Loaves and Fish
In chapel this past week, Christine shared the story of the feeding of the 5,000. For those that have been in church for any significant amount of time, you’ve probably heard this story a dozen times. It’s come to be so familiar to us that we have whittled away all the points of the story to focus on the main thing, Jesus preforming a miracle.
I’m not saying we’ve missed the point, but perhaps we’re just complacent with the rest that this story has to offer. When the disciples came to Jesus with a problem, lots of hungry people, Jesus didn’t immediately perform the miracle. He told the disciples, “You feed them.” It’s funny, this story is told in all four gospels, but only one of them mentions the little boy. In all of them though, the disciples reply back with we only have 5 loaves and two fish, so even in the retelling they take credit for this little boy being the only one smart enough to pack a lunch.
When there was a problem, before resorting to supernatural measures, Jesus told us that we are capable to solving the problem. I don’t think he was being flippant, I think he was just stating expectations. And the only person among the 5000 that took him seriously was a little boy with next to nothing to offer.
This past weekend, a small group of teenage boys put on a concert. Power Bomb raised almost $600 for the weekend food program. I’m reminded that in our community we have hundreds of kids, not including adults (a bit of a reversal from the biblical counting methods), that go hungry. Jesus’ reply to us would probably be the same, “you give them something to eat.” And just as it happened thousands of years ago, we just witnessed the youngest among us take the lead and do something to feed the masses.
How are the rest of us leaning in to Jesus’ command to feed the hungry? Luckily, there are two easy steps that you can take right now. The first is to join an amazing group of volunteers on Thursday nights as they pack food. The work isn’t difficult, it doesn’t a long time, and it is more fun than you would ever thing.
The second thing you can do is raise money for the program itself. You don’t have rot put on a full on rock concert to do that. Businesses often donate money to these programs for tax purposes, they just have to be asked. Shopping or volunteering at the thrift store provides funds that go to support this mission and the mission of the church.
As fun as it is would have been to be a witness to a kid’s lunch being multiplied into thousands of meals, I don’t think anyone that day was happier than the kid who offered up what he had and as a result a miracle occurred.