Feeding the 5000
With enough left over to fill 12 baskets!
Again this week the idea of the abundance of love is made real. Is made manifest. Is offered up as encouragement to our world.
The disciples seeing the evening is coming and people will soon be hungry, first suggest that Jesus should send everyone home … nope, Jesus says, “You feed them”!
The indication for me is that when I want to dismiss something as too hard, too much, too big, too unruly… can I hear Jesus’ answer,
you can do it!
I can do it?!
Jesus said YOU do it. Meaning as they say in the south, ‘all y’all do it’.
The other interesting thing for me to remember is that they, the disciples, the crowd, everyone, did it TOGETHER!
A draw back, among a few others, of individualism, is that we can easily, we do easily, forget that we do it together. The call to feed, to help, to cure, to love, we do together.
I get the challenge of this when we are practicing staying 6 feet apart and wearing face covering and limiting who we see. I really believe this means we just get the chance to figure out
new ways of doing this stuff together.
Do I know what that is? Nope . But I’m guessing that the disciples had no idea how they were going to feed all those folks dinner either.
Except I’m continually amazed, truly, by what folks can do either for good or for ill when they gather together.
The loudest voices in our lives right now are not the ones saying we can live abundantly. Yet, I believe Jesus will provide the imagination and the will for us to accomplish kingdom living even now.
Face coverings, social distancing, minding your manners, being kind to folks, is not a plot or a conspiracy to end your freedom. It is challenging, of course. For most of us this is our first pandemic. We are, we can, feel alone and isolated. I hear that, I feel that, I share that loneliness.
AND we are all hungry for something. Remember this beloved, when our bellies are full we can forget about the hunger of others. That is our challenge. When we have all the rights we have, we forget that others do not have the same rights and freedoms. When we are safe, we can forgot that others are not.
These are challenging words. I write them knowing these are troubling times. Jesus brings, as John Lewis said, good trouble. We all have the chance to turn and hear, to listen to the hunger in the world and to hear Jesus say, “You do it”.
So back to the gospel of Mathew, the challenge Christ offers the people of God –You do it!
Below is one way you can do it!
+Rev. Alison
