Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 12
John 6: 1-21
Making Much of Little
6:1 ¶ After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias.
2 And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased.
3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples.
4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.
5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, "How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?"
6 This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
7 Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little."
8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,
9 "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?"
10 Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
12 And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost."
13 So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten.
14 When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!"
15 ¶ Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea,
17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.
18 The sea rose because a strong wind was blowing.
19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and drawing near to the boat. They were frightened,
20 but he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid."
21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.RSV
Grace and Peace to you from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus who is the Christ. Amen
This morning we are going to look at the first story in our gospel lesson, the story of feeding the 5000 as found in John’s gospel.
Andrew said to Jesus, "There is a lad here who had five barley loaves an] two fish; but what are they among so many?" But what are they among so many, isn’t that the age old question. We look at what we have then we see the many who need more than we can possibility give so we ask, but what are they among so many. This lad didn’t realize how much he had until he gave it over to the Lord. Sure he saw he had only 5 loaves and 2 fish, but the Lord saw it as a gift to be used to feed the hungry people. The Lord made much of the little the boy was willing to give.
Notice, who did the action in this lesson, Jesus and the boy. This is an interesting lesson because it shows the faith of the boy and the power of Jesus to use our gifts to a great purpose.
Notice how this all begins. The crowds had gathered and it was time to eat. The crowds numbered about 5,000 men not counting the women and children. And Jesus says to Philip,"How are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?" Then notice the respond that Philip makes, he looks in the money bag to see they have only two hundred denarii and says there is little that can be done because they don’t have enough money. Philip never once asks Jesus what he can do about the situation . Philip never turns to Jesus and asks him to do something, he relies on his own resources and because of that he fails. Philip is like many of us, we rely on our own resources we rely on me, myself and I so when the tough situations t. life life come along we have a difficult time coping with them. Philip viewed the situation hopeless even though Jesus was right there, he didn’t turn to him
Philip could not see that Jesus could have helped this situation. Philip could not see beyond his own power to do something with the physical resources he had. Because ’Philip could not see beyond his own power, he could not help in this situation.
Many times you and I are like Philip. We see need, we look at our resources, and we decide that we are powerless to help, so we don’t do anything. We never think of turning our resources over to Jesus, we never think that maybe he can do something with our little gifts in a way we would never think of doing. Our faith as Philip’s faith in the power of Jesus to change situations is often lacking. We would rather trust our own resources, our own power, our own pride and maybe even fail, instead of turning everything over to Jesus and letting him be in charge.
Now let’s look at Andrew. Andrew saw the same problem, he saw all the hungry people and he knew there wasn’t enough money to buy food. So Andrew went out among the crowd to see what could be done. He found a boy who had a picnic lunch. It was only enough food to feed one hungry, growing boy, but Andrew decides instead of this being a hopeless situation, he goes and tells Jesus what he had found.
I would imagine Andrew might have had thoughts similar to this: "Well, this boy has only a limited amount of food? but maybe Jesus can do something with it. Yes, I will tell Jesus, if he can calm an angry sea? if he can heal people, if he can turn water into wine, surely he can do something with this bread and with this fish."
So, Andrew takes his knowledge, his resources to Jesus. He turns over to Jesus what he has found out. He lets Jesus be in control of his resources.
Then notice what Jesus does with the resources that were brought to him, he turn the little into much. Jesus takes the 5 loaves and 2 fish and he turns it into enough food to feed 5,000 men plus their children and wives with 12 baskets of food left over. Andrew knew that Jesus could do something very special with the limited resources that were present. Jesus took a few fish, some loaves of bread and turned it into a feast for over 5 000 people.
There was a man in England during the 1900’s who also saw the power of Jesus to feed a group of people. The man was George Muller and he founded several orphanages which cared for as many as 2,000 children. One night Muller was informed that the supply of food was gone at one of the houses. The next morning he joined the children at the breakfast. There was a bowl, and plate and glass in front of each of the several hundred children, but all were empty.
Mr. Muller asked the children to bow their heads as he prayed. His words included "Father, we thank Thee for what Thou art going to give us to eat."
