Introduction

"The common impression is that it is the unintelligent who believe in miracles, but the fact is that it is the great minds who believe most fervently in unforeseen possibilities."

Our focus today is the miracle of Jesus feeding the crowds. The story represents for me the truest miracle. The experience of my ministry is the experience of the miracle of the feeding of crowd – on repeat. I know that the miracle is real, I know that it is possible. More about this later.

Last week Doug Bannerman preached a meditation on possibility. It is with this in mind that I offer the following quote from Harry Fosdick. Harry Fosdick was a Baptist pastor serving in the 1920’s and 30’s. He was one of the early preachers to challenge fundamentalism. Fundamentalism means a literalist interpretation of the Bible. For example, in May 1922, Harry preached a sermon entitled: “"Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" The provocative sermon signalled the public conflict between historic Christianity and modern liberalism. Liberalism means that modern science, ethics, and reason are applied to scripture above doctrine. Harry Fosdick adopted modernist ways of understanding Scripture. Noting his anti-fundamentalist stance, the following quote is interesting. Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote, "The common impression is that it is the unintelligent who believe in miracles, but the fact is that it is the great minds who believe most fervently in unforeseen possibilities."

"Unforeseen possibilities." Could this be a lens through which John 6 could be understood?

About John 6:1-21

All four gospels relate the story of the feeding of the crowd in the wilderness. While only Luke offers the story of the lost son and the lost sheep (Luke 15), only John offers the miracle of turning water into wine (John 2) and the raising of Lazarus (John 11). Only in Mark is the teaching offered that “the sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). The story of the feeding of the multitude is told 6 times and is in all gospels. Cleary the story has significance for the first followers of Jesus and the early communities of disciples.

From a literary point of view the feeding of the multitude is a variation of Old Testament themes. For me Scripture can be compared to another passion of mine – playing Piobaireachd on the bagpipes. In piobaireachd, a player begins the 10-minute tune with the urlar or ground. This is the opening movement. The 4 or 5 parts or movements that follow are variations of the urlar or ground movement, such as the taorluath and crunluath. Similarly, the urlar or ground movement in Scripture is (in my view) the hospitality of Sarah and Abraham in Genesis 18. Here Abraham and Sarah offer three guests, or if the Eastern Orthodox interpretation is to be believed, the Triune God, a feast in the wilderness. This desert hospitality is a product of the harsh landscape in which the story is contextualised. For Abraham and Sarah to refuse refreshment and sustenance for the wandering strangers is to let them die.

The hospitality is the transformation. We transform and are transformed. In hospitality we are transformed from stranger to guest. We are transformed from guest to friend.

Variations of this hospitality in the wilderness theme are scattered throughout the Scriptures. A key variation of the “hospitality in the desert theme” is the Manna Story in Exodus.  In Exodus, Miriam and Moses lead runaway slaves to freedom through a desert and feast on Manna. In other variations of hospitality in the wilderness Elijah is fed manna in the wilderness by angels and again later by ravens. Elijah in turn offers manna to a widow and her son when there is famine in the land. Similarly, Elisha feeds others manna as described in 2 Kings, our other reading for today.

In John 6.1-21 clear reference is made to the Passover, a feast and festival that remembers the Exodus from Egypt through the wilderness to the promised land. The reference to Passover makes the point that Jesus is the new Moses offering a New Exodus from slavery to freedom. John 6.1-21 offers some of the political edge of Mark’s version of the story. In Mark 6.30-44 and Mark 8.1-14, the feast Jesus offers when the crowds are fed bread and fish is contrasted by the banquets Herod offers. In Jesus feast several baskets of bread and fish are left over. In Herod’s banquet nothing is left over except death and destruction. In John 6 Jesus withdraws before they can make him king by force. In Mark and Matthew, the possibility of the crowd being turned into an army under Jesus is strongly intimated.

The mechanics of the miracle of hospitality

As the miracle of feeding happened in Genesis 18 with Abraham and Sarah, in Exodus 16 with Miriam and Moses, in 1 and 2 Kings in the lives of Elijah and Elisha and in the work of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; so too can it happen in our lives. None of the Gospels explain how the miracle happened. All they know was that they started off with very little, but somehow the little became more than enough, it was an abundance with plenty to spare.

