You’re in the check out line of the grocery store and the headlines of the National Inquirer jump out, “Five loaves of bread and two fish feed five thousand people in the wilderness!”
Under the headline you can see the subtitle, “Experts disagree: is it just a metaphor for sharing or did something really happen?”
Frequently I have heard that the story of the feeding of the five thousand was really about Jesus convincing everyone to share. The miracle is that Jesus got people to share, not that Jesus did something supernatural defying the laws of physics.
It is sort of the New Testament version of the old European folk tale of Stone Soup.
A hungry man said he would make soup from a stone and then he kept saying all it needs now is some salt, or some vegetables, or onions, or some meat. All these things were then provided by the curious crowd, and suddenly there was soup enough for all to eat and be satisfied.
There is something satisfying and safe about looking at it like that. It is rational, it fits into our everyday experience, it doesn’t require believing in something unusual, and it still asks something of us, that we share. It is clever. It fits into the Golden Rule, that we do unto others as we would like to be done unto us. It makes for a better world.
Much of mainline Protestant Christianity fits into this world view, in fact it has even been coined with the phrase as being “Golden Rule Christianity”. A religion that doesn’t involve believing in much. The general expectation is that we just want to be better people, and Jesus shows us how to share, it fits into our middle class value system of moderation and civic responsibility.
Most of us think like that at some point, but ultimately it doesn’t satisfy. It is kind of like going to a very fine restaurant with really tasty food, but afterwards you have to go get some supper, because they didn’t serve enough to satisfy.
Golden Rule Christianity is kind of like that, it is tasty, but ultimately it doesn’t satisfy, it points us toward something more.
I used to get all worked up when the feeding of the five thousand was reduced to the moral of the story being that we should share, when it’s really about Jesus being the One who provides Manna in the wilderness, the Almighty Lord.
Now I don’t mind so much, because sharing is part of the story, and the golden rule is from the mouth of God.
I now know that the sharing points us toward something greater – it points toward Jesus as the Shepherd of God’s people, God Incarnate, providing the bread of angels for mortals, and in seeing this we see something integral about who God is and who we are as God’s people.
It is a story of sharing. It is also a story about the unique person of Jesus. But, the real moral of the story is about what happens when we meet God.
We offer up the scarcity of our lives, so little, only five loaves and two fish or just a handful of unleavened bread, a small amount of wine, and it is taken, blessed, broken and given back to us.
When we exercise our God given freedom, no matter how little it is, God blesses it. God is not some codependent Shepherd with a carefully plotted out map for our lives.
We can do whatever we want, as long as it is within the moral law and God will bless our exercise of freedom. Our freedom is there to used. That is where God finds pleasure.
So often when we offer up our little bit of freedom, our little bit of sharing, we think we have offered up all that we are, hoping God will tell us what to do from now on, taking care of us so we don’t have to think for ourselves anymore; all we have to do now is obey.
Then we are disappointed, God takes our offering, blesses it, breaks it and then gives it back and says, “You will become so much more. Surprise me! Be free, then you will know me as I am.”
The real miracle is that God wants us to be free, and when we share out of that freedom, we find that we share in the life of God.
It is God who is broken, blessed and shared. We feed upon God that we may become like God.
“He took bread and when he had given thanks to you, he broke it, and gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat: this is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me.”
“He took the cup of wine; and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and said, “Drink this all of you: This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.”
Feed on him.