Pastor Devotion: It’s A Miracle!

By Rev. Debra Jene Collum

Chatfield United Methodist

You know how sometimes familiar Bible stories take on new meaning? That just happened to me with the story of the feeding of the 5,000-plus. A quick re-telling from John chapter 6. Jesus has gathered a crowd of people around him. They follow him wherever he goes, apparently. One day Jesus notices that the crowd is “hungry.” So he asks his disciples how they are to feed the crowd. One says they don’t have enough money to feed so many people. Another one points to a small boy with a sack lunch. Good enough Jesus says. He blesses the two dried fish and five barley loaves of bread and instructs his disciples to start feeding the crowd. Everyone eats until they are completely satisfied. Now, among people who discuss this sort of thing, there is always debate about whether this was a true miracle or a spontaneous sharing of resources. I say, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because it is the end of the story that is the true miracle.

After all were satisfied, Jesus said, “Gather up all the leftovers so that nothing is wasted.” Twelve baskets of food were gathered up! From a crowd that previously acted like they had no food.

I can believe that there was food enough in that crowd to somehow feed everyone. I can believe that the boy’s willingness to share motivated others to share their food. I can believe that everyone got enough to eat that afternoon. But what I find hard to believe is that they were also willing to give the disciples the leftovers.

After all the worry and fussing about food at the beginning of the story, wouldn’t normal human beings, wise human beings, frugal human beings, forward thinking human beings, wouldn’t they keep the leftover food for themselves? Oh sure, you might offer your neighbor a Tupperware of leftovers to take home. But you are not going to give up your food for just anybody.

We are hoarding people. Most of us not to the extent of needing intervention, but to the extent that sharing is difficult. Oh, sharing a little bit does come naturally to us.  But sharing when we are worried about not having enough is unnatural. Or sharing when we are not sure that we will be thanked properly. Or sharing when we know we won’t get anything back. Or sharing when we aren’t sure “they” deserve it… that kind of sharing is very difficult. We don’t want to be taken advantage of.

So you see, the miracle here isn’t that 5,000-plus people got fed, the miracle is that 5,000-plus people felt secure enough and safe enough with each other that they didn’t react out of fear or mistrust. They didn’t feel the need to hoard and protect their own interests. This is what it truly looks like to live in God’s realm. That people, when there is evidence all around us that the world isn’t working as it should, will give up hoarding so that all can have abundance.