Some believe that Jesus empowered by the Spirit of God miraculously undid science and expanded the bread and fish until there was more than enough to share. Others believe that the story Ion John 6.1-21 is a miracle of shared generosity. The interpretation is that the crowds witnessed a young boy sharing his lunch and were inspired to do the same until there was an abundance.

Nobody quite knows how the miracle happened, they just know that it did. On the face of it the situation must have felt hopeless and the offering silly. There is a huge crowd, in a wilderness setting, no markets nearby, and they are hungry. The price tag for a decent feed is overwhelmingly huge. A young boy offers two barley loaves and five fish. It must have seemed a silly offering, one that could hardly make a dent in one boy’s hunger, let alone a multitude (I consider myself an authority on this. I have two young boys who each eat a portion for a normal family of four – at every meal. 2 loaves and five fish is a snack, not even a starter for a young lad).

I have experienced so many similar miracles like the one recorded in John 6.1-21 – I honestly don’t know how they happened, but I know they did. The problems were overwhelming and seemingly insurmountable. The little that I could offer seemed silly, insignificant, and insufficient. Yet I left every time with an abundance. Unforeseen possibilities? Absolutely. I offer only two examples of the many hundreds I could share. 

When I was in Johannesburg, I was an HIV/AIDS activist and I partnered with a group of amazing women living in Orange Farm. Orange Farm is an informal settlement south of Johannesburg. Most live in shacks, there are few roads, no electricity and running water is by means of one shared communal tap. On one of my visits to Orange Farm I became aware of child headed households. Parents had died because of AIDS and older siblings were left to care for the family. 

Hunger and poverty are standard problems in South Africa. There is no Centrelink. There is no social welfare whatsoever. Many of these children were not even documented with birth certificates or identity documents. As far as I knew, I was the only person belonging to any institution that knew about these children. Without knowing how I was going to make it happen, I made a commitment to provide food monthly for the child headed households in extension 1, the area of Orange Farm in which my new friends lived. I offered my two barley loaves and five fish, begged for help from my darling church, from that month onwards the kids each had a grocery hamper to see them through the month. The early months were a nightmare as my idealistic intentions were not matched with admin and management processes. Yet, and I don’t know how it happened, people, businesses, schools, and organisations came on board. The local grocery store packed the boxes and provided a delivery truck and driver to take me to Orange Farm. My 2 loaves and five fish were multiplied to feed a multitude.

Another story. The women in Orange Farm I was working with were worried that the teenagers who headed these child-headed households had dropped out of school to look after young siblings. One of the women used her last paycheck, a mere $50 dollars, to purchase recycled iron and wood to build a shack that would serve as a kindy, so that the older children could leave their younger siblings in safety while they continued their schooling.

Eventually the shack was added onto. I was very moved by this and spoke of the story to others.

Again, I don’t exactly know how it happened, but in the picture below you can see the school that was built to support the education of the children aged 0-6.

  The point being made is this:

·         although we may be in a wilderness and there is nothing around,

·         although the problems we face seem insurmountable

·         and our available resources insufficient and insignificant,

we are asked nevertheless to offer what we have, even if it is as meagre as small fish and two pieces of bread.

·         We offer what hospitality we can in love,

·         we allow it to be blessed acknowledging that it came as bread from heaven anyway,

·         we happily break it for only broken things can be shared, and we distribute our offering confidently, knowing that that our generosity and hospitality is transformed, even if we don’t know how.

What is your wilderness and what is your hungry and desperate multitude? And what bread or fish can you offer? Perhaps climate catastrophe keeps you awake at night, hungry as a multitude in a desert. Offer what you can with love, give it to God to be blessed for it is bread from heaven, and keep doing the little you can, knowing that an abundance consists of many little offerings.

Perhaps your wilderness hunger is mental illness, and the darkness seems insurmountable, and your energy insufficient. Well, what is the little you can offer? Perhaps its only getting out of the bed and having a shower. Offer the little you can do with love and offer it for blessing for it is bread from heaven, trust that the abundance will follow. Nobody knows when or how, but the abundance will follow.

Barbara Brown Taylor, Bread of Angels says:

What makes something bread from heaven? Is it the thing itself or the one who sends it? How you answer those questions has a lot to do with how you sense God’s presence in your life. . . . If you are willing to look at everything that comes to you as coming to you from God, then there will be no end to the manna in your life. Nothing will be too ordinary or too transitory to remind you of God. The miracle is that God is always sending us something to eat. . . . God gives the true bread from heaven, the bread that gives life to the world.