Dr. Mark Owen Fenstermacher THESE EYES: Stretching Things March 4, 2012 John 6:1-15 First United Methodist Church P.O. Box 936 Bloomington, IN 47402 Everyone has a favorite story. When I am around my brother, Ed, I like telling the story about the time in Africa when a monkey jumped down out of a tree and took a banana out of his hands. I like telling that story. Everyone has a favorite story. Someone at First told me I had used the same story more than once in my preaching here already. I wasn t surprised: it is one of my favorite stories! The story of the feeding of the multitudes must have been one of the favorite stories of the early Christians. Because the story keeps showing up in the New Testament gospels. It occurs in all four gospels. You ll find stories about feeding miracles twice in the Gospel of Matthew. One account is found in Matthew 14 and another in Matthew 15. You ll find two stories about the feeding of the multitudes in Mark, chapters 6 and 8. Luke, in chapter 9 of his gospel account of the life of Jesus, tells about the feeding of a crowd of five thousand people near the town of Bethsaida on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Christians were always telling this story to one another and to their friends, apparently. Have I told you about the time Jesus, when he was out teaching in the hills above the Sea of Galilee, fed the crowds with just a few. 1
Jesus followers would start to say. Their friends would nod and wave them off. Yeah, yeah, you told me about it already, the neighbors would reply. Everyone has a favorite story. Why do you suppose this was one of the stories about Jesus they most like to tell? I ve wondered about that all week. Why did they keep telling this story? Why did they think their friends and neighbors would want to hear this story about what happened up on the side of a mountain late one afternoon? Maybe people liked telling and re-telling the story because the world is full of people who wonder if anyone notices what is going on in their lives. People wonder if God notices. If God cares. About the stuff others may miss. Or maybe those first century Jesus followers told this story because they know we get scared. Everyone gets scared or anxious, from time to time, wondering if they will have enough. Whatever enough is. People worry if they ll have enough money or if they ll have enough faith to get through the dark night. We worry. We re anxious. We re scared to death that someday we are going to go to the cupboard and nothing will be there. It could be this story was told and re-told not just because people were worried about having enough money to make the monthly mortgage, or enough emotional strength to endure a painful breakup, but because of a deeper hunger. You know about that deeper hunger, right? People will talk with me, and they ll tell me something is missing in their lives. They work to find the 2
right words to describe what they are feeling what they are missing. When you are missing something and you don t know it is, exactly, the words don t come easily. How do you describe what you don t have? So people work to find the right words. Then, more times than not, they will get quiet and say this, I m hungry. There this emptiness inside, down deep, and I am hungry for something I don t have with God Sometimes in those conversations I think about how it is when our stomachs are empty, and they are ready to work but there is nothing there. There is nothing where there ought to be something. So it is with souls. There are these moments when we realize our souls are empty. That there should be something in there, something solid, and true, and real, but we are disconnected and drifting along. It could be this story was told again and again, not because people were worried about making their mortgage payment, or getting accepted to grad school, or surviving the painful breakup of a precious relationship, but because down deep in their soul they were hungry. When John is talking about bread, you understand, he isn t just talking about bread. We shouldn t spiritualize this too much because for Jesus the real, physical lives of people are important. However, when John is talking about bread he is often talking about more than bread. The word bread is, for John, synonymous with the Messiah or Anointed One. John uses the word bread for a life sustaining, life-changing -saving, healing, made-wholeexperience of God s love and truth in Jesus. Bread is, for John, the kind of experience of God that fills the soul and releases us to live in a new way. Look at the later part of John s 6 th chapter. Jesus, in verse 32, refers back to the time during the exodus when God gave people manna or bread in the wilderness. Jesus 3
