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“Fairy tales are more than true – not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― Neil Gaiman[1]
In today’s scripture reading, maybe the hunger of the crowd of people was the dragon. And Jesus the night in shining armor that slayed it.
Did Jesus really feed oodles of people with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish?
I don’t know.
But I do know that God has brought me through a lot of needy situations that I thought were unsolvable.
Like the time we came up short with rent. This was back in the 80’s when there was no Cashapp or Zelle or Paypal. I could call my parents and ask for money, but long-distance calls were more than we could afford (back then they cost way more than local calls) and even if they sent money, it would take a week to get to me. We were freaking out. It’s possible our church might have helped but we were nowhere near humble or brave enough to ask them. So we prayed together, and then I called the landlord and confessed. We don’t have rent. She said, “Ok. What do you have? We’ll work out how to handle the rest.” Her answer was a miracle. We never dreamed there was any other answer but pay now or get out.
The disciples didn’t see any other answer either. After being with that crowd all day while Jesus healed people, they were probably too tired and hungry to even think. So they gave the obvious answer: “Let’s send them into the villages to get food for themselves.”
Jesus says, “Nah, bro. You feed them. Whadya got?”
Five loaves of bread and two fish.
And just in case we think they made it work because everybody only got a tiny piece, it says that everybody had enough AND there were leftovers.
So…I figure those five loaves were like the giant kind they use to make giant sub sandwiches (Did you know you can order a 27-foot sandwich from Subway? [2]), and the fish must have been 15-foot bluefin tuna…or something like that. But even then, five 27-foot subs, according to Subway’s catering menu, would still only feed about 800 people.
Last Sunday, we were asking, ”What do you need?” Can you imagine the answer? “I need 10,000 sub sandwiches and a whole bunch of 15-foot bluefin tuna.”
What we really need to know is that Jesus doesn’t send them away to fend for themselves. It must have been tempting. Jesus had just heard that his cousin John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod. He’d gone out into the wilderness for some time of prayer and grieving. But the people followed him. Instead of saying, “Sorry, I can’t do this now,” he had compassion on them. I wonder if he himself was thinking “I don’t have enough in me to do this right now.” But he does because God’s love is filling him. Maybe that’s the bigger miracle – that in those rough moments when we don’t think we can make it through, we keep going and trust that God is real and Jesus really loves us, and there are real people in this world who will show us that kind of unconditional grace-filled love.
Sometimes that’s especially hard to do if your experience in life is that people aren’t all that loving and God doesn’t seem to care even if he does hear your cries.
So sometimes the miracle is being able to keep walking forward when life is like that.
Sometimes the miracle of God’s grace is that we made it through a day we didn’t think we could face.
Sometimes the miracle is that someone is loving and generous with us when we didn’t expect it.
Did you know that other than the resurrection this is the only miracle that is recorded in all four of the gospels?[4]
Why is this miracle the one that all four writers made sure to tell? Because it shows us something important about the nature of God, our generous, faithful, loving God: He longs to bless us.[5] The more we are participants in that blessing, by showing up, by trusting, by offering what little we can, the more we are blessed.
Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. Deuteronomy 15:10
There’s an old joke about a person who was desperate for money and praying so hard to win the lottery. God says, “Help me out. Buy a ticket.” Trust God enough to take the first step.
Whoever had those five loaves and two fish could have said, “No, I only have enough for myself.” But because they were willing to entrust it to Jesus, everyone there got to eat.
They said yes.
There’s a movie with Jim Carrey called Yes Man (2008). He is inspired by a self-help guru to stop saying no to everything and instead say yes. Saying yes takes him on all kinds of crazy adventures. Saying yes takes him out of the rut he was in, and way out of his comfort zone.
A more recent movie applies a similar concept but to a single day. In Yes Day (2021) a family says yes to all that the kids want to do and though they end up with a big mess, they also break out of their family routine and renew their relationships.
Some families do yes days for birthdays. Susie Ball recently had a yes day. She’s a girl after my own heart – on her yes day, she bought books!
What have you said yes to recently?
Sometimes saying yes is fun and sometimes it’s very hard. If you were on that field that day, standing with Jesus among the disciples, looking out at the hungry crowd, what would your response have been?
Like the disciples, we tend to underestimate our resources and abilities. We tend to forget that we aren’t working alone, we’re working with God. We tend to underestimate our own blessings. The disciples said, “All we have are these loaves and fish.” They hardly thought they had enough to even mention.
They underestimate Jesus.
I love that there was nothing that needed to be done to receive this grace. The people sit down and open their hands and are fed. Not enough becomes more than enough. Gracious plenty.
When we begin to allow ourselves to trust God and relax into God’s ever-present abundance of grace, our hearts slowly soften, our clenched jaws loosen, our breathing slows, our fear recedes, and we are fed.
To us what we have may not look like nearly enough. But Jesus says, “Let me show you how much there really is—more than enough to go around, an abundance, oodles.
What would it feel like to relax into a trust that what we have, what we are, is enough?
What would you do if you weren’t afraid of running out?[8]
[1] Often attributed to GK Chesterton https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/341193-fairy-tales-do-not-tell-children-the-dragons-exist-children but the actual quote is a bit different: https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/04/chesterton-on-fairy-tales-and-evil Neil Gaiman paraphrased.
[2] https://subway-menu-prices.info/subway-catering-menu/
[3] Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash
[4] Douglas R. A. Hare, Interpretation: Matthew (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993)
[5] Isaiah 30:18
[6] By http://www.impawards.com/2008/yes_man.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18499039
[7] Photo by Diana Mialik on Unsplash
[8] Sarah Wiles, “Gracious Plenty,” Word From Below email, August 4, 2023
United Presbyterian Church 