Bread for the World

*********LONG BLOG ALERT—SORRY EVERYBODY*******
(I hope it’s worth it….)

Charles Swindoll (not that you know who that is) tells a funny story about a nine-year-old named Danny who came bursting out of Sunday school like a crazy monkey. His eyes were darting in every direction as he tried to locate either mom or dad. Finally, after a quick search, he grabbed his Dad by the leg and yelled, “Man, that story of Moses and all those people crossing the Red Sea was great!” His father looked down, smiled, and asked the boy to tell him about it.

“Well, the Israelites got out of Egypt, but Pharaoh and his army chased after them. So the Jews ran as fast as they could until they got to the Red Sea. The Egyptian Army was gettin’ closer and closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie and told the Israeli Air Force to bomb the Egyptians. While that was happening, the Israeli Navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross over. They made it!

By now the father was shocked and asked,”Is THAT the way they taught you the story?”

Well, no, not really,” Danny confessed, “but if I told you the way they told it to us, you’d never believe it.”

We’re modern people, and we don’t like to believe in miracles. We want to have a rational explanation for everything. In many ways, science has become our religion. Science does what religion used to do. Science explains how the universe came to be, how the earth was created, how to have a good harvest, even how to control the weather, although we don’t seem to be too good at that one yet apparently. Still, we like to think we are in control. We like to be in control. But then, every now and then, something like Katrina, or the earthquake we had here last week comes along and reminds you you’re not in control at all. I think that’s good for us, that little reminder.

There is something sort of irrational about this rationality. And what I mean by this is that some 98% of the American population believes in some kind of God. They may not have any specific religion, but they believe there’s some intelligent spirit behind life, the universe, and everything (besides 42). Once you accept the existence of a supernatural something, then anything is possible. It shouldn’t be so hard to believe in miracles. By simple logic, once any miracle of any kind happens, then any miracle could happen. There is no reason to believe that any supernatural happening is more possible than any other.

Hence, if you believe that someone created the earth, then that same someone could create an earthworm just as easily. I think if you can make a wormhole, you can make a worm. Just because you don’t SEE something happen, doesn’t mean it doesn’t. I don’t see subatomic particles moving around, but I know they are, or at least, I believe they are. I believe it because people who have studied sub-atomic particles have done the proper experimentation and tell me so. But we have no proof of it, other than the data supplied from the personal experiences of the people who study subatomic particles.

Moreover, it would seem to me, if the physicists are correct and that there is a separate universe for each possible eventual event and duality, then if there is a universe with no God, there must be a universe with a God. And if any universe holds the possibility of having a God, then all Universes have the possibility of having a God. So to me, once you accept the possibility of God, you accept the possibility of miracles. I suspect miracles happen all the time; we just don’t recognize them. Sometimes they happen when nobody is looking. Sometimes people are looking, but they prefer not to recognize the miracle.

There is a woman with whom I used to work who, although a very nice lady, had some very mistaken views on racism and immigration. She maintained that there really was no racism anymore. And when you showed her hard data from reliable sources that would seem to contradict her opinion on racism, she would dismiss it. She we say, “Oh, people can say anything.” She just refused to believe that anybody discriminated against anyone because of color anymore. Some people don’t want to believe in miracles because if miracles were to happen, it would mean that there is definitely some kind of God, and that would mean that we are not in control. Many people, even religious people, refuse to believe in this miracle:

When Jesus heard about the death of John the Baptist, he went off in a boat to a desolate, deserted place by himself. The crowds heard about this and went of on foot from their towns to follow him. When he got out of the boat and saw the huge crowds, Jesus felt sorry for them, and began to take care of their sick. When night fell, his students came to him and said, “Look, this place is out in the middle of nowhere. Send these people off so they can go to the market in the village and buy something to eat.”

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

“But we haven’t got anything here except for these two loaves of bread and these two fish.”

“Give those to me,” Jesus said, “And have the people sit down on the grass.”

So Jesus took the five loaves and two fish and, looking up to the sky, said the blessing. Then he broke the bread and gave it to his students and had them pass the bread out among the crowds. Everybody ate their fill and when they were done there were twelve wicker baskets of food left over. There were five thousand men there, not counting the women and small children. (Matthew, Chapter 14, verses 15-21, Big Daddy translation)

Of course, to any skeptic, the idea of feeding some twelve to fourteen thousand people with five loaves and two fish is simply ridiculous. That’s just not possible. Of course, some skeptics deny that Jesus even existed (although there is ample historical proof that he did). Some skeptics would say that something like this happened, but that there is a logical explanation. Even many people, even clerics, who believe in Jesus, that he was the messiah and Son of God, say there is a rational, logical explanation. And some religious people will say the story never happened at all. That it is simply a story designed to teach a truth about God, and our relationship with God.

Even as a story, it has a lot to teach about humankind’s relationship with God and one another. In the story, Jesus has gone off by himself because his cousin, John the Baptist, has just been put to death by Herod. Jesus was grieving. So he went off in a boat by himself to the north side of the Sea of Galilee to be alone in his sorrow. But the people find out where he was and left to go and find him. They had heard of him and wanted to hear what he had to say. Jesus had a reputation by this time. The people came to listen to his teachings, or because they thought he could help them. And when Jesus saw them, he set aside his own sorrow, feeling compassion for the crowd, and began to attend to their sick. The bible never actually says he miraculously healed them. The Greek word here that is usually translated as “cure” actually means “to attend to” and is the root for our English word, “therapy”.

These people Jesus helped because they showed faith. They wanted to be closer to God, and believed that Jesus had the way to do this, so they went on foot to find him. That takes faith, if not necessarily in Jesus, in that there is a God to find. So the story tells us that those who seek for God will be rewarded with comfort and wisdom. And Jesus himself becomes the model to tell us that when confronted with those in need, we must set aside our own sorrows and attend to them, give them what they need.