then refers to himself and says (:33), For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. In case the crowd misses what Jesus is saying, he repeats the point. Jesus, in verse 35, says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry In verse 48-51 the Galilean declares, I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. I am the living bread that comes down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. People get hungry for something deeper than bread. The love and truth of God in Jesus, John believes, is bread for the soul. Jesus is the one who can satisfy that deeper hunger. So perhaps the story is told over and over again because those Jesus followers see a hungry world. A world hungry for God for something better than bread. Everyone has a favorite story. Jesus has crossed the Sea of Galilee. The crowds, which have grown larger with each miracle and sermon, see he is headed towards the east. So they march up around the northern tip of that oval-shaped, freshwater lake to follow him. Gathering his disciples around him, Jesus heads up a mountain. If he thought he was slipping away from the crowds and their demands, their needs, Jesus looks up and 4
sees the people making their way up the mountain in his direction. Jesus looks at the people crowding the side of the hill and he turns to Philip, a disciple, and asks, Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat? The question beneath the question, I suspect, is this: Do you believe there is enough of me for all these people? Philip realizes it will take a fortune to feed the crowd. If they could get their hands on $50,000 that would barely begin to satisfy the hunger of the people. Then Andrew, another disciple, points out there is a young boy in the crowd who has five small barley loaves and two small fish. Andrew adds, But how far will they go among so many? You need to know something: the mention of this young boy with his simple lunch is unique to John. I don t know why the other gospel writers don t mention this boy, but they don t. Only John tells us there is a boy in the crowd with five small loaves of barley bread and a few, small salted fish. Now it is easy for me to become distracted. I am walking down the street to see the paintings by Monet at the Art Institute, and I end up marveling at The Bean in Millennium Park. I keep walking around it s polished surface, noticing how it reflects the lights, and skyline, and clouds. On my way to see what Monet has painted, I am distracted by The Bean. In the middle of this miracle story I am intrigued by the story of this young boy. How old is he? What is his 5
name? How much of what is happening does he understand? Where does he come from? What is he doing out there with the crowd? Had he heard that Jesus was coming through the territory and begged his mom for a lunch to take up into the hills? Preachers don t often have young teenagers begging to be allowed to follow them down the street. We don t have thirteen and fourteen-year-olds packing their lunches and crowding along the communion rail, sitting down in breathless anticipation, eager to hear what we ll say next.or see what broken bodies we ll heal what demons we will cast out. But in those days a traveling teacher, a miracle-worker, was a big deal. They attracted a crowd! So the young man is out there with his lunch in the middle of all those hungry adults and children. Why did he still have his lunch? Why hadn t he eaten what he was carrying with him? Or are these the leftovers from a lunch already partially eaten? Most of you probably know this already, but barley bread was cheap bread. It was bread the poor could afford. People who had barley bread with their meals were people who were just a shout away from desperate poverty. People who lived on barley bread were always struggling to get by. When John tells us the boy has barley bread, John is telling us something about the kind of struggle the boy s family has just to make ends meet. Verse 11 of John 6 tells us Jesus takes the bread, blesses it and gives it away to the people. I am so curious about that moment. 6
The people sit down. Jesus thanks God for the gift of the bread and the fish. Jesus thanks God for providing what God provides. Then, the Teacher gives it all away. People eat until they can t eat anymore. Somehow what the boy had was enough! Verses 12-13 in John 6 tell us there are leftovers enough to fill twelve baskets. One of the reasons John tells us that is because the leftovers weren t to be held onto, but given away. Leftovers were, in first century Palestine, to be shared with the servants and waiters. When God blesses us it is never just about us. What you have, what is in your wallet, the gift of your health: they aren t just about you. They are to be passed along to others. When God blesses us, then God wants us to look around and take care of those who wait on us, work for us, and who may be in special need. As the twelve baskets fill up, you can almost hear God whispering to the people, Now that you are full, don t lean back and forget those who are still hungry. When I bless you, remember it isn t only about you. I want you to fill your baskets and give it away! The crowd is fed, then. We don t hear another word about the boy. Jesus is very aware the crowd is energized by the miracle. People are telling one another if Jesus can do this then they need to make Jesus their king! A king like this could snap his fingers and bring the employment rate down to 4% overnight, or bring gasoline down to $2.50 a gallon, or figure out a way to make inner city schools work, or help affluent teenagers fight the temptation to think life is about having stuff and being popular. Some people follow Jesus because of what Jesus can deliver. 7
