Not for nothing

John 6:1-21

Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the sea of Galilee, that is the sea of Tiberius, and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then, Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover festival was near, and when Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “It would take almost a year’s wages to buy enough bread for everyone to have a bite.” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here’s a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish! But how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down. About 5,000 men were there. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated, as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish. When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them, and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat, and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now, it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. Strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water, and they were frightened. But he said to them, “It is I, don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat. And immediately the boat reached the shore to which they were going.

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When the Gospel writers set down stories with ink on parchment, not a word was wasted. So I have to wonder why John included the detail that the Passover of the Jews was near. John’s Gospel takes place over the course of three Passovers. The first time, Jesus is in the temple and knocks over the tables of those selling sacrificial animals, when he also says that thing about ‘destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again,’ meaning, of course, his body. Now, this second time, he is feeding no less than five thousand men (not counting women and children), and the third and final time is the Passover where he himself is the sacrifice which feeds the world.

It’s the identifying story of the Jewish people that is told year after year at the Passover. The story of God liberating God’s people from the slavery they suffered at the hands of Egypt. Slavery they ended up in because one of their own, Joseph, of the amazingly colorful coat, interpreted the dreams of Pharaoh and set aside enough food for seven years to survive the next seven, despite terrible famine. Joseph had been a national hero, but the memory of Pharaohs is short, and the next one to come forgot that he owed his life to the ingenuity of a Jewish man, so the Jews were put to harder labor, and Pharaoh attempted to have them killed off as they were born, until God saved them.

The problem with the power of Pharaoh was that he controlled the bread. That’s what most wars are about, anyway, who gets to control the food, which is the stuff that supports life. Joseph had helped them save up enough food to survive, but then they forgot where their food came from and despised the very people who required the same bread they did.

Which is why I find Jesus’ first question here a bit tricky: Where are we to buy bread enough for the people to eat? When have we ever heard Jesus worry about money? He sure talks a lot about the misuses and abuses of it, preaches about the dangers of loving money more than people, but he has never asked his disciples where they will buy medicine to heal the sick, so what about this question about buying enough bread?

He asks the question, but he knows already what he will do, right? So Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, pipes up with an idea: There is a boy here with some bread and fish. A kid. With a snack pack his mom sent him with for lunch. How far will that go among this crowd of thousands?

But no gift is too small for God to work with. One of the preachers at this past week’s worship jubilee reminded us that, really, the disciples had nothing to offer, and that since God created the world out of nothing, it was just right. God can work with nothing. All the people had was hunger. God can work with that.

And it’s true. God can and does work with our nothing, work with our hunger, work with and in and through us in all of our loss and lack, despite our best intentions. When we were slaves in Egypt, we had nothing, we could do nothing about our slavery, we were treated by Pharaoh as though we were worth nothing but cheap labor, and God brought us out of slavery into freedom. The abundance of Passover came out of nothing. We had been worked so hard by our taskmasters in Egypt we had not even the strength to stand up for ourselves, and God fed us and freed us and formed us in the wilderness.

And that’s not for nothing, either.

<this is a portion of the whole, since worship today is ecumenical and the preaching is shared between myself and the Methodist pastor.>