I was driving around in the snow on Friday
(taking care of some odds and ends), and when I do that I usually listen to
CHML, just in case something happens with the traffic that I need to know
about. So I was listening to CHML, and “lo and behold,” they have an interview
with a youth group from
I don’t know if they had March break in
Jesus’ time (I doubt it) but this story certainly takes place at the right time
of year for it. John chapter 5 finishes at the feast of Tabernacles, which is
in the fall. Chapter 6 begins “some time after this,” actually about six months
later, because it says “the Passover was near” which means it was spring. In
fact, it was probably right about now, since Easter and Passover occur at
almost the same time. Of course, since
Not only was it around the time of March break; if you look at Mark’s version of this story in Mark 6, you’ll find that the disciples had just returned from a short term mission trip. Jesus had sent them out in pairs to preach in various villages and they had just come back with great stories of what God had done through them. Now Jesus was trying to get some time alone with them so they could “debrief.”
That’s why they took off to the other side
of the Sea of Galilee (which is about as far as going from Stoney Creek to
By now it’s probably mid afternoon at least,
so Jesus turns to Philip and asks, 5 …“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 He
asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to
do.
Don’t you hate that? You’re sitting at the back of the class, quietly minding your own business, and the teacher calls your name and asks you to come up to the blackboard and share your solution to the next homework question with the rest of the class. I’ll bet that’s just how Philip felt.
Of course he should have expected
to be called upon. He was the local boy. Philip was from
But Jesus isn’t really expecting
Philip to come up with the answer. He’s using this as a teaching opportunity, a
“teachable moment,” that works at all kinds of levels. There’s the basic issue
of provision; as we see Jesus providing for a very real physical need.
Then there’s the issue of power; as Jesus reveals his miraculous power
in providing for these people. And there’s also the question of Jesus’ person;
what does that display of power say about who Jesus really is? To be honest,
that last question is probably John’s main reason for including the story in
the first place. He tells us in John 20:20, that he wrote his gospel “…that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that
by believing you may have life in his name.”
But for today we’re going to stick mainly with the first level, the much more basic question of provision, and what we can learn about trusting Jesus with what he has given us.
So, the problem is – lots of people, and no food!
Philip’s on the spot. He whips out his pocket calculator and does a few quick sums.
7 Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy
enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
The NIV says eight months’ wages. The Greek says 200 denarii. A denarius was the basic daily wage of a day labourer; someone at the very bottom of the labour market; say someone working a minimum wage job at Walmart. If you do the math, 200 days x 8 hours a day x $8 an hour = $12,800 = $2.56 per person. That won’t even buy you a “Happy Meal.” Not much to feed a hungry crowd.
What if we ran the numbers the other way? What about starting by deciding what we would buy to feed all those people, then figuring out what it would cost? Whenever we have a church work day we usually buy a bunch of pizzas for the work crew. (Another good reason to volunteer for church work days.) Dominos currently has a “Carry Out Special” on offer. $10.99 gets you one medium pizza with 2 toppings, plus 1 order of cheesy bread. Let’s say that one Carry Out Special would serve two people. 10.99 * 2500 = 27,475 (+ tax) = 31,321.50
Where were the disciples going to come up with $31,000? They probably gathered around and pooled all the money they had. Peter had $2, Andrew another $6. They were near Philip’s hometown so he had a cousin in the crowd. He borrowed $13. When they totalled it all up, they had $54.82, three fishing lures and a video game token. They knew they couldn’t feed 5,000 people with $54.82.
Philip’s response to Jesus’ question is subtraction. His whole answer is framed in negative terms, “Here’s what we don’t have, and even if we had that, it still wouldn’t be enough.” In other words, “It’s impossible.”
Isn’t that just like you and me? We look at the problem, whatever the problem might be, and we get overwhelmed by it.
It could be a relationship problem; “He (or she, or they) are mad at me. They’ll never talk to me again. I might as well just walk away. It’ll never work.”
It could be a problem with time; “I just have so much to do this week there’s no way I’m going to get it all done, or done well. It’s impossible.”
It could be a financial problem; “We just can’t make ends meet in our family, our business, our church. There isn’t enough to go around. It’s impossible.”
That was Philip’s response, “It’s impossible.”
Andrew’s response is a bit better than Philip’s. Instead of subtraction (focussing on what they don’t have) Andrew suggests addition. He goes out into the crowd to find out what’s there. He doesn’t come up with much.
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9
“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish…”
This little guy must have had a mother like Marilyn. I can just hear the conversation at his house that morning (partly because I’ve heard it so often at home.)
“Did you pack a lunch?”
“No, it’s OK. I’ll get something when I get there. There’ll be a hotdog stand or something.”
“You’re not going out that door without a lunch. That junk food is just a waste of money, and what if there are no hotdog stands?”
So, while the disciples were putting all their quarters together to see what they could do; this little boy pipes up, "Hey! I’ve got a bag lunch!" He knew that his bag lunch wasn’t going to feed 5,000 people, but that wasn’t the point. He just offered what he had.
It’s really the little boy that’s
the hero here. Although Andrew brought him to Jesus, he’s still not convinced
that this is going to make any difference. He brings the boy and his lunch to
Jesus, but then he tags on a little disclaimer “…but how far will
they go among so many?”
