Apprenticing under the Master Thanksgiving Sunday 2007
Mark 6:30-44
The Feeding of the Five Thousand
I have to admit that I have preached from this story before at Thanksgiving, and I’ve mentioned this story in the last 2 out of three sermons! But the reason I return to it is that I can’t get away from it.
In the beginning of the chapter, Jesus goes back to his hometown, and the people he grew up with rejected him and his ministry – it says he was amazed at their lack of faith. After they leave town, Jesus sends his 12 disciples out to minister – they teach, and drive out demons and heal the sick. Can you imagine the risk that Jesus is taking – he is sending out Peter, “say anything Peter:” the guy who said “I didn’t know what to say, so I said this…” He is sending out James and John who just asked him if they should call fire down from Heaven to burn up the people that rejected Jesus. He is sending out Simon, the revolutionary, Matthew the Tax Collector, Judas the thief and betrayer. The only one I might be comfortable sending out is Andrew – he’s such a good guy. I have trouble letting my kids walk home from School, never mind letting these guys out to minister in my name! But do you remember what Rob Bell said last week? You and I might not believe in them, they might not believe in themselves, but Jesus Believes in them. He believes that, in God’s power they can do what he does.
As they are out and Jesus is alone and without his friends, his cousin, and friend John the Baptist is murdered by King Herod. It is a dirty murder – Herod had stole his brother’s wife and married her, John was teaching that this was wrong. The queen wasn’t to pleased about being told how to run her life & she got their daughter to manipulate the King into killing John.
John was Jesus’ cousin. They knew each other in utero! John gave a prophetic leap inside his mother, Elizabeth’s womb when she greeted Mary who was pregnant with Jesus. It was John that baptized Jesus, it was John how proclaimed “Look, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
Jesus finds out about his holy friend’s death when his disciples are away. The death of John and the evil in the leadership must have grieved him greatly.
When the disciples come back, They have done it – they did what Jesus did, they healed people, cast out demons & called people to repentance! But, they have little time to debrief with Jesus – people are still coming for healing and deliverance; so much so that Jesus and the disciples can’t even eat.
Do you ever have days like that – the kids are talking to you all at once about different things, the phone won’t stop ringing, the computer is moaning about all the email you haven’t responded to, the project list at work goes into 2009 and you’re still working on 2005, everywhere you look at home there is another job that you have to get to, and your starting to recognize that funny feeling in your belly as hunger since you haven’t had a thing to eat since when?
Jesus says to the disciples, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."
“lets get away, we can talk about your experiences, John’s death, we can eat and sleep.”
So they get into a boat and start sailing to a quiet place on the other side of the lake.
Have you ever gone somewhere to get away from everyone, and found that everyone has got their first? That is what happens to Jesus and the boys. Some track star saw them getting in the boat, guessed where they were going and ran through all the towns all the way encouraging people to come run to catch them.
When they arrive onshore, there is a crowd of people – just the men number 5,000 (it could be that there were only men, since no one packed a lunch)
If that was me, I’d be back in the boat looking for a quiet place, but Jesus had compassion on them.
Jesus sees the crowd and has compassion on them. That blows me away – he and the disciples are exhausted, he is grieving, they just want some rest, and the people will not leave me alone. For most of us, our predominant emotion would not be compassion. If that was me, I’d be back in the boat looking for a quiet place, but Jesus had compassion on them.
If this tells us anything about God, it teaches is that we are never a bother to him. I know people that do not pray because they do not want to bother God with their troubles. Jesus is exhausted, grieving and hungry, and he has compassion on the crowd that ruins his holiday! You cannot “bother” God with your troubles – he will always have compassion on you.
His compassion is because they are like sheep without a shepherd.
We are not told what Jesus teaches them, but it would have been things about the Kingdom of God, possibly similar to the Sermon on the Mount. I find it interesting that he teaches them out of compassion. In our age we often look at teaching someone the things of God as being something that would be good for them, like cod-liver oil, but not something that is compassionate. We are often afraid to teach people about the things of God because we feel that they might think we are harping on them. But the Gospel is supposed to be freeing, it is supposed to be life giving! It is supposed to be received as love. When people have no leader, no direction in life, the compassionate thing to do is to explain the Gospel to them!
He doesn’t just give them a five-minute homily, he teaches them late into in the day. The exhausted disciples finally come to him and say, “It’s late, send them away so they can get something to eat (and we can get some rest).
Jesus says, “you feed them.”
I used to read this as a little joke that Jesus had with his disciples; “You feed them.” No I don’t think that he was joking. He had just sent them out to minister in the power of the Spirit, they had healed the sick and cast out demons.
I think that if the disciples they could have fed the 5,000 just like they healed people. They don’t even think that Jesus believes in them – that he knows that in God’s power they could feed these people miraculously – instead they say, we don’t have enough money to do this.
I don’t think they ask the right question, the question should not be, “are we to spend that much money?” it should be, “we don’t know how to do that, can you show us?”
When God asks us to do something impossible, our response should not be to point out the cost to him and show him what a stupid idea it is to ask us to do this, our response should be “Lord, I don’t know how to do this, can you show me?
That is not their question, but it is Jesus’ answer. He asks them how much food they do have, they check, and they have five loaves of bread and two fish – not even enough to feed the 13 of them. Jesus asks them to organize the crowd into groups and sit down on the grass. They do, and Jesus takes the five loaves and two fish and looks up into heaven and thanks God.
Wow! He has come from being rejected by his own hometown, he has just lost John the Baptist to murder, they are exhausted from ministry, the disciples have let him down again – they just don’t get it, and the people will just not let up! He has 5,000 people to feed and in his lap are five pitas and a couple of sardines!
He gives thanks.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
16Be joyful always; 17pray continually; 18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus
I think that the first lesson in how to feed the five thousand is to be thankful for the little that you have. On this thanksgiving Sunday, most of us are looking forward to a feast and then leftover turkey for two weeks. What do you do when you have a couple crumbs to feed five thousand? You give thanks for the couple of crumbs.
What is the greater miracle here: that Jesus fed 5,000 men and who knows how many women and children with five loaves and two fish, or that he gave thanks for the five loaves and two fish?
Can you do it? When you are completely drained from hardships and work and God asks you to do something impossible with next to no resources, can you thank him for the few resources that he has given you?
When Paul writes to us to give thanks in all circumstances, he doesn’t say that we need to give thanks for all circumstances, but in every circumstance, there is something to give thanks for – even if it is only five loaves and two fish.
What are you thankful for? What is your five loaves and two fish? Take a moment and think about what you are thankful for.
Tell a neighbour
Open prayer time.
So Jesus blesses the bread and fish, he breaks them, and gets the disciples to pass them out. It must have taken some faith to start walking toward that crowd of hungry men with a basket with less than a half a loaf of bread and 1/6th of a fish!
Everyone is fed. And not just a little crumb, but they are satisfied – the all make a meal of it! And there are even leftovers – 12 baskets full!
God takes our resources and makes them meet his call on our lives. God’s call is always bigger than our resources! We only have to say, “I don’t know how to do that, can you show me?” We must give thanks for what God has given us, and then step out in faith that God will provide.
