Loaves and fishes

Blessed and Broken

Posted on by Betsy

I believe that the love language of the United Methodist Church is the potluck supper. I know the cross and flame is our symbol, but I think it should be a casserole dish. Hear me out, now! When we have a potluck supper, people who haven’t been to church in ages suddenly appear. The lines are long and filled with chatty people catching up with one another. Plates are heaped high and hearts and bellies are filled. It is always guaranteed to be a love feast. As long as you’re not the last in line.

In our passage today, a multitude that exceeded 5,000 people sat and ate the miraculous meal of fish and bread. Certainly Jesus could have done this miracle by himself, but he used his disciples instead. There is a great lesson in that for us. It required them to demonstrate their faith in Jesus’ ability to take their meager resources and multiply them. Indeed, Jesus provided a meal out of resources they couldn’t even see because of their faith that he would.

John 14 (Common English Bible)

13 When Jesus heard about John, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. When the crowds learned this, they followed him on foot from the cities. 14 When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion for them and healed those who were sick. 15 That evening his disciples came and said to him, “This is an isolated place and it’s getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

16 But Jesus said to them, “There’s no need to send them away. You give them something to eat.”

17 They replied, “We have nothing here except five loaves of bread and two fish.”

18 He said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 He ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves of bread and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them and broke the loaves apart and gave them to his disciples. Then the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 Everyone ate until they were full, and they filled twelve baskets with the leftovers. 21 About five thousand men plus women and children had eaten.

This miracle was an act that demonstrated Jesus’ authority over nature, just as walking on water and turning water into wine had done. It also was an act that demonstrated Jesus’ authority over human nature. He challenged his disciples to break open their reluctance, their hesitation, and their own desire to be fed so that the bread could be blessed and broken for others. And don’t forget the twelve baskets that were left over, demonstrating just how far our Lord would go to feed people.

People everywhere are hungry, but the world answers with empty words. Governments and politicians try to convince them that they really aren’t that hungry. The Haves hoard what they have while the Have-Nots starve. The truth is, if everyone shared God’s provision, no one would ever be hungry.

People are hungry for meaning, but popular culture responds with vapid and superficial sugar that distracts momentarily but leaves them starving. People are hungry for the truth, but the church answers with another new, shiny program and fog machine worship. We must be sure we are providing spiritual sustenance to a starving world in everything we do.   

We have resources we can’t even see. God can take them and bless and break them, if we are just willing to hand ourselves over and ask God to feed others with what we have. Part of that challenge is to only take what we really need for ourselves, ensuring that the last fellow in the potluck line has as full a plate as the first.

Is God calling you to trust what you have and give some away? Jesus can do miracles with that.

Kitty Hawk United Methodist Church

Feeding the Need

Posted on by Betsy

Crowdsourcing is a way of outsourcing a task or obtaining information for a project by using the input of a large group of people, typically via the internet. Social media, smartphone apps, and electronic surveys are just some of the means by which interested parties can source work or gather information. People are invited to collectively contribute ideas, time, expertise, or funds to a common goal. For example, traffic tracking apps such as Waze use driver/rider generated reports to communicate accidents, objects in the road, construction, and police on your journey. Uber pairs drivers with people who need a ride, an example of crowdsourced transportation. We use these types of crowd sourcing applications to “feed the need” of others.

A few years ago, Lays Potato Chips really maximized the concept of crowdsourcing in its campaign “Do Us a Flavor,” where they asked people to submit ideas for potato chip flavors. The public was invited to vote on the flavors they would like to try. The top four submissions became actual products. So new flavors such as Crispy Taco, Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle, and Beer Cheese have been crowdsourced from inception to having the final selection available at your local Publix. I don’t know who came up with the idea of Flamin’ Hot Dill Pickle potato chips, but I want some!

At the heart of crowdsourcing is the notion of people coming together to help each other. I once traveled to Florida using Waze and saved close to two hours in traffic. Others ahead of me reported a crash that had shut down the highway, and Waze suggested a faster route.

Crowdsourcing existed in the early church, but of course they didn’t call it that. Martin Luther was an original crowd-sourcer. His frustrations with the institutional Church led him to write his “Ninety-Five Theses: A Disputation on the Power of Indulgences” and nail them on the door of the church in Wittenberg, which was located in the heart of the city on the public square. People read it, printed it, translated it, and shared its ideas with others throughout Germany and the rest of Europe, and thus the Reformation began.