After he ended the prayer there was a knock at the door. A baker was standing there who said, "I couldn’t sleep last night. I felt you didn’t have any bread and the Lord wanted me to send you some, so I got up at 2:00 this morning and baked some fresh bread for you."
George Muller not only thanked the baker, but also said a prayer of thanksgiving to God.
Within a few minutes there was a second knock at the door. There was a milkman standing at the door. He explained that his milk cart had broken down right in front of the home. The milk had to be unloaded and he wanted to give it to the home for the children. "Could you take it?’’ he asked.
Andrew knew that Jesus could do something very special with the limited resources of bread and fish. George Muller knew that if he would turn over to the Lord the problem of the hungry orphans, the Lord would provide. There is a lesson in this for us. When we turn over to the Lord the resources he has given us, he will use those resources to further his kingdom in ways that we cannot understand.
Andrew did not understand exactly what Jesus could do with the boy’s few loaves and few fish, because of his question, but what are they among so many. He really wasn’t quite sure what Jesus could do, or how this could help the crowd, but it is important to note even with his doubts, even with his wondering he still gave this resource over to Jesus, he still surrendered his own will to the will of Jesus.
You and I are called upon by Jesus to do the same thing. Even if we cannot understand what Jesus will do with our resources, even if we think what we have is very little, we must have faith that Jesus can do something special with our gifts. Remember the story of the widow’s mite. She gave the smallest coin, but Jesus said her gift was special because she gave all she had. She was willing to turn her resources over to God so that God in his mysterious way could do something very special with it. It is this kind of faith and trust in God that we are called upon to possess. It is this thinking that everything we have is a gift from the creator, and it is our responsibility to give to him those resources which he has given us for him to use in his way to further his kingdom. He doesn’t want us to give with strings attached, with conditions, but he wants our free gifts, he wants our gifts because of the great love we have for him. He doesn’t want them because we think we are influencing him in our lives, or because we think we will achieve a greater reward in the after life, no God wants our gifts because that is our way to respond to his great love in our lives.
We tend to look at ourselves as people who have worked to get everything we have by ourselves. Sure, most of us have worked hard to reach the kind of level of living we have, but just think about those gifts, those talents, those people in your life who were there when you needed, maybe, a helping hand or an encouraging word, or a piece of advice, all of those kinds of things I feel are God’s hand working in our lives. So, yes, we have made ourselves what we are, but at the same time we have not done it alone, because God’s hand was in there guiding the process whether we were aware of it or not. Now then If is it not appropriate for us who have been given so much to in some way thank the provider? Isn’t it appropriate for us to give back to him some of what he has so generously given to us?
That is what this lesson is all about. Giving back to God what he has given to us so that God can make out of our little much. Philip saw the hungry and didn’t know what could be done, Andrew saw the hungry and brought a little boy to the Lord hoping that the Lord could do something. He wasn’t sure how the Lord would use his gift, his resource, but he gave it the Lord, anyway .
And finally I would like to look at the young boy for just a few moments. Here was a boy who had a picnic lunch, in it contained the poorest bread, and some pickled fish. That was to probably be his whole meal for the day. And now these men want him to turn it all over to a man named Jesus? Can you imagine what must have gone through his mind? There must have been a lot of thought, a lot of questions, a lot of hoping that it would all work out.
But the one thing that definitely went though his heart and mind was some faith in this man Jesus not to cheat him or hurt him or let him go hungry in any way for he was willing to hand over to him the only food he had. Here was a boy with a simple faith. He must have heard Jesus teach, he must have felt some love, some kindness, some compassion from Jesus. He must have felt that Jesus would not let him go hungry, This little boy had faith to turn over to Jesus all the resources he had at that moment. He turned over to Jesus not only his bread and fish, but his entire life. He turned over to Jesus his physical resources and then himself, he turned his life over to Jesus at that moment for he trusted Jesus to take care of him, to not let him go away from there hungry.
And Jesus provided, didn’t he? He provided for this boy and for more than 5,000 people. What if all of us turned over our resources to Jesus, what if we surrendered to him our entire lives, what if we trusted him to provide for us, can you imagine what he could do!
Amen
Written by Pastor Tim Zingale July 21, 2003
