Jesus feeding the 5000 – we know the story well. The crowd is huge, the hour is late, the disciples are worried. Send them away to get food, they tell Jesus. But he has other ideas. They scrounge up five loaves of bread and two fish. And from what amounts to a kid’s lunchbox, Jesus feeds every last one of the people with baskets left over.
It’s a miracle that all those people are being fed. But a much bigger miracle is happening here if we take the time to see it.
It’s Mark’s version that clues us in. Mark, the gospel that’s not keen on details, goes to great lengths to tell us about the kind of place where all of this is happening:
The disciples are invited to a deserted place.
They get in a boat and go to a deserted place.
They come to Jesus and say, send the people away; this is a deserted place.
And yet when Jesus gets ready to feed the thousands, he tells the disciples to get everyone to sit on the green grass.
Hmm…
So what’s going on here? It’s some Star Trek “beam me up, Scotty” thing where Jesus, the disciples, and the thousands are teleported out of a desert onto someone’s lush front lawn. Not likely.
No, the truth is that this is the same place – the location has not changed. What has changed dramatically is what is seen.
The disciples survey the scene and see scarcity. Jesus, on the other hand, sees abundance.
The disciples see a problem. Jesus sees an opportunity.
The disciples want to send the people away. Jesus wants them to stay right where they are.
The disciples see nowhere near enough to feed the people. Jesus sees more than enough.
The disciples look around and see an endless desert. Jesus sees green grass as far as the eye can see.
My colleague and fellow Presbyterian pastor Chris Henry once preached on this passage:
There are two ways of seeing the world. If we employ the lens of scarcity, we’ll always be in the desert. There will never be enough. And so, in fear and anxiety, we’ll guard what we have. We’ll convince ourselves that we cannot feed the hungry crowds because there isn’t enough to go around. But scarcity is a false god, a pernicious idol, a wicked lie that takes us away from what is holy and good.
Thank God there is another way, Chris continues. The lens of abundance tells the truth about who we are and who God is. We are blessed with more than enough to meet the needs of the hungry crowd. If this is how we see the world, then our call will inevitably be cast beyond what seems possible toward what only God can do.
That is the real miracle of this story – the miracle of what we choose to see.
That’s not to say there aren’t real instances of scarcity in the world. Inadequate affordable housing. Food deserts in our communities. People living paycheck to paycheck. Young people struggling with mental health. In the church, membership decline drops in giving, low Sunday worship attendance, and volunteer struggles are just a few.
This is why what we, as the church, choose to see is so important for ourselves and for the world we’re called to serve. When we choose to see the green grass Jesus sees, we meet scarcity head-on with our abundance. We feed hungry people. We do our part to make sure people are paid a fair wage. We tell our kids and youth over and over again that they are loved and that their lives matter. We push our communities to provide affordable housing.
And in our churches? Instead of being held captive to shrinking budgets, empty pews, aging buildings, and volunteer struggles, we lean on the Spirit to help us see opportunities we might otherwise miss. What other income streams might we utilize beyond member giving? How might those pews be filled for things other than Sunday morning worship? How might we more effectively tap into our membership’s passions and sense of call? And in what ways might we redefine or repurpose our facilities and campuses to benefit the larger community?
Stay tuned to a future blog post for some answers to these questions. In the meantime, ask yourself: what do you see when you view your church and community the way Jesus does? What might be the green grass in your neck of the woods? And how might you join in God’s great miracle of abundance?
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