Sharing
Luke 9:10-17
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
Luke 9:10 when the apostles returned, they gave an account to Him of all that they
had done. And taking them with Him, He withdrew privately to a city called Bethsaida.
11 But the crowds were aware of this and followed Him; and He welcomed them and
began speaking to them about the kingdom of God, and curing those who had need of
healing.
Luke 9:12 Now the day was ending, and the twelve came up and said to Him, “Dismiss
the crowd, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside and find
lodging and get something to eat; because here, we are in a secluded place.” 13 But He
said to them, “You give them something to eat!” But they said, “We have no more than
five loaves and two fish, unless perhaps we go and buy food for all these people.” 14
(For there were about five thousand men.) But He said to His disciples, “Have them
recline to eat in groups of about fifty each.” 15 They did so, and had them all recline. 16
And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and, looking up to heaven, He blessed
them and broke them, and gave them to the disciples again and again, to serve the crowd.
17 And they all ate and were satisfied; and the broken pieces which they had left over
were picked up, twelve baskets full.
In Luke’s gospel chapter 9, starting on the 10th verse and going to the 17th, we have a
feeding story where Jesus takes five loaves of bread and two fish and thousands of
people eat. There are many ways to interpret this narrative, and I’m going to offer one
that is probably unique and somewhat different from what you might’ve heard from
other preachers. Before I do this, I have to explain a couple of cultural items that lead
me to the conclusion that I want to present.
When people traveled from town to town in Jesus’ day, they carried food and water
with them. The food and water would be in containers that would be held underneath
the tunic. It was placed underneath the tunic to keep the hot rays of the sun from
cooking or spoiling the food. People carried fish and bread under their coats. They also
carried water with them. We have to remember that in Jesus’ day, there were no Burger
King or McDonald's restaurants along the traveling roads. If you didn’t bring food, then
you went hungry. This feeding story was near a large town. Since there were people
who traveled regularly, I have no doubt that people in the crowd were coming home to
the city, and that brings us into the second cultural point.
When you travel from city to city with your food and water, you never reached your
destination with any food on you. Food was to be eaten before you reach that
destination or could be fed to the birds or the animals. Therefore, there would have
been people in the crowd that needed to do something with the excess food they had
if they were returning to their homes in the town.
Another cultural point of importance is called in Hebrew pe’ah. This cultural point I
found in a book called the Talmud. The Talmud is a collection of rules and regulations
and interpretations that were in use during Jesus’ day. The Talmud was actually put
together in writing around 200 CE. One of the intriguing things about Near East culture
is that it rarely changes. People have lived the same way for thousands of years.
Therefore, this cultural point would have been in place in Jesus’ day.
You’re probably now wondering what this cultural point of importance was? Pe’ah refers
to the cultural rule that when you are served food in a house or outside, you always
leave some food on your plate. That extra food was given to those who prepared and
cooked the meal, and served it to you. Therefore, the concept of having baskets of food
left over was because of this cultural concept. The people who were served left some
food behind for those who served them. In this case, it was the apostles of Jesus.
You may never be heard of this concept because the cultural books written by Christian
authors don’t mention it. Like I said, I read it in the Talmud that you always left food
behind. When you put these cultural items into the feeding story, you may see it a little
differently. Seeing it differently than just a miracle of creating lots of bread and fish is a
much better lesson that the author was trying to give us. Of course, I should be saying
that Jesus was trying to give us.
The feeding stories are about the concept of sharing. The people who had food and
water in their cloaks could have decided not to share. But they witnessed Jesus, who
took the bread and the fish that he had and said, let’s share this with as many people as
we can. When food is so scarce, do you think people today would share it?
Ask yourself that question. If your neighbor knocked at your door and said, I have no
food, can you please help me out? Would you be ready to help him out? Most of you
listening to this will probably say yes, and if you say yes, then you understand what the
feeding story was all about.
If we take this story metaphorically and extended, what Jesus is saying to us is that we
should be ready and willing to share our excess with those who don’t have.
Occasionally, that’s an effortless thing to do when you have an excess. However,
sometimes it really isn’t, let’s be honest with ourselves. One of the things that has
developed in our society is that we have to save money and resources for our retirement.
I am picking that particular subject because no one wants to reach a point in their lives
where they cannot afford to live.
Yes, the government will help you out, but you will not live as comfortably as you did
when you had a job and income coming in. My poor grandmother had lived well beyond
the years that she expected to. That was a wonderful thing. However, it became a
problem because she did not have the money nor the income to live in the
condominium she had purchased with my grandfather years before. She had to sell the
condominium and lived in a low-rent housing project. Unfortunately, I was not in a
position to financially help her because I was just out of college and didn’t have a lot of
income. I always wish I could have shared more with her.
Being a pastor, I saw this happen many times. I think one of the points of this story is
that we should share access. I do not believe that Jesus wanted us to give up everything
we had because if we did that, we would be one of the poor that needed help from
others. Furthermore, I would also take this metaphor another step further and say we're
not just talking about money or food, but we could be talking about time and effort and
help. There is a group in my area that goes around and fixes roofs and houses for poor
people. At one time they had the money to be able to buy their house and kept it
updated. Then they reached retirement and Social Security, and they didn’t have good
pensions, and they had let the house dilapidated. Then this group comes in and helps
them fix up their house. That is also a form of sharing that is the same as this feeding
story.
So, the lesson I believe is that Jesus is saying that we should help people where we can.
The narrative also tells us that it doesn’t have to be food and water because there are
many ways you can help other people, and one of the precious commodities we keep
forgetting we have is time. Even if it’s just something as simple as going to a retirement
village and visiting people. There are many senior citizens who are in nursing home
situations where they don’t get any visitors at all. There is a place where you can share
your time because your time is a valuable resource.
So, I hope this gets you to think about ways that you can share your gifts and graces
which you received from God with other people. Think of how happy you will make a
person by helping them out in some way shape or form. Since we as Christians want to
emulate Jesus, we should be going out and helping others in ways that we can.
