Proper 12B, 28 July 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

• 2 Samuel 11:1-15.  As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.
• Ephesians 3:14-21.  That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
• John 6:1-21. Ego eimi mey phobeisthe.

O God of mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today we hear the two stories that were left out of last week’s Gospel lesson from Mark. For some reason, the lectionary assigns the Gospel reading for today from John’s version. If you’d like a homework assignment, read all six feeding stories in the four Gospels side by side! Given how very different the four Gospels are, the versions of these stories are remarkably similar. Mark’s version is characteristically a little rougher, John’s is more polished. Mark’s Jesus is in the thick of conflict and confusion all along; for John, Jesus’ feet never really touched the ground. The story of Jesus feeding a huge hungry crowd is one of the most significant stories about Jesus. It’s rare that a miracle story appears in all four Gospels. I still think that the lectionary should have stuck with Mark this week, though, because it’s complicated and confusing to mix and match Gospel stories. It means shifting gears rather wildly from one literary world to another, each with different assumptions, strategies, purposes, and even audiences. [1] Some may wonder whether the repetition and similarities of the feeding stories make them more likely memory and less likely metaphor. I don’t know. For me, the stories are equally powerful either as memory or metaphor. 

This version from John is written in ways to remind people of God feeding the Israelites in the wilderness with manna and with quail; and of Elisha taking a few barley loaves given to him by a young boy and multiplying them to feed one-hundred people with some left over. The unspoken message here for the writer of John is that Jesus was in relationship with and yet more powerful than Moses or Elisha. John also signals that he is writing for people who need to understand the basics: that the Sea of Galilee was also known as the Sea of Tiberius, that Passover was a Jewish festival, and that Andrew was Simon Peter’s brother.

The Gospel writer of John sets this feeding story just before Passover. (This is the second of three Passovers in the Gospel of John, by the way.) Passover is the most important celebration – the annual remembrance that what God wants for God’s children is not enslavement but freedom. Do you know what you do at Passover to celebrate what God wants for God’s children? You tell stories and you eat! It’s hardly a celebration if you don’t have food. But the ancient prayers of the Passover celebration also invoke the spirit of generosity – out of mindfulness of the hardships that the people have suffered and the cruelty they’ve endured. An English translation of an opening prayer of Passover goes like this: “To all who are in need we therefore say: We know your suffering and we want to help you in your need. To all who are hungry we say: Come and join us in our abundance.” For me, that is the story of our Eucharist too, (when it’s told properly). That’s what I think the writer of this Gospel wanted the hearers to be thinking of when this story got told – the abundance of being in relationship with God in community dedicated to humble service.

The story goes that Jesus looked up and saw a large pilgrimage crowd coming toward him. At this point we don’t know just how large until a little later on – but a large crowd nevertheless is coming up the mountain. And it’s not a paved road either. A large crowd is clambering clumsily to the place where they think Jesus is. Just prior to this part of the Gospel, we learn that a large crowd has actually been tracking Jesus for some time now. It says that they kept finding him because they had seen and heard about Jesus’ healing power. So we can imagine that in this large crowd are a lot of sick people. We can imagine that some are desperate if they’re willing to go out of their way to go up this mountain. These must not be illnesses that a day or two of bed rest would cure. 

They’re coming up the mountain – mountains are a confirmed place to commune with God in Jesus’ time (still are) – but mountains were not places for recreational picnics. And these people were hungry. It’s hard to celebrate your freedom, your special-ness to God, when you are hungry. We know that from the Exodus stories of the wilderness and we know it from our own stories. When we are hungry, our minds are so preoccupied that it’s hard enough to function, let alone celebrate. When I was studying Biblical Hebrew I learned that the word for rich is an adjective but the word for poor is a verb. It’s more like the opposite of rich is wanting or hungering. 

This crowd, coming up the mountain must have looked hungering, because Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we going to get enough bread to feed this mob?” Actually Jesus is quoting directly from Moses’ wilderness question to God. Whether or not Philip notices the quote, Philip is a realist and he doesn’t mind telling Jesus that there’s just no way that they can solve the problem of this crowd’s hunger. Philip basically says, “we can’t afford it…we don’t have the money.” 