Jesus has no interest in taking over our hearts and lives because he can deliver in the miracle department. So Jesus slips away. He goes off by himself and climbs up a neighboring mountain. What do the eyes of that boy see in Jesus in the fading light of that afternoon on the side of the mountain? Those young eyes see in Jesus someone who notices what people are going through. He may be a great Teacher, but Jesus isn t so lost in deep thought about deep things that he doesn t notice the tired look in someone s eyes or their rumbling stomach. The boy may have heard how Jesus shocked everyone in Jericho by seeing the terrible loneliness of the tax collector Zacchaeus, and then sat down with the man everyone hated. Jesus notices it is late in the day and sees the people sagging with hunger. The boy sees empathy compassion in Jesus. The boy sees someone who notices what people are going through and cares. The son of the carpenter seems very much like the God David describes in his songs! Those young eyes see in Jesus not only someone who sees and cares, but the boy sees Jesus as someone who does something. Jesus isn t just talk. Jesus doesn t stand back, preach powerful sermons, and never get his hands dirty with the hurt, and mess, and need in people s lives. The people are hungry? Jesus decides to do something about it! The way he did something about the man who had been born blind. The boy sees Jesus is a doer. 8
Those young eyes see in Jesus a man, a teacher, who uses what people bring him -even if they are only a few barley loaves and dried fish- to bless people and change how things are. The boy sees Jesus multiplying what people place in his hands. Jesus has this way of taking the moments people give him, the time, and energy, and money, and fish, and bread people give him, and doing good that is all out of proportion with the gift. The boy never forgets what Jesus did with five small barley loaves and two small dried fish he had that day. The boy never understood how Jesus did what he did. All he knew is that the little he had turned out to be enough when he gave it to Jesus. Do you know what I think? I believe the boy was standing near enough he could hear Andrew ask, after referring to the loaves and fish the boy was carrying that day, But how far will they go among so many? That s the question we ask, isn t it? What can I do? How can what I have to give make a difference? We tell ourselves that what we have is too small. We tell ourselves that what we have won t make a difference. So we stay on the sidelines. We don t step forward when someone says a Sunday school teacher is needed or a public school classroom needs a tutor to work with the children. We tell ourselves that what we have isn t enough to make a difference, we don t know enough to make a difference, our life isn t together enough to make a difference, so we hold onto what we have. We don t risk it. 9
What we have is enough -to make a difference. Who we are is enough -to make a difference. Don t pretend otherwise. Several weeks ago I told the story of those two 4 th grade girls I tutored for a year. After I told the story, I went home and realized I don t know their names. I am sorry I don t know their names. I ll never forget them, though. Then, it occurred to me that they must be in middle school by now maybe high school. Did those moments at Hawthorne School make a difference? Or were the fumbling efforts of this preacher, who struggled with the simplest Spanish, a waste? Did what we did together that year shift the trajectory of their lives just a bit? Did it make a difference? Or was it too small a thing for God to use? That moment on the mountain, I am convinced, changed forever the way the boy looked at his life and the world. He saw himself as one of those leftover fragments in one of those baskets: intended by God to be shared. Used to feed others. Used to bless people wherever life took him. So he was, always, a giver. He was always helping out someone. Sharing what he had. Later, years later, his wife would somehow shake her head when she heard how he had helped out a stranger or shared his grain with a neighbor. Your hands don t hold onto what God gives you, she said, trying to sound upset, but her eyes hinted at a quiet delight in her husband s generosity. God gives you what you need and you turn around and give it away at the first sign that someone else is in trouble! Her husband, the man who had once been the boy with the bread and the fish, would look at 10