But Jesus, of course was THE original crowd SOURCE. He spent a good deal of his ministry among the crowds, finding ways to feed their needs. In the wonderful miracle known as the “Feeding of the Five Thousand,” we see him at his crowdsourcing best:

Matthew 14 (The Message)

Supper for Five Thousand

13-14 When Jesus got the news, he slipped away by boat to an out-of-the-way place by himself. But unsuccessfully—someone saw him and the word got around. Soon a lot of people from the nearby villages walked around the lake to where he was. When he saw them coming, he was overcome with pity and healed their sick.

15 Toward evening the disciples approached him. “We’re out in the country and it’s getting late. Dismiss the people so they can go to the villages and get some supper.”

16 But Jesus said, “There is no need to dismiss them. You give them supper.”

17 “All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish,” they said.

18-21 Jesus said, “Bring them here.” Then he had the people sit on the grass. He took the five loaves and two fish, lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to the disciples. The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. They all ate their fill. They gathered twelve baskets of leftovers. About five thousand were fed.

Did you notice how that went? The disciples were expecting Jesus to come up with the meal. Jesus told them to figure something out. They came up with five loaves and two fish, and lunch was served on the lawn. So Jesus sourced the miracle, and the crowd sourced the resource.

What resource are you holding onto that would be better shared with the crowd? Where can you offer your expertise, your ideas, or your opinions in a way that constructively benefits others? Where is God calling you to take the Good News out into the public square and re-form the people?

Whatever our resources may be, God calls us to break our loaves and fish out of our lunch pails and offer them to the world. And whenever you have served the least of these with whatever you have, you have served the Lord. And don’t forget to pick up the leftovers!

Crowd-Saving at the Lifeguard Competition by Karen Warlitner

Abundance

Posted on by Betsy

One of the interesting things about life is negotiating the personalities of individual members in a group. In families, offices, institutions, and churches, people fall into different and sometimes opposing categories when it comes to taking a risk. Some are optimists, some are pessimists, some are risk-takers, others have a serious aversion to taking chances, some are followers, and some are leaders. If you ever want to see this in action, attend your church’s Finance Committee meeting. As the saying goes, “it takes all kinds.”

To put it another way, some are Tiggers and some are Eeyores. Tiggers see abundance. Eeyores see scarcity. One’s ability to take risks is firmly grounded in which one you are.

I fall into the risk-taking, glass always full, Pollyanna-lives-in-my-soul category, so I am always grateful to be balanced by the risk-averse folks who keep us in line and counsel caution. But sometimes God’s plan involves taking great leaps of faith.

I love the interplay between Jesus the risk-taker and the disciples, who are seriously risk-averse in this well-known story about the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

Matthew 13 (Contemporary English Version)

13 After Jesus heard about John, he crossed Lake Galilee to go to some place where he could be alone. But the crowds found out and followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus got out of the boat, he saw the large crowd. He felt sorry for them and healed everyone who was sick.

Jesus saw the sick and felt sorry for them. What a beautiful statement of who Jesus is. He had tried to get away from the hustle and bustle of Messiah-life, and was probably feeling very burned out. I can relate, and I bet you can, too. If we all had a chance right now to get away to a place by the lake to just rest, I bet we would cherish that. But Jesus, ever mindful of people’s needs, tended to the large crowd.

15 That evening the disciples came to Jesus and said, “This place is like a desert, and it is already late. Let the crowds leave, so they can go to the villages and buy some food.”

16 Jesus replied, “They don’t have to leave. Why don’t you give them something to eat?”

Here is the risk-taker at work. He tells the disciples that the people don’t have to leave because the disciples can give them something to eat. The Eeyores in the group looked at each other and likely thought the same thing: “W-W-With what??”

Jesus was teaching them to appreciate what they had and realize that everything we have is subject to multiplication. The trick is to offer it to the One who will multiply it for our good.

17 But they said, “We have only five small loaves of bread and two fish.” 18 Jesus asked his disciples to bring the food to him, 19 and he told the crowd to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and the two fish. He looked up toward heaven and blessed the food. Then he broke the bread and handed it to his disciples, and they gave it to the people.

In the Savior’s hands, the meager resources are offered to heaven and blessed. They provided so much food that there is an abundance of twelve large baskets of leftovers. God is never a God of scarcity, but always a God of abundance.

20 After everyone had eaten all they wanted, Jesus’ disciples picked up twelve large baskets of leftovers.

21 There were about five thousand men who ate, not counting the women and children.

The question for us today is, where are YOU offering your resources? Don’t be fooled. Just as the Lord can multiply what you offer him, so too can the Enemy. If all you offer is hate, violence, anger, selfishness, and vitriol, you can be sure the Enemy will take that and multiply it in a hurry.

But when you offer love, compassion, prayer, generosity, and peace, heaven will bless and multiply that in great abundance.

The choice is yours. What’s in your basket?

God’s Daily Abundance by Michelle Robertson