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This Gospel text is an interesting one. Jesus is trying to get some “alone time” but is already so popular that he just can’t get away! Our story picks up late in the day. Jesus’ dreams of peace and quiet have been smashed when his disciples come with the good news: it’s time to send them home! It’s as if they say, “Jesus, you’ve been preaching long enough, everyone’s attention span is done, step away from the mic, you’ve got to let them go eat!”
And Jesus knows this. Jesus always knows the needs of his people. But he makes a crazy choice. Instead of sending the people home, he just turns to his disciples and says, “You feed them.”
And did you hear in the story? There are 5,000 people there! Oh yea, plus women and children. So maybe 8,000? 10,000? 10,000 people… and Jesus just says, “Yea, you go feed them.”
I’m sure the disciples were looking at their bank accounts thinking: “Uh, no way Jesus. There isn’t enough in there to buy food for that many. Here, here’s a couple walleye and a few loaves of Wonder bread. That’s all we’ve got.”
And yet, from that abysmally small, meager offering, when the disciples offered all they had, Jesus turned it into a feast for thousands.
That’s the promise of faith. Jesus doesn’t promise that we can tackle every problem on our own. He doesn’t promise we can fix everything—world hunger, corruption, war, disease, human trafficking, climate change, coronavirus, racial inequality-- but he does promise that He can. And not just that he can, but he will. And he will use what we already have to do it.
I pray you take this great hope with you. We don’t know what the future holds for this community, our church, or the world. But we do know who holds the future.
When we offer everything that we have in faith, God will turn even the smallest offering into food for thousands.
Have a good week!
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