Christ and the rest of our time is more efficient.  We tithe 10% of our income and the other 90% goes further than the 100% ever could.  In the Christian faith, we believe in an expanding pie, because Christ, the holy multiplier is in it.  Jesus says to his disciples then and now, “You give them something to eat.”

The second school of thought is that the miracle was not a miracle worked with five loaves and two fish as much as it was a miracle in the hearts of those 5,000 people. You’ll remember that John’s gospel reports that the five loaves and two were the gift of a boy.  William Barclay writes that most people as they traveled on foot in the desert, out of necessity, had a small pack with them that included some form of bread, dried meat or fruit and some water.  For him, the miracle was freeing up the people so that they shared what they already had.  I have no trouble believing that Jesus multiplied a literal five loaves and two fish, for certainly Christ is able.  Where this interpretation is helpful is in helping us apply this miracle. The issue is not always the availability of resources, but rather the allocation of them.

God’s abundance may be immediate, or it may wait for generations. This is not a truth directly spelled out in this passage, but I feel the need to point it out. Here we see an immediate blessing of abundance. However, remember Genesis 12. God told Abraham that he would make him a great nation and that through him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Abraham didn’t live to see the great nation of Israel arise. Abraham didn’t live to see the Messiah who would bless all the nations of the earth.

God’s abundance is not to be wasted. Notice Jesus’ instruction in verse 12. He tells his disciples to gather up the fragments that nothing might be wasted. That is a fundamental principle of abundance: not wasting what you have. There is a fundamental sense of good stewardship involved. We have been given abundant blessing, and God calls us to be wise in our use of the blessing, whether it is prayers, presence, gifts or service. This stewardship campaign is not simply about money.  It is about ministry. In the past 10 months you have help feed 900 families in need with about 45,000 lbs of food.  You have helped people purchase gas for their cars to get them to work and their kids to school.  You have housed families who are homeless.  You have knocked on hundreds of doors and showed people the love of Christ.  You put ads in mainstream media on radio stations like FMX and The Bear and on billboards so people will know that Christ is alive and well in all of the world and not just inside the walls of the church.  You have paid for utilities, hotels for out of town families with loved ones in the hospital, given school supplies to 180 children whose parents needed help providing for them. One family in the church had enormous medical issues with a child and they did not work for a month while sitting at the hospital and caring for them at home. You kept their utilities running and the mortgage company off their back.  You ministered to hundreds of children during VBS, exposed hundreds of families to Christ and His church by having a booth at the Family Fun Festival and hosting a community picnic in the middle of a dirt field!  When people go to buy a corndog or funnel cake at the football game this weekend, they will receive the love of Christ and not even know it because St. Luke’s is willing to do whatever it takes! Many of us were here until 8:30 last night planning for the construction of the new facility at 98^th and Frankford.  Many times a month people from all over West Texas meet right here to plan ministry for the Emmaus Community to bring people into a closer relationship with Christ. 

When the disciples were just thinking they were offering a meager meal, they were offering so much more no matter if they ever understood it or not. When you offer yourself through your prayer, presence, gifts and service; including your heard earned money that seems to be in limited supply, you are offering so much more!  Why?  How? Just as Jesus gave thanks to God over the bread the bread, we can offer nothing purely in ourselves. It is only through Jesus Christ that the bread multiplies until everyone is fed.  Leftovers are collected and they end up with more than they started.  How many here have discovered that you cannot “out-give” God?  How many here have discovered that in lifting someone else up and enabling someone else, that you didn’t become less, but rather became more?  I want you to here Jesus telling you today, “You give them something to eat.”

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