Feeding
5000 - understanding St John
S
Cooking for 5,000 must be a bit of a nightmare. Especially if you can only use what people have got in their packed lunch! It’s a bit of one of those bring and share barbecues when you end up with 100 rather nasty burgers, 200 chicken wings, a large back of prawn cocktail crisps and 25 bottles of Bulgarian red wine. But of course the feeding of the five thousand wasn’t like that. There was hardly any food at all – just five loaves and two fish. At least it keeps the menu simple!
When I was a teenager it was all the rage to explain how this could have happened. 5000 people all sitting on a hill side listening to Jesus speak. He speaks well and the hours pass. People begin to notice that their stomachs are rumbling, but they don’t want to open their packed lunches because thtey know that all the people around will want a bit of mum’s flaky pastry – you know that feeling – I brought a cheese sandwich and a few strawberries because I like cheese sandwiches and strawberries – what I don’t want to have to do is share them so that I end up with half a cheese sandwich, just a couple of my own straw berries, a mouldy banana – which I don’t like anyway – and potted meat bap. So people sat on their packed lunches, until eventually some sweet boy said – oh go on, I’ll share, and gradually everybody opened up and shared anyway and, of course, there was too much food for everyone in the end, as there always is in Bring and Share suppers. The miracle of the story not being turning five loaves and two fishes into food for 5000, but making 5000 rather mean human beings share what they have – and some would say that that is a much harder miracle – and we still need it!
Now all of that’s very well – and who knows what really happened on that sunny day up on the hillside overlooking the Sea of Galilee – but St John who is the master of all hidden meanings has a lot more to say than just “share your packed lunch you mean load of old so and sos”! St John knocks spots of Dan Brown and the Priory of Sion when it comes to cryptic clues – as, as you would expect, it’s all in the words.
People followed Jesus up the hill not because they thought he was a nice man or because he was interesting entertainment for a Sabbath afternoon, but because they saw the signs that he was doing. For “saw the signs” read ‘understood the signs’. – and that’s code for St John saying to us “This is not a normal story – watch out – everything this man Jesus does – including this story – is full of signs if you have eyes to see and brains to understand. So what are they?
First of all Jesus went up a mountain? Why ‘up a mountain’? well, because it’s pleasant and breezy on a hot summer’s day going up a mountain – you might say. But there’s another reasonl – mountains - for bible reading Jews, equal mount Sinai. The place where God gave Moses the 10 commandments. And what were the people doing when Moses went up the mountain? They were wandering through the desert having escaped from being slaves in Egypt – and, if you can remember the story, they were hungry and had no food, and God miraculously sent them Manna to eat – funny wafer like bread stuff.
So what are the signs we have in this story – Jesus, the new prophet – goes up a mountain just like Moses – we then, just in case we haven’t got it St John makes the Exodus connection clear – we are told that the Passover was near – not just near in time – a few weeks off – but, as it were, theologically near! Quite clever that really! And what is Jesus going to do? Surprise, surprise, He will feed them with bread – new manna! Just like Moses. Every Jew worth the name would see the connection – and so can we.
So the first set of signs tell us that Jesus is the new law-giver – the prophet who is to come into the world. Jesus is giving a new Passover – a new freedom from slavery and a new family meal to remember it by – and Jesus is going to feed us as we journey on with him through the desert.
Let’s go on….. and to keep up this theme I want to skip a few lines. I’ll come back to them later. When the boy brings the loaves to Jesus what signs do we see then. If we were reading this passage in Greek – apart from the fact that we wouldn’t understand it! We would hear, leaping out at us at this point, not Jesus gave thanks – but Jesus Eucharisticised the bread! And when we heard the words “Gather up the fragments” we would hear something like “gather up the wafers” - because the early church called the small pieces of bread they got in Holy Communion “Fragments” Klasmata. – Now you can’t get clearer signs that that can you? Jesus did Eucharist and gathered up the Wafers.
Now all of this is strange, because St John’s Gospel never mentions the bread and the wine at the Last Supper. At the last supper Jesus doesn’t take bread and wine, bless, break and share it, instead he washes his disciples feet. So to make up for this, John writes all sorts of Eucharistic bits and pieces about Holy Communion in the rest of his Gospel – hidden in the passages, signs you could say - and he does it especially in Chapter six which is just full of it. It’s sort of a hidden story of Holy Communion that any Christian who went to Holy Communion would understand immediately, but any horrible heathen who just happened to be listening in would miss.
So what‘s John up to? First, he’s saying that Jesus is the new prophet and the founder of a new relationship with God. The Jews had the old Law given by Moses – Christians have a new religion – given by Jesus. Second he is saying that as we journey through the desert of life Jesus feeds us with manna from heaven – the bread of the Eucharist – and wel will be satisfied – the 5000 were not just full up and burping, they were satisfied – a more subtle word. The Eucharist is enough to satisfy us.
