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Text: John 6:1-14 –
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ 10Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. 11Then Jesus 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. 12When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ 13So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’
One of the things I love the most about Korean and Korean American churches is the lunches we have following worship on most Sundays. Before moving to North Carolina in 2012, I served at a Korean American church in Tarrytown, New York as the pastor of youth and young adults. On most Sundays, after the 11 o’clock worship, many congregants gathered in the fellowship hall of the church to dine together. I fondly remember wonderful conversations I had with a number of my youth and young adults. A number of my high school youth often mention that they enjoyed this downtime at lunch on Sundays because they lively have been crazily busy Monday through Saturday with school, clubs, extracurricular activities, various lessons on Saturdays as well as a Korean language school, and even if it was just for 30-40 minutes they could relax and enjoy a meal and not stress about school or all that was going on in their lives. During lunch, I would sit with 2, 3, or 4 youths or young adults and we would just talk. It often was a wonderful time as we were able to check in on each other, we could listen to our joys and struggles, and could share prayers. In the busyness of the schedule in everyone’s lives, those 30 minutes of communing together over lunch were some of the most wonderful moments of my ministry at that church which I still remember.
I love eating with others and I love the conversations which take place as we break bread together. As I read the story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, I imagine there is an intimate conversation between groups of 50 or 100 as they are being fed the bread and the fish. The Feeding of the Five Thousand is in all four gospels with each gospel writer providing their version of this story, so there are minor details that are different from one another. In the synoptic gospels (Mt. 14:13-21, Mk. 6:30-44, Lk. 9:10-17), this story comes right after Jesus learns about the death of his cousin John the Baptist. For that reason or seeing the tiredness in the disciples or being tired or weary himself, Jesus withdrew from the people to go to a deserted place, likely to rest, to grieve, and to pray. Though Jesus and the disciples withdrew, soon after the crowd found them. Jesus, seeing that the people were like sheep without a shepherd begins teaching again. In John’s gospel, the crowd before Jesus and the disciples numbered five thousand in all. In the gospel of Matthew, it states that there were five thousand men besides women and children. Therefore, there were likely twenty thousand people in that crowd.
As the day grew later and seeing the hungry faces of the people, Jesus asked Philip, one of his disciples, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” or, “How should we feed them?” Philip is befuddled and replies that six months’ wages would perhaps give each person some bread to eat. Six months’ wage, what amount would that be today? It’ll depend on your profession, but knowing the disciples and the potential jobs they would have today, let’s just say a disciple would make $50,000 annually. So Philip is saying that 6 months' wage or $25,000 may provide a bite for each person. $25,000 – that’s a lot of money when you are feeding people. Let’s say, the Fellowship committee here at First Pres had $25,000 as their budget for the year for the fellowship meals. That’s not too bad, right? But $25,000 looks much different if you had 5,000 people to feed. It might look even less when there are 20,000 people in front of you to feed.
This year, as a part of the ministry of UKirk, the college ministry that I’m leading at ECU, my wife Laura and I have opened up our home to commune together with students and our neighbors every Monday in the Fall semester. In this second semester, we made the decision to meet every other Monday for multiple reasons. In the first semester, I handed out 80-100 postcards at the annual club fair at ECU. We walked over to our neighbors’ houses and invited them. My wife reached out to her colleagues and young adults whom she knew. We had a sign in our front yard which read Free Food Monday every Monday at 5:30 pm. All are welcome. My wife Laura and I decided to embark on this house church model ministry because we knew we could offer our neighbors and students a warm meal and a place to build a community. We live just a few blocks away from ECU and we always had plenty of students working past our house to and fro their classes. After handing out fliers and talking to many folks about it, I was nervous about how much food to get for the first gathering on August 29. We were going to have salad and pizza but it was very difficult for me to figure out how much food to get. We talked to a lot of people, but we knew only a portion of those whom we have made contact with would come. I didn’t want to order too much pizza, but I also didn’t want to have enough, and I also had to be conscious of my budget. I went back and forth and decided on getting food for 30. Making a decision to feed 20, 30, or 40 people was difficult for me. I can’t imagine being in Philip’s shoes as Jesus asked, “how are we going to feed these people?” It was not merely 50, over even 500, but it was 20,000 people. Imagine with me that you are at Glenburnie park and you are with Jesus on top of a hill and there before you were 20,000 New Bernian and Jesus looks at you and says, “I want you to feed these people.” I wouldn’t know what to do at first, but I probably would think as Philip thought and say, we are going to need a lot of money.
When Jesus tells Philip to feed them, Philip says, “20,000 people here and six month’s wage around $25,000 would barely give them enough. $25,000 for 20,000 people, that’s $1.25. Philip would say that’s enough to buy a $1 value sandwich at Wendy’s or Mcdonald's per person.
Then there’s the pivot in this story. As Philip is struggling, another disciple named Andrew says, “There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” It’s probably the boy's lunch and I would equate it to a sandwich cut into five pieces and 2 bags of Goldfish. What can they do with this boy's lunch? When Jesus receives the boy’s lunch of five barley loaves and two fish, he has everyone sit down in groups of 100. Then Jesus gives thanks and the food is passed. Everyone ate as much as they wanted until they were all satisfied. Then they filled twelve baskets with the leftovers.
