B, Post Pentecost 10 Proper 12 - John 6:4-14 "A Poor Person’s Provision"

John 6:4–14 (ESV)  Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.  Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”  He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.  Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.”  One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,  “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”  Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.  Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.  And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.”  So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.  When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

When parents pack lunches for their children, there’s an expectation that they actually eat their lunch.

How many times the kids have come home from school for a parent to find their lunch still in their lunchbox!  Or worse, a deceased pulped sandwich cocooned in gladwrap pulled from the pants pocket in the laundry!

Sometime the loot of lunchboxes is traded in the school yard.  I’ll give you this, if I can have that!  Much to the lament of families who lovingly pack lunch only to have the kids swap it for something they desire in the other kid’s lunchbox.  Familiarity breeds contempt and often the grass seems greener over the fence, in this case the loot looks like it’ll taste better from the other person’s lunchbox.  A reoccurring packet of potato chips swapped with a familiar piece of cake, a win for both parties who are sick of having the same lunch every day.  A vegemite sandwich traded for a cold piece of pizza, who’d a thought this was a fair trade!  But everyone walks back into the classroom with contented tummies!

A small boy with five barley loaves and two fish.  Who wants to trade?  No one!  Nobody has anything to trade!  We all remember the kids who come to school with nothing; with nothing to offer, but in need of a feed! 

But barley loaves were not much of an offering, and those who needed a feed, were five thousand.  This is a physical impossibility.  But this is a test!  Who was the provider for the people who had gathered?

Barley bread is the bread of a poor person, like the kid whose daily bread was a sandwich with no butter but only tomato sauce!  But at least it was something!  There were kids who came with nothing and coveted even a tomato sauce sanger.  But all our lunches made us seem like we were poor when some kids bought their lunch every day.  Like paupers, we all coveted their lunch when they returned from the tuckshop with pies, hotdogs, sausage rolls, custard and apple slices, chocolate milk and ice-creams!

Jesus takes the barley loaves and the two fish and divides them amongst the five thousand.  We have to remember here that Jesus has put aside his divinity!  So, as you or I would take the food and give thanks for it, he takes the bread and fish and prays, trusting not in his own powers, but rather those of the Holy Spirit, and God the Father in heaven.  Then he distributes it to five thousand men!  We can expect there to be more there than just men, so in all reality more than five  thousand were present. 

Feeding five thousand plus with five loaves and two fish, that seems impossible!  How could this man Jesus do this?  Those who saw the sign saw Jesus akin to the prophets who had long since appeared in a bygone era when God worked wonders through them!   

The physical sign Jesus performed making something from next to nothing, a poor boy’s provision, is miraculous to say the least.  It’s unexplainable like the jar of oil and flour that Elijah declared to the widow of Zarephath would not become empty.

There’s a temptation not to believe it, because the desire to know is just unknown.  However, what is happening here in God’s word is his desire to turn us from the sign God the Father performed through Jesus to Jesus himself!

Those who witnessed the event saw Jesus as a powerful prophet, they did not see him as the Son of God, and why should they?  They didn’t see the sign as coming from Jesus’ faithfulness in the weakness of his humanity but from his extraordinary power. 

Therefore, Jesus withdrew from them because he knew they would seek to force him to be their king. Jesus was to be enthroned as king, but not by their will or way!  He would become king in his way, under the will of God the Father, through the way of the cross!

Those of the five thousand wanted to make him king because they saw the power of the impossible sign perform, rather than the weakness in which Jesus performed the powerful sign.  It was not by his power that he broke the bread, but by his faithful submission to the power of God the Father to work through the weakness and weariness of his humanity. 

It was Jesus’ faithfulness, in his weakness, allowing God to work the miracle on a poor boy’s meagre lunch of barley bread and fish.

The distribution was far from insufficient.  Five loaves and two fish divided by five thousand is a miniscule amount.  Yet everyone ate their fill, as much as they wanted!  The size of the crowd, so many people, so little food!  A poor person’s provision is miraculously populated to provide for the five thousand plus people who came with nothing!  And nothing was left to waste!  Twelve baskets of leftover bread pieces are collected!  The poor boy’s barley bread was just as precious after the miracle as it was before.  Yet the math doesn’t add up, it doesn’t make sense.

Imagine what the boy’s mother said to him when he arrived home carrying more than what he was sent!  It sounds like a whopper of a tale to tell his mother, that he shared his lunch with five thousand people and these are the leftovers.  It does sound like the fantasies of a poor boy’s imagination!

But it wasn’t a fantasy!  It was the time of the Passover feast.  In the other Gospel records Jesus has sought to find a desolate place to rest with his disciples.  They had returned after being sent out, commanded to preach the gospel, heal the sick and cast out demons.  Yet, Jesus doesn’t pass over the people’s neediness! 

Nothingness or poverty in the face of the Passover stands out as the overwhelming theme here at the feeding of the five thousand.  The crowd have nothing to eat, the disciples have nothing to eat, having gone out to do the work of God with nothing but the bare essentials.  The boy has nothing but five loaves of barley bread, unleavened flat bread most likely made without any raising agent, and two fish.  And Jesus who has nothing to give, nothing except his faithfulness to God and the crowd!

Later on, Jesus says to his disciples, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”  (John 6:63 ESV)

It was Jesus’ nothingness in which the power of the Holy Spirit worked in him.  Jesus had put aside his divine miraculous ability as the Son of God, making the feeding of the five thousand even more incredible!  Perhaps, even more unbelievable! 

In his weakness as a human, in his submission as the Son of Man, he takes from our Father, his Father, and gives to us.  Jesus’ word is God’s word, and it faithfully gives spirit and life to all who are poor!

Our flesh is no help!  But the weakness of Jesus’ flesh, crucified and raised from the dead, is powerful.  Like children trading lunch in the playground, he takes our poverty and gives us the Holy Spirit-filled richness of his Father’s food of life!  Jesus’ word is spirit and life!  Why wouldn’t you want to trade the poverty of your spirit and life for that!  Amen.

Let us pray.  Heavenly Father thank you that Jesus has taken what we desire and deserve and gives us what he desires and deserves.  Send you Holy Spirit every day so we do not become dissatisfied with Jesus’ lunch of eternal life and desire the desserts of death.  Help us to clearly see our poverty and need, so we freely feed on the life-giving power of the resurrected Son of God’s word, body, and blood.  Amen.