Then Andrew chimes in: “There’s a child here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” This is a child who has just enough food for himself for this journey – no more, no less – a sensible amount for a day trip. (By the way, barley is the grain harvested at Passover.) Then Andrew realizes the absurdity of what he’s just said and adds, “But what are they among so many people?” I can imagine how he felt – how many times I have had a great idea that idea that immediately sounds foolishly impossible as soon as it’s out of my mouth. But Jesus doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, Jesus doesn’t seem to think that the idea is so foolish.

Jesus says, “Make the people sit down.” Now this always makes me smile. I think it actually might be the biggest miracle in this story. Get 5000 hungry people to sit down when it’s clear that there is not enough food? Who knows how they got them to sit down or how long that took. They sat down. They were hungry. They were sick. Surely they were dirty – there’s no mention of a place to wash. They were a hot mess. Then Jesus took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, with the fish, as much as they wanted. As much as they wanted! Not only that, but there was a lot left over. Twelve baskets were enough for the twelve tribes of Israel perhaps – more than enough for everyone.

What happened and what didn’t happen or how it happened are questions that I think are all completely beside the point this story is trying to make. It’s a story that is saying something about Jesus and about God’s work in and through Jesus. What this story tells me about Jesus, is this: Jesus needs to use whatever is available to feed hungry people. Here we learn that one small child with an impossibly small amount of food could provide the stuff – the catalyst, if you will, for a great feast.  In the face of overwhelming hungering, Jesus needs what we have, not what we can spare. Jesus doesn’t perform this sign with the small child’s leftovers, or say to the child, “can I borrow a loaf or two until we get back to town?” Jesus needs what you have and what I have. Jesus demonstrates again and again that God desires our everything. Over and over Jesus demonstrates that no “everything” — not even a small child’s everything is too small for God’s purposes.

Mary Oliver writes in her poem entitled, “Logos”: [2]

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?
If you say the right words, the wine expands.
If you say them with love
and the felt ferocity of that love
and the felt necessity of that love,
the fish explode into the many.
Imagine him, speaking,
and don’t worry about what is reality,
or what is plain, or what is mysterious.
If you were there, it was all those things.

I’d add, if you can imagine it, it still is all those things.

In each of the Gospels, a nighttime storm at sea follows a feeding story. Here again I think the real miracle is not what one might think. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing, and Jesus comes to them across the sea. But in John’s version, Jesus doesn’t calm the seas or stop the wind. Jesus walks on water – and that’s not the miracle either, according to John. The miracle in this story is what Jesus says I am. (Ego eimi in Greek). It is the divine revelation. Rather than translating ego eimi as, “It is I,” it should be “I AM.” And then you would get it right away. Even better, “I AM BECOMING” because the divine revelation is also an action verb in the Hebrew Bible. That’s the revelation of the divine to Moses in the burning bush “I AM BECOMING WHO I AM BECOMING.” God is an action verb.

“Do not be afraid” is what the Holy One says whenever the Holy One appears in the Bible. “Do not be afraid” is one of the essential ingredients of a theophany which is a fancy word for divine manifestation. Indeed, Jesus says “do not be afraid” more times than anything else in all of the Gospels. What that says to me is that fear is present more times than anything else in all the Gospels. Again, in John’s story, Jesus isn’t stopping the storm or stilling the waves threatening to swamp the boat. Jesus is saying, “I AM BECOMING. Do not be afraid.” The awestruck disciples want to take Jesus into the boat and yet suddenly they’ve arrived at their destination – or rather, the next stop on their spiritual journey (wherever they are on it). Perhaps the miracle is that Jesus’ companions realize that they have arrived safely and rather suddenly and surprisingly through shortage and scarcity, through anxious uncertainty, imminent danger, and even terror, and it won’t be the last time they do. Perhaps what CS Lewis once wrote is true: “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.” The Biblical story of the Holy One, written across the whole world is: “I love you. I am becoming with you.” So join me in doing the next brave and compassionate thing.

1. Thanks to Charles Cousar for this articulation.
2. Mary Oliver, in Why I Wake Early (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004).