On August 29, I prepared food for 30 people and we had 27 people who showed up with our family of 5, we had enough food for all. The next Monday, I cooked burgers and hotdogs for 40 people because I heard from a few that they would bring friends. And on the second Free Food Monday, we had 36 people. In the Fall semester, there were an average of 27 people who came and ate with us. Each week, after eating dinner together, we asked intentional questions for people to answer so that we could get to know one another better and create a community. The questions ranged from sharing where they are from to the meaning behind your name to sharing about favorite food, season, movies, and books to what you are thankful for to the holiday you enjoy celebrating. There were two small groups that stemmed from our gathering about a month in. Those who came and became a part of this community were diverse - we have freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduate students working on their master's as well as PHDs. We had people from North Carolina, Virginia, Iran, India, Egypt, Ecuador, Colombia, and Nigeria. We had people who graduated from ECU and were teachers in middle schools. We have professors and administrators from ECU. We have a neighbor who lives in the apartment complex a few blocks away. We’ve had visits from those who were living in halfway houses. The makeup of the group who came to Free Food Monday was very diverse.
In Jewish culture, any gathering of friends around the table was seen as an event that created a special tie among the diners. Throughout the gospels, Jesus used this truth to connect with those that were classified as “undesirable” by society. You see, you didn’t just go and eat with anyone; there were standards to be followed. But Jesus pushed the standards and boundaries. In the crowd, I imagine that there were many who were fed including the one who shared his lunch, the skeptical tax collector, the despised Samaritans, the curious fisherman, the struggling widow, the disdained prostitute, the wealthy father, the angry zealot, the ostracized Canaanite, the banished leper, the suffering slave, the hungry homeless. This story is the story of a crowd of people who had little in common except that they were hungry. They were hungry for food, healing, truth, for Jesus. And it is the story of a crowd of people who were fed. No questions asked. No prerequisites. In this story of the feeding of the 5,000, we see Jesus once again address the most essential, physical needs of his fellow human beings – hunger, thirst, and companionship. Jesus broke down the socially-constructed barrier that kept people from eating with one another. I’m sure that as people sat in groups and ate together, they got to know one another better, they got to experience something amazing… the multiplying food, they got to see one another as brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, as sons and daughters.
Even today, this socially-constructed barrier exists as we eat with one another. Most of us prefer to eat with people who are like us, with shared backgrounds, values, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, beliefs, and tastes. Or perhaps with people we want to be like, people who make us feel important. In the fellowship dinners at First Pres, who comes and eats? It’s the members of the congregation. How many new faces come to eat at the monthly fellowship dinners? How many people whom we might classify as the “undesirable” come to eat at the fellowship dinners? It’s a meal for First Pres members and it’s a meal for perhaps the neighbors in this town. Who can you invite to the table to eat with you? We are about halfway to Lent. Whom might God be calling you to connect with, to break bread with?
There are a group of Iranian students whom I have gotten to know well. Tomorrow afternoon, we are going to celebrate Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, as we cook together Sabzi polo and mahi sorkh shodeh, or Iranian rice with herbs and fried fish. I have also grown close to a neighbor who goes by the name Shaky. He is in his 50s and is a very skinny white Caucasian. He grew up in Ohio and lived in Greenville for over a decade. He lives two blocks away from our house and we’ve said hi to each other when we’ve seen him walk his dog. He saw the sign in front of our yard about Free Food Monday and came over on Monday and has been returning since then. He and I are very different – he is Caucasian, lives alone with a dog, likes to eat spaghetti, and has never had sushi or Korean food. It doesn’t matter that we are very different, but what was wonderful is that we could sit together over a meal and talk about life together – of things that bring us joy, things that bring us sadness and grief, things that make us who we are.
Shaky and I have been communing together for the last six months and I learned two weeks ago that he was flying for the first time to go and visit his brother who entered hospice care due to cancer. I told him what he could do when he flew. I talked to him last week and he told me that it was wonderful to see his brother and say hi and goodbye. Shaky is my friend and companion. Masoud, Elnaz, and Behzad are my friends and companions from Iran. Sebastian and Andres are my companions from Colombia. Ben and Kevin are my companions who grew up in Greenville, and Sydney, Luke, and Treyvon are my companions who grew up in other cities in North Carolina. Many of you hear at First Pres are my companions. The English word companion is derived from the Latin com (“with”) and panis (“bread”). A companion, therefore, is someone with whom you share your bread. The boy shared his bread with the crowd who gathered before Jesus. With the five loaves and two fish, Jesus shared bread with the crowds who gathered to see and meet him. There are many neighbors in New Bern with whom you can be a companion. In the second half of Lent, I invite you to be a companion, someone who breaks bread with someone who is different from you, someone new to you, someone God might be leading you to meet. Sit at Crema Brew in the morning and if there might be a new face who might be walking in your direction coming out of the RCS shelter. Be a companion to someone new, someone different, someone God is leading you to share life with.
Amen.
Ukirk is very grateful for the continued financial support from First Pres. Many thanks to the Outreach Commission and the Presbyterian Women circles. As First Pres is one of our covenant churches, I invite you to continue to lift up your prayers for our students at ECU. If you are led by the spirit to be involved in this important ministry to college, college-age young adults, I invite you to consider serving on our Board. You are welcome to get in contact with me to learn more at Daewonyang@gmail.com
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