Proper 12B, 2024 II Kings 4:42-44; Ps. 145:10-19; Eph. 3:14-21; John 6:1-21 1
Last week in the Gospel Jesus was desperate to give himself and his disciples some rest and he was unsuccessful. And this week we find “a large crowd kept following him”. So he goes up on a mountain and the crowd finds them there. And, apparently, on seeing their approach, his first thought is that they need to feed the people. I know in China they don’t do a head count-they count mouths. So, I guess Jesus was looking at all the hungry mouths ascending the mountain.
Raj Nadella who teaches New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia focuses on the July readings and their call for us to imagine something different from wealth disparity as we experience here in the United States. He suggests that “we are called to be God’s prophets and seers-to see the possibilities of God where others cannot. The church’s task is to challenge the empire’s narratives about what is possible…and empower communities to embrace it.”
So John places the feeding of the 5000 in a different spot in the Jesus ministry story-just before Passover when the community is celebrating deliverance from slavery. Perhaps, as Associate Professor Nadella suggests, political liberation “means little if it does not ensure structures and practices that care for the needy.” Feeding large groups with what seems to be limited resources is a shift in worldview. There is the protest of scarcity followed by the insistence that all will be fed. Jesus was again talking about abundance. Whether Jesus performed some kind of divine intervention to increase the food or if the action was more about empowering people to look at the person sitting next to them and realize it was each of their responsibilities to share what they had with the other and see those present not as threats but neighbors. To recognize the ethical responsibility to feed those they could.
The people imagined plenty in the context of extreme lack. Prophetic imagination. How can our community organize itself around a vision of abundance? How can we manifest a similar miracle today? The Roman Empire needed a lot of food to feed the citizens of Rome-to fuel its army. Caesar and the Roman Senate mandated how much of the fish from the lake went to the empire, how much grain went to the empire, how much wine went to Rome, and how much of a person’s income went to Caesar. People were struggling to feed themselves and their children. “Empire has a proclivity to promote an economy of scarcity even as it thrives at the expense of many.
Elisha and Jesus encourage people to embrace an ethic of compassion to ensure the welfare for all with whatever is available. Can the church follow this model to ensure our ideas of democracy translate into fresh policies that deliver economic justice for all?” So, I ask the questions again: How can our community organize itself around a vision of abundance? How can we manifest a similar miracle today?
I’m certainly thinking about the people who have been living on the streets in Aberdeen well, living rough in many places in our county. And, I have been appalled at the gleefulness of some that the city no longer has any responsibility to take care of them. It is a view that comes from scarcity-fear-and disgust. And, those at the city who wanted to step up and find some kind of solution no longer feel obligated. And, yet, there are many people who still have a heart to care for others. Who are willing to reach into their own pockets and provide what people need.
I met such a person at the training I went to last week. She shared some naloxone with me as I was out. I gave her my phone number so she can contact me when she goes out to meet with people. She has this prophetic imagination-and she will continue to help people and speak to those in power. She looks at her limited resources and says, “I can share.” She looks at those on the streets and says, “This is my family-they once helped me survive and now it is my turn to help them.” I don’t know what her beliefs are but anyone who acts from abundance and sees those who are often invisible to others, who looks when others turn away-she is my kind of people-she belongs to my clan.
I was also invited to attend a memorial and burial service for the cremains of folks who have been left on the shelf with no one claiming them. I will be going on Wednesday afternoon. Even though I have a long list of tasks, I am looking at my time from a worldview of abundance. I’m also hoping there is someone in our sister church’s recovery group who would like to correspond with a man who is incarcerated and hoping to follow his path of sobriety. So I will be asking for a volunteer to do that, too. I’m hoping we can support this person during his incarceration. So I ask again, “How can we organize ourselves around a worldview of abundance?”