And then, when night falls, those twelve guys who follow Jesus around all the time tell him to send the people off to get themselves food because it’s getting late. And Jesus tells them the ultimate message of God, “You feed them.” We, as a species, have a great history of going to some kind of God and asking that God to make everything okay. We want God to end hunger, to bring peace, and prosperity. And God tells us here, through Jesus, “You fix things.” It isn’t God’s job to make the world work. It’s our job. We give our children life; we don’t live it for them. We give them opportunities; it’s their job to make the most of them. It is a simple truth (I got it from the Internet) that there is enough food in the world to sustain at least another billion people in the world, and yet there is starvation. We could feed the world, if we wanted to. God is saying that we have all we need; it’s up to us to use it the right way.

And the disciples reacted the same way we do when we hear this message. They asked, “What do we feed them with? We only have these two fish and these five loaves of bread.” And then Jesus tells them to give him the food and, saying a few words to the sky, he takes the food, gives it back to them, and suddenly they have enough to feed everybody, with plenty of food left over. This shows us that if we give what we have to God and then follow His directions, God will take our efforts and multiply them to supply all we need. Like that mustard seed in the famous parable, God takes that smallest of all seeds and grows a huge tree that provides a great deal of shade. God will take our small token of faith and take care of the needs of the world. And God will do more than just provide. S/He will provide in ample abundance.

It is significant that in the first century, it was the belief that the leftover crumbs of a meal contained demons. So when Jesus commanded that the leftovers be saved in baskets (twelve, one for each gate to the city of heaven, one for each tribe of Israel, one for each apostle), he is showing no fear in the face of devil, as if to say that evil has no power over him, or any of them. In other words, trust in God and there is no need to fear evil, or anything, really.

So, as you can see, the story, even if it is only a story and nothing more, contains a lot of teaching about humankind’s relationship with God and about how we should treat one another. All of this would be a basic truth, even if the story never happened at all. Some Christians will say the story is basically true, but no supernatural miracle occurred. According to one version of the story, in the gospel of Mark, the fish and bread are provided by a small boy.

Once the crowd sees the generosity of the lad, all those people who brought food with them began to share that food with everyone else, and so everybody was fed. That also teaches a valuable lesson for us. Jesus uses an act of generosity to create a feeling of community. Through a belief in God and right, people saw that if they shared what resources they had with one another, everyone could be fed and nobody need be hungry. That’s a pretty good lesson. Some might even say that getting that many people to be sharing is a miracle in its own right. And this is a good, modernist explanation for the story.

Assuming that Jesus existed (for which, as I say, there is ample evidence), I have no problem believing the story is factual. This is the only story, other than the crucifixion and resurrection, which exists in each of the gospels in pretty much the same way. This version was from Matthew, Chapter 14. But it exists in Mark (chapter 6), Luke (chapter 9), and John (chapter 6). The Sermon on the Mount is only in two of the gospels. This is in all four. If that many people say something happened, it probably happened. Did a miracle happen? It doesn’t really matter. The truth is the same, one way or the other. It doesn’t even matter if the story is just a story. But I think it really happened. And I think it really was a miracle, too. Because, if it did happen, and if it was a miracle, then that proves yet another attribute of God that I think if we could all really believe, we would be a lot happier.

Because if it really did happen, that would mean that God can take our little efforts, and magnify them so that we can do amazing things. Dorothy Day, who had started a newspaper to take up the cause of the poor, had very little in the way of finances. But her persuasive friend Pete Maurin had convinced her that God had sent him to help her in this work, and that whatever she had would be sufficient. Dorothy’s newspaper staff often were upset by her taking money for their rent or for paper and supplies and spending that needed money for food for the homeless people, who, in the eyes of the staff, were always cluttering up the apartment where they worked. Several times, when it looked as if they would not have the funds to go on because Dorothy had spent the money on the poor, a person would turn up to offer them a gift. It was always just enough to meet the current crisis. Suppose, as long as we have faith, that God will always provide exactly what we need when we need it. If that were true, then you could let go of every fear. How liberating that would be. No fears. No anxieties.

But the kid in the story, the one who gives his fish and bread, doesn’t ask for it to be multiplied for himself. He doesn’t ask for it to be multiplied at all. He just gives it away. He takes what little he has, and gives it away, not expecting it to feed the whole crowd. And then God takes that and multiplies it and it feeds the multitudes. So you don’t have to change the world. You just have to do what you can do, with no expectations of anything. Just know that whatever kindness you do is magnified and makes the world better. It’s sort of like a cosmic www.hungersite.com. You just click on the button and somewhere the world is a little better.

Moreover, the story shows that we have to do something. So many people feel that somehow God is absent from the world, that we’re alone. But here God shows that we have to do something to make it all work. The miracles require us. God doesn’t just come down and feed everybody. The truth is, if God did just come down and feed everybody, it would make a much better religious story. Any real God would do that. Zeus would do that. Odin would do that. Those dudes were powerful. If I were going to make up a God, I’d make that God more powerful. Our God says that we can have all we need by not being selfish and by sharing what we have. And this story endures because people recognize the simple truth of that. Deep down, we know we can save the world.

So I believe in the story because it makes a lot of sense to me. It is an important enough story that every early Christian teacher believed that it needed to be told. Whether or not the story is true, it still contains truth. But since I do believe that there is a God, I have no problem believing that a supernatural something happened. Whether or not God manipulated matter or morality, a miracle occurred. Share a little, and God makes it a lot. I guess that means we’re sort of in control after all. So share the love and save the world.