There Is Enough

 John 6:1-15

July 25, 2021

 

Feeding the Multitude With Loaves and Fishes
Eric Feather

5000 people is a lot of people.

It’s a crowd. A big crowd.

Actually, the biggest city in the area at the time

might have been around 7,000 people.

So if this hillside picnic were a city,

it would have been the second largest in the area.

That’s a pretty big event.

 

Now, I think that promoters, and event coordinators,

and disciples then and now can agree on one thing:

you don’t try to feed a crowd of 5000,

at least not all at once, not without selling tickets ahead of time,

or charging up front, or sponsorship, or a big group of volunteers

and definitely not without some advanced planning.

 

So when Jesus asks the disciples where they’re

going to get food for all these people,

Phillip has a perfectly reasonable response.

He says “we don’t’ have enough.”

We don’t have it, we don’t have access to it,

we don’t know where to get it, we don’t know who would

give us enough— to feed all these people.

There is not enough.

It’s a reasonable response.

Phillip has the voice of reason here.

 

And sometimes, occasionally its true.

But we’ve heard it and said it so much

that we start to believe it, that that voice of reason

starts to seep into everything that we do and say,

it starts to be our mantra, our organizing thought,

the way we operate throughout our lives.

There is not enough.

  

There is not enough. The story that gets told by

corporations, politicians, commercials, TV shows,

news shows, school districts, city councils:

There is just not enough for everyone.

Not enough food, money, land, jobs, time, doctors, medicine,

electricity, heat, water,

and whatever else can be counted and held back.

We hear it so much, it’s repeated and insinuated,

and drilled into us from the moment we’re born.

So much so, that the fear is always in us

and it drives us and directs our actions.

There is not enough.

 

There’s enough for billionaires to go up into

space for ten minutes. But still there’s not enough

 

Remember the great toilet paper panic of 2020?

There was not enough. Really there was enough.

But because everyone thought there was not enough

There was not enough.

 

People who calculate these things

say that there is enough food produced in this world,

so that every person in it could eat 3000 calories every day.

But still, around 815 million people go to bed hungry.

We’re fortunate that there is not a production problem,

But there is a distribution problem. And at the root of it, is this fear:

There is not enough.

 

This is part of many people’s issue with immigrants,

with people of color, with those who are poor.

If those other people get, there won’t be enough for me.

There is not enough.

 

We’ve got to hold it back, hoard it, keep it safe

so that the right people get it and are in charge of it.

because there is not enough.

We live by the principle of scarcity.

And at its root, this principle of scarcity is a lack of trust in God.

The principle of scarcity tells us that we’re on our own.

We only have what we can get for ourselves.

We only get whatever we scrap and fight and work for.

Only what we “deserve”. What we have we’ve earned.

It says there are no gifts to be given because God doesn’t give gifts.

There is not enough and there will never be enough.

 

The story of scarcity we’re telling today

is the same story that the disciples told.

There is not enough to feed those 5000 people, Jesus.

Send them away.

 

But in the middle of that story of scarcity being told o

on that hillside in front of that crowd,

One boy came up and said, “I have enough!”

Even though all he had was five loaves and two fish.

Even though it was probably all the groceries he had for his family.

And even though Andrew only saw the scarcity and said,

“What’s so little food when you’re talking about so many people?”

It was still enough.

 

And Jesus took what the boy had to share

he blessed it, he broke it and gave it away.

With complete trust in what he and God were going to do.

 

Now here is where the mystery happens.

Without a food committee, without making

an announcement of a pot luck, without tickets,

without any planning whatsoever,

there was enough – for everyone in that crowd.

 Now the story is not clear on how it happened.

Some people read this and see that Jesus made more bread

and more fish right there.

Enough for all to eat and more, ex nihilo, out of nothing.

Some believe that Jesus and God

produced food where there was none

and the people had more than enough to eat.

Now that is a miracle of God no doubt.

 

But some people look at this and see something else.

They see that Jesus brought the Spirit of God to rest

on a community of 5000 people

and they were inspired by that boy, and they were inspired by Jesus

to trust God and share all that they had.

 

A normal crowd of people who traveled with their own provisions,

taking whatever they had just bought at the market,

whatever they were taking along with them for their journey,

whatever they were going to eat themselves

whatever they had there to sell to this big crowd,

and they were inspired by Jesus, and the Spirit,

and that young boy’s generosity.

And they didn’t keep it for themselves.

 

They brought it out of their tunics and pockets

and baskets and shopping bags and let it all go.

They shared it with the people

around them who had brought nothing to eat.

And there was more than enough for everyone.

 

And this, I think, is an incredible miracle.

In our world where the principle is scarcity.

 
 

Whichever way you see it,

Jesus’ miracles are never just miracles.

They always show us something about God.

And with that picnic meal miracle,

Jesus showed that the world is filled with God’s blessings.

We can trust in God’s abundance.

Even when all your senses tell you there isn’t enough.
Even when the voice of reason tells us otherwise.

There is enough.

 

The way that Jesus came into everyone’s life on

that hillside is the same way Jesus comes into ours.

Whenever we feel nervous, or we’re not sure we’ll make it.

Whenever we worry about the future,

Whenever all we see ahead is disaster,

whenever we’re stingy and selfish and not willing to share,

Jesus tells us, “there is enough.”

 

With that meal on that hillside,

and this meal that we eat every week,

Jesus is slowly reordering the world’s reality.

Not just in our stomachs, and in our churches either.

Jesus is reordering the economy, the government,

the world, and our hearts.

There is enough: enough food, enough money,

enough space, enough time, enough attention, enough love.

 

Jesus shows us and this crowd the real story about

God’s grace, God’s gifts, God’s love for everyone.

Jesus shows us and feeds us the real story

about God’s abundance.

 

What Jesus is saying is that when people

come together in faith in the presence of God,

When people trust in God’s abundance,

there is nothing that can’t happen.

There is enough.