his wife and shrug his shoulders while extending his arms out palms side up as if to say, What can I do if am I cursed with open hands? He knew that what he had to give would change things. Somehow. He knew God had given him enough to have some leftover fragments. God filled my basket, he would explain to friends, and so I pass on the bread I don t need today. The boy saw how Jesus does great things with five barley loaves and two small dried fish. And so the boy became a man who gave what he had away, trusting Jesus would be able to use it. What he had to give would never be wasted! What the boy saw with his eyes that afternoon opened up his hands forever. He always lived with hands that were open. Those young eyes saw in Jesus one who provides. He, for most of his life, had been taught the stories. His Mommy and Daddy, the men down at the sea working on their fishing nets, had told him about Abram and Sarai. He had heard the story about how Sarai and Abram had given up on the promise that God would give them a child. Then, when the promise seemed laughable, Sarai felt new life moving around inside her tummy. His Daddy and his Grandpa had told him about the terrible day when Abraham heard God calling him to take his son, Isaac, up a hill where the boy was to be sacrificed. The boy with the fish and the bread never liked to hear that 11
story. Something about it seemed too awful to even think about. The boy with the bread and the fish could see, in his father s eyes, that his Daddy was also troubled by the story. The boy had been told how, at the top of the mountain, God had told Abraham not to touch the boy. When his Daddy got to that part of the story the old man smiled. He looked relieved! The boy with the bread and the fish had been told how Abraham had found a ram trapped in a nearby thicket. So the place was always known, from that day on, as God Will Provide. The rabbi had told him about the day, in the wilderness, when the people were so hungry they could barely take their next step. And God had given them bread in the wilderness. They had been so thirsty they were drying up, giving up, and fresh water began pouring out of a place where the rocks were hot and dry. Still, even with those stories, it can be hard to believe that God will provide when you are poor. When you hear your Mommy and Daddy at night, in the dark, whispering to one another about their fear that they may not have money enough to pay for tomorrow s supper or the oil for the lamps. They work hard, every day, and they always try to smile, but the boy with the bread and the fish knows they worry. So it can be hard to believe that God will provide - even when you have heard all the stories about water out of dry rock, and bread in the wilderness, and babies being born to old people. Watching Jesus on the side of the hill in the light of early evening do what he did with the bread and fish did something to the fear in the boy that there might not be enough. The fear of not having enough was broken in half the way Jesus broke the bread in half. Years later, when he 12
would be an old man himself, people around him would be frightened. They would start to panic and the boy with the fish and bread, now a man, would quietly say, God will provide. People would growl at him, How can you see that when things are so bad? The boy with the bread and the fish, now a man, would simply say, I was on the side of the mountain with Jesus. I saw. I know. God will provide. People never stopped talking about that day on the mountain. People were amazed by the way the Son of the Carpenter had fed the crowd with the barley loaves and the fish. People focused on the bread that fed one hungry person after another. But the boy, as he watched the solitary figure of Jesus slip away and begin climbing a nearby mountain, knew the real gift was the Giver. When, by some chance, the boy had ended standing just feet away from the Galilean, when he heard that voice, when he saw those eyes, when he watched those rough, callused hands handle the bread and fish, the boy felt alive. The boy had to fight the impulse to go running after Jesus. He didn t want to let Jesus out of his sight. He wanted to hear that voice again. He wanted to see what Jesus would do next! So it took all the self-control the boy had to keep from racing towards the disappearing figure on the adjoining hill. If the Teacher could do what he did with barley bread and salted fish, what might he do with something more like a life? Not long after that day on the hill the boy heard what had happened in Jerusalem to the man who had fed the crowd. The boy with the bread and the fishes heard what had been done to Jesus and it broke his heart. For days he was quiet until his quiet frightened his Mommy and Daddy. 13
Then, he heard a strange story. He heard a story that some men had been walking to Emmaus and they had run into someone who had sounded like Jesus. They weren t sure, and then Jesus took bread at supper, gave thanks to God, and broke the bread. Gave it away! The two men who were on the road said it was a Jesus kind of thing to do. They were sure the man on the road was Jesus! When the boy heard the story he smiled. quiet. When the boy heard the story he stopped being so When the boy heard the story he began to ask people about rumors that Jesus had been seen here and there. Now and then. The boy wanted to know more. There are moments you wish you had done differently, aren t they? The boy later found himself thinking back to that day on the mountain, and he wished that along with the barley bread he had handed to Jesus, he had also given the Carpenter something more. Here I am, take me, he wished he had said. Here I am, take me. The boy would sometimes stop, in the middle of the day or in the dark of a quiet night, and whisper to himself, I wish I had given him more than bread 14