And then a fascinating little addition. When they gathered up the fragments – the communion bread – there were 12 baskets left over. Now why would there be twelve? S John would never just add a number like 12 without it meaning something really important – if ever there were a sign this is one! Well the twelve baskets aren’t for the 5000,– the five thousand on the hill side have eaten until they were satisfied – and so the 12 baskets can’t be for us, the new 5000, we have our Eucharist and we are satisified. So why would we want 12 baskets left over – what 12 people, or 12 groups of people, are there who have not come ‘up the mountain with Jesus’ as it were? Well you’ve probably guessed by now, the twelve baskets are probably for the twelve tribes of Israel. – in other words, for the Jews who - of course - are not Christians. It’s a sort of sign that Christianity is waiting to embrace the Jewish religion, and waiting to share our food with them. – I’m not quite sure what an orthodox Jew would make of that offer, but I think that’s the sign St John wants us to see.
But lets go on……. Or rather let’s go back, because there’s more hidden in this story.
One of the things preachers always say about this story is that Jesus is able to take a small gift and do wonderful things with it. The little boy – and the greek word means ‘really little boy’ it’s a double diminutive – little boyikins – is one of the least important people in the 5000 – just think how many men there must have been all thinking how very important men are – and then up stands a little boy, presumably pre-barmitzvah, although that’s an assumption, offering the very thing Jesus needs and to some extent saving the day. You can hear the rest saying – including the apostles “What are they among so many people” - Now, there’s a huge sermon here about the gifts our children bring to church and about how quick we are to patronise and undervalue – and the finger points both ways here, it’s clergy and laity alike, it’s the disciples who say it –– “What are they among so many people” - What have you to give to the ‘big service’?
And if we are quick to say it about what our children bring and do for God, we are also pretty quick to say it about what other people bring and do for God – quick to say “so and so doesn’t do whatever ministry it is very well do they? – whether it’s cleaning, cooking, serving, reading, praying, leading, singing, greeting, and everything else that people do in church” - a natural human instinct to criticise and diminish, What are they among so many – we say instead of looking at the gift and saying .. “that small gift is able to be used and blessed by God to feed – spiritually – 5000 people” - so lesson two from the feeding of the 5000 – don’t criticise other people’s offerings to God – the miracle is that Jesus can make 5 loaves and two fish feed 5000 if we let him! How often have I slaved over a sermon for a person to comment on a throw-away line in the notices!!
And point three – we say it of ourselves – oh, I couldn’t possibly do that – I couldn’t read or lead the intercessions, I couldn’t take on this or that responsibility. I’m not good enough, I’m not clever enough, I’m not Christian enough, I’m not committed enough, I’m not big enough - and so on. And no, you’re not – none of us are, - but Jesus is pretty amazing and he takes five loaves and two fishes offered by a little boy – pretty meagre fare by any standards – and he turns it into a copious meal for many – all we have to do then is have just a little bit of courage to step forward and offer it, and then be prepared to let Jesus do the rest, and work one of his miracles on us, which, I suppose, does demand just a little bit of trust.
But the next thing – and the last thing if you’re wondering how long I’m going on for, is a little detail that often gets overlooked in this story. Jesus needs the little boy and the five loaves and the two fish.
How often do we pray for something – God do this, make this to happen, stop this happening. We pray for wars to cease, we pray for the hungry to be fed, and we pray for the sick to get better.
But in this story Jesus doesn’t just magic up food out of thin air – he needs something from the 5000 – he needs something from us to work on.
We pray for wars to cease – God will do great things in answer to our prayers – but we need to offer a loaf and a fish – what are we doing to make wars ceasing. Have we written a letter, supported a peace project, have we even found out what is really going on?
We pray for the hungry to be fed, and God will do great things in answer to our prayers – but we need to offer something ourselves. Have we given something away, have we supported one of the hundreds of charities which feed the starving, have we even found out where the starving are?
We pray for the sick to be healed, and God will do great things in answer to our prayers – but what do we do in support, care, understanding the medical profession, backing research.
“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat” Jesus says to Philip – or whenever we’ve prayed for this or that “And what are we going to do about it” Jesus says to us! Five loaves and two fish was not very much, but it was just enough for Jesus to work on!
At the end of the story Jesus will not be made into a King – he will not be a mighty and benevolent provider who will sit on his throne, waive his arms and command that all is done for us his subjects, instead he will be a prophet who leads and inspires his people. And when times get rough, and the waves rise and the wind howls and we are terrified in the storms of life, he will come to us and say “It is I; do not be afraid.”
The Rev'd Paul
Kennington
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