Five Loaves and Two Fish, and Twelve Baskets of Left-overs

Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full (Matthew 14:19b-20).

Scarcity. How many of you have experienced scarcity in the past four months? Did you try to buy TP, or Kleenex, or wipes, at Costco or Target or Walmart, but find empty shelves? Could you only buy one or two items of meat, because the grocery was limiting purchases? What about flour and yeast? Lucky for us, these problems were not due to major, long-term issues, but just the short-term combination of panic-buying and minor supply-chain disruptions. 

Today’s Gospel reading gives us a story of abundance—the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people (many more than that, actually, as Matthew tells us only the men were included in that count). As we’ve been reading through Matthew this summer we’ve heard several miracle stories, and there are more coming up. What are we to make of these fantastic reports? There are more than 30 different miracle stories that appear more than 60 different times in the four Gospels…Why so many, and what is God saying to us through them? The New Interpreter’s Bible has an excellent essay to help us understand, and much of my sermon today comes from that article.

Here are a few things that I think are important to think about: First, in the world of New Testament times, miracle stories were a feature of life. It is not the case in general that Jesus is reported to be performing miracles and no one else ever did. Second, the four Gospels have no stories in which miraculous power is used against, or to punish, people—Jesus’ power is always done for the benefit of people, to heal in body or spirit or to feed (with the exception of the one story about cursing the fig tree). Third, the miracle stories appear only in the Gospels’ telling of Jesus’ time on earth—Paul’s writings and the other epistles do not discuss Jesus’ miracles. Jesus’ miraculous power is used to make clear the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God that he started to bring into the world, and his Resurrection is the ultimate statement of that. This is what Paul talks about.

Some people today see literal belief in the miracles of Jesus as a litmus test of faith. Others today see belief in miracles as part of a pre-scientific worldview that is at best somewhat child-like, and at worst dangerous. My take-away for you today is that both of those perspectives miss the key point of these stories. 

To begin with, miracles as something “super-natural,” were not a part of the Jewish worldview: miracles were not God’s actions that violated the laws of nature, because all of nature was created and sustained by God, and even the every-day normal running of things ran its course because of God’s power and love. This little poetic saying of Julian of Norwich, from the 1400’s, captures what I’m trying to say here: 

And in this he showed me a little thing, a hazel nut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered thus: ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God. In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it. The second that God loves it. And the third, that God keeps it. 

Julian’s words give us, I think, the proper understanding that God’s ongoing power transcends any scientific paradigm, whether first century, 15th century, or 21st.

In our post-modern world, to relegate God only to those things that we can’t explain or understand, to make God be only a “God of the gaps,” means that “God” is just another name for our ignorance. I firmly believe that “science vs. God” is a false dichotomy.

Accepting a miracle story literally does not actually have anything to do with living out the Gospel message of hope and love. And denying a miracle story as fable does not necessarily mean that you don’t believe the Gospel and lack Christian faith. Neither Jesus nor the other New Testament writers use the way these miracle stories are understood as a requirement for discipleship. The goal of these stories is not to convince people of the reality of miracles…What I mean is, these stories were not written for outsiders to convince them to believe in Jesus because he had magical powers—they were written for the faithful to help express the Gospel message of Jesus as the Savior of the World, who walked among us to say the Kingdom of God is more near than we know, and who died for us and will one day return in glory to culminate his work. The point of miracle stories in the Bible is never the miracle itself, but something else.

One of the points of the Gospel message, one that bears repeating over and over again, using every rhetorical and storytelling device possible (including miracle stories), is this: a key aspect of the nature of God is extravagant giving and abundant life. In today’s story we have five loaves and two fish feeding thousands, with 12 baskets left over. Whatever you think of the source of the food and the possibility of miraculous multiplication, the point of the story is not the miracle itself. The disciples said the people were hungry: Jesus said to them, “You give them something to eat.” Jesus took the bread and looked up to heaven: all that we have and all that we are, and all of the expanse of the universe, are gifts from our loving creator God. Jesus blessed the bread: we should receive all our gifts with thanksgiving to God. Jesus broke the bread: through Jesus’ offering of himself, through his broken body, we find salvation in God’s superabundant grace and forgiveness. Jesus gave the bread to them: the hungry are fed, the sick are healed, the naked are clothed, by Jesus’ hands, and by disciples’ hands working in his name.

Matthew is full of parables and miracles that are all about abundance in one way or another. We have already heard in the sermon on the mount, Jesus says the law of love is so extravagant we should even love our enemies—it requires us to turn the other cheek, to give our coat when someone asks for our shirt, to go the extra second mile when forced to carry someone’s burden just one mile. Jesus says the circle of his family, his mother and brothers and sisters, is drawn so huge that it includes all those who do his will. Jesus tells the parable of the sower whose seed is so abundant it can indiscriminately be sowed everywhere, regardless of the quality of the soil. Jesus tells the parable of the tiny mustard seed, grown to a huge bush, and the spoonful of yeast, leaving a batches of bread, and of nets so heavy they are bursting with the catch. In the coming weeks we will be hearing about the prodigal son, whose forgiving father threw an over-the-top, extravagant banquet for the wayward one’s return. And we’ll be hearing of the Good Samaritan, who didn’t just help the foreigner out of the ditch, he carried him to an inn, paid for his care, and said he would return to cover any additional cost. 

God provides abundantly: we are commanded to take part in God’s provision of abundant life to the world. God forgives lavishly: we are commanded to forgive others as we are forgiven. God loves extravagantly: we are commanded to love when it seems foolish and even dangerous. My prayer this week is that we will hear the message of the feeding of the 5,000, and find our baskets overflowing, and that we will live, give, forgive, and love abundantly…extravagantly. Amen.