“How far will they go among so many?” That’s the big question isn’t it? “How far will it go?” Whatever our income, we always have that question in the back of our minds. “How far will it go?” “Will it be enough to do what we want to do?” That may translate as, “Will we be able to afford the down payment on a house?” or “Will we be able to take a vacation this year?” for some it’s as basic as “Will we be able to buy groceries this week?”
“How far will it go?”
It’s the same whether you’re on a fixed income of some sort (Pension, Ontario Works, ODSP) or you’re working. We all look at our cheques at the end of month (or whatever) and ask the same question that Andrew asked as he looked at the fish and bread, “How far will it go?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in
that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. 11 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.
Jesus’ response to the problem wasn’t subtraction or addition. It was multiplication. Let’s see what that looked like. He had the people sit down. Mark tells us that he had them sit in groups of hundreds and fifties, like a bunch of church picnics scattered across the hillside.
He took the loaves. He received what was given to him. They would have been more like torillas or chipattis than loaves of wonder bread. But there’s no suggestion that Jesus’ response was anything like, “This is all you’ve got? You can’t do any better than this? Five thousand people and all you can come up with are five measly tortillas and a couple of sardines?” No. He received what was given to him and he gave thanks for it. It didn’t matter to Jesus how little it was, he was thankful for it.
Then he just turned around and gave it back out again, and in the process it was multiplied. The church is most like Jesus when we take whatever we have received, whether it’s time, talents, or treasure (finances), give thanks to God for it, and turn round and use it to bless others. That’s when God will multiply what we have, not when we plan to spend it on ourselves.
I’m always a little bothered when they show this miracle in movies, because they tend to make it look like a circus trick. Jesus takes the bread and fish, gives thanks for them, and “Poof,” there’s bread and fish everywhere. That’s not what the text says. It says that he took the bread and fish, gave thanks for it, and gave it out.
I suspect that it was much more like the widow’s jar of oil in 2 Kings 4. In that miracle, it didn’t matter how much oil the widow took out of the jar, there was always some left. Or better still, further on in the same chapter, the story in 2 Kings 4:42-44, which is the only other place in the whole Bible where this phrase “barley loaves” appears.
42
A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the
man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along
with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said. 43
“How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked. But Elisha
answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the Lord says: ‘They will eat and have some
left over.’ ” 44 Then he set it before them, and they ate and had
some left over, according to the word of the Lord.
No smoke. No mirrors. No flashing lights. Nothing in the least bit spectacular, except that no matter how much anybody ate, there was always more. (If you have a math background, you might notice how close that is to one of the definitions of infinity.)
[In my time in YWAM I heard similar stories of God’s provision. My small group leader told me of one time when a whole extra team turned up for a meal and they simply didn’t have enough to feed everybody. Someone prayed that the Lord would expand the food, but as they got down to about a quarter of the pot of stew, and still had more than half the people to serve, the person serving started to make the helpings smaller and smaller. One of the other servers says, “Didn’t we pray for it to last?” and started doling out great big servings. The pot went down to ¼ and stayed there, no matter how much they served, until everybody had eaten.]
God doesn’t do party tricks. But he does meet people’s needs.
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather
the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they
gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley
loaves left over by those who had eaten.
They all had enough to eat (the word in Greek means they were “full”) and there was still food left over. And Jesus was concerned that the leftovers shouldn’t be wasted.
[Food security meeting. 1/3 of all
food produced in
Can we really expect God to bless us more when we waste so much of what he gives us? There’s a whole sermon in there about caring for the environment and making good use of what God gives us.
But that isn’t where the story ends.
14 After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to
say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 Jesus,
knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again
to a mountain by himself.
The crowd recognised the parallel to the story in 2 Kings and saw it as confirmation that Jesus was “the Prophet who is to come,” a national leader who would lead them to freedom. Jesus had simply responded to the need of the people and now they wanted to make him king. But Jesus knew that wasn’t why he had come, and so the story ends with him withdrawing from the crowd.
1. What kind of math do you use when you calculate your options? Do you use subtraction, like Philip, and conclude that it’s impossible? Do you use addition, like Andrew, and wonder if you’re going to make it? Or do you give whatever you have to Jesus and let him multiply it so you have leftovers?
2. Multiplication only takes place when
you start to bless others. There’s no promise here that following Jesus
will make you rich.
3. Jesus doesn’t ask for anything you don’t have, just what you do have. The little boy brought his lunch. What do you have that you can give to Jesus so Jesus can turn it around, multiply it and use it to bless others?
Time – Is there someone you know who could use your help in some way, if you just gave them your time? Or maybe there is a ministry in the church where you could serve with your time?
Talent –
Treasure – At last month’s business meeting we passed a budget for this year. Over the last few years, the budget has been getting more and more outward focussed, aimed at blessing others in the neighbourhood in Jesus’ name. I believe that God is pleased by that kind of focus and if you’re a member of this church, or a regular attender, I want to challenge you to get behind that focus with your money. And if you want some idea of how much to give, I’d suggest 10% is a good target.
[Having said that; I was talking with another pastor last week, and he and his wife aim to give away 25% of their income every year. Some years they get closer than others, but that’s their goal. And he’s a pastor. That’s a real pain. If he had been an engineer or an executive of some kind I could have written him off. But he’s a pastor. So now I have to go off and think through our own giving again.]
The little boy gave Jesus all he had that day, and Jesus used it to bless thousands. What have you given to Jesus recently?