Nothing Lost

Ordinary Time XVII; July 30, 2006

John 6:1-15

I admire the way Jesus thinks. He’s always a step ahead; do you notice that? He realizes food is going to be an issue and works on that before anyone else moves on it, and he knows how the crowd is going to react to this event and so absents himself before they can do something foolish. I love John Calvin’s comment on the crowd’s apparent desire to start a new political movement to make Jesus King: Five thousand against the Roman Empire? They must really have been convinced God was on their side!1

What I admire most about the way Jesus thinks is his assumption that feeding the people is possible, and that there would be leftovers. It highlights a contrast that you and I experience regularly: between thinking in terms of scarcity and thinking in terms of abundance. You have probably run into that contrast at your work, or in your family, or in the Church. Jesus is definitely an abundance-thinker, following right in the tradition of the Old Testament. Throughout the Old Testament, the prophets and others who speak for God assume there is always plenty, and to spare. So farmers are to leave some of the extra crop in the fields for the sake of the poor (Leviticus 19:9-10). Fields are to lie fallow one year in seven; nobody will starve, there will be plenty (Exodus 23:10-11).

You can see the contrast between these ways of thinking in the way two of the Disciples respond to Jesus’ question, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” If this event happens where St. Luke says it does – near Bethsaida – then Philip is the logical one to ask; he’s from Bethsaida. When I need to know where to get something done around here, I ask one of you; when the Watkins family was going to Cincinnati, they asked me about it. Jesus asks the home-town boy where to buy food.

Rather than directing Jesus to the nearest Hy-Vee, Philip says there is simply no way they can afford it, so there is no point asking. Sound familiar? The church building was aging, along with its HVAC system, so I thought we should hire an engineer to recommend what to do about it.2 The elder responsible for such things said, “There’s no way we can afford a new system, so there’s no point in even checking it out.” Finally, when term limits put somebody else in charge, the study was done, and the cost turned out to be amazingly small, well within the congregation’s ability to pay. Anyway, you may have run into people like Philip, who refuse to even consider the question, because they “know” the resources are not there.

And then there’s Andrew, a Presbyterian’s favorite disciple.3 He wants to help, but is apologetic about how little he can offer. “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” We don’t have enough, but here’s a start. And what about the boy? Is he a relative of Andrew’s, or someone who volunteered when he overheard Jesus ask the question? That last would not surprise me; children often strike me as more willing to go ahead and try to find what is possible, rather than giving up before they’ve even started.

Then something remarkable happens. Personally, I don’t find the question, “What really happened?” to be very interesting. Stories should be taken on their own terms and not dissected. That’s my prejudice, but it may not be yours, and you may want some discussion of what really happened.

There are three possibilities that I have encountered.4 One is that Jesus pulled off a magnificent realignment of the physical properties of the universe. That should not be too surprising; after all, he is the creative Word of God made flesh, the One in whom the universe is held in coherence. Bread and fish are, at root, sunlight, water, carbon and other elements passed through numerous stages of being. Jesus accelerates the process and uses what is available to multiply what he has to start with.

Another possibility is the five loaves and two fish were broken into very tiny pieces and, in the presence of Jesus, that was enough to satisfy everyone. Don’t laugh; we hand around little bits of bread and a thimble full of grape juice and say we have feasted with the Lamb of God. Barclay suggests that in the presence of Jesus that tiny bit is enough to satisfy even physical hunger. And that may be, although I find it difficult to understand how there could be twelve baskets full of leftovers.

The third explanation I call the “demythologizing” one. John says that the Passover is approaching, so it’s likely that this crowd consists of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.5 They, of course, packed food for the trip. So when Jesus makes a show of sharing what he has been able to come up with, and the people see the generosity of the boy who supplied it, that motivates others in the crowd to share what they have, so that there is plenty to eat and a lot to spare.

The first and third explanations both make the most sense to me, and they both work out of abundance-thinking. There is an abundance of resources in the universe, and Jesus can use them to feed the hungry. Or there is an abundance of food among us, and Jesus can motivate us to use it to feed the hungry. In either case, there is plenty, and to spare, and Jesus can take charge and see that all the people are satisfied – even the twelve disciples, whose traveling baskets are filled afterward so they get to eat as well.

No wonder they want to make him King. He can manipulate the elements to produce an abundance of food out of a small start. Or he can motivate people who are inclined to hoard into sharing with their neighbors. We would much rather have him govern us than that rascal Herod Antipas! Or even than Emperor Tiberias! It is unclear whether they want simply to supplant Herod and put Jesus in charge of Galilee, or if they want to start a rebellion against the Empire. In either case, Jesus wants nothing to do with their plans, and he slips away.

Because they are missing the point: the Kingdom of God is here in abundance, and Jesus intends for nothing to be lost. This action of feeding the five thousand is called a “sign,” because it points to something else. Jesus plants a sign right on that hill: there is plenty, and nothing shall be lost.

That sign on the hill outside Bethsaida points at Jesus and it points to mission. It points at Jesus and says, “Here is the kingdom of God.” He is not some conjurer to be turned into the leader of a welfare state and he is not a motivational speaker to be turned into the dictator of a socialist utopia, making everybody share with each other. He is the bearer of the kingdom of God; he reveals that there is plenty, and to spare.

The sign also points to mission, that nothing shall be lost. Jesus tells the Twelve to go among the people, collecting what is left, so that “nothing may be lost.” There are no leftovers in God’s kingdom, no leftover bread and no leftover people. Do you ever feel like a leftover? As though you have no place you really belong, or are really wanted? After the party is over, are you tossed out the window with the other leftovers?

Not in the kingdom of God, you are not. And those folks down the street from you, who are so hard to take, are not leftovers in God’s sight. They are part of the feast.

Remember this about Jesus: he eats and drinks with the best and the worst of us. He sits at the dinner table with the best religious people, when a sinner woman comes boldly in and washes his feet; he welcomes her. He is enjoying a banquet with high society, and grabs hold of a sick man and heals him, right there between the roast and the vegetables. He holds a theological conversation with a woman who has been married too many times and is not married to the man she lives with now. To Jesus’ way of thinking, there are no leftovers.

I admire the way Jesus thinks. There is plenty, and to spare, yet nothing is lost: abundance without leftovers. Where else but in the kingdom of God?

Thank you for including us in the feast, Lord Jesus. Continue to plant signs in our lives that point to you and that point to mission. Amen.

Robert A. Keefer

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Clarinda, Iowa

[1] From his commentary on John.

2 Not Westminster Presbyterian Church, but a place I used to work.

3 The patron saint of Scotland. The stoles that the women’s association of my home church made for me all have a St. Andrew’s cross at the nape.

4 William Barclay suggests these in his Daily Study Bible volume on John.

5 From Raymond Brown’s Anchor Bible commentary on John.