A Homily on John 6:1-21
This morning I want us to try to imagine what it means to be full and satisfied, like the people in our gospel story today who were fed by Jesus. And I will start by imagining what being satisfied is NOT.
Have you ever finished a full dinner, settled into your nightly routine, maybe you read a little, or watched a little TV, and just when it is time to turn in for bed yourself, you think…I need something. Is it something to eat? Is it something to drink? I don’t know exactly what it is…I just need something. Maybe it is salt…so you eat a small bowl of chips and salsa. That’s a good start, you think, but it doesn’t really satisfy you. Maybe cold and sweet is the way to go. Maybe my body is craving calcium? You rummage in the freezer and find a little vanilla ice cream. It’s pretty good, but no, that’s not quite it either. Chocolate, you think, your body must need chocolate. Unfortunately, the only chocolate in the house is in the kids’ Halloween buckets from last October, but you are desperate, so you go there. You really go there. It’s been only 10 minutes, you’ve consumed a lot of calories in those 10 minutes, and you are no closer to contentment than you were when you started your late-night adventure in the kitchen. In fact, you feel pretty lousy when you get to bed. And you don’t sleep well, either.
What is going on here? Why can’t we just be satisfied?
I think this late-night kitchen phenomenon is probably a good illustration for what plays out in our society, at times, too. Think about fast-food chains that ask us if we would like to “super-size” whatever we have ordered. We reply, of course we do! Because a regular-sized portion would leaving us wanting for more. We call our first home a starter home and we trade it in for a better model as soon as we can float a higher mortgage payment. We pursue that promotion—which always comes with an increase in stress in our lives too—because it comes with a better paycheck. And then we can cash flow a bigger mortgage, a buy another, bigger and better house, and then, what? Go for another promotion?
It’s an endless cycle, really, isn’t it? Just like late-night foraging for food in the fridge.
I’m not immune to these cycles, these periods of discontent, these periods of looking for something more, whatever it may be. I wonder if you have gone through similar times in your lives too.
So that is why, as I think about living in a world that always seems to be searching for something else, today’s Gospel from John makes me pause. Because as much as it is a story about Jesus miraculously multiplying the bread and fish for the crowd, it is also a story about people who are looking for something, people who finally encounter Jesus, people who are so satisfied with the bounty of what they have been fed, that they have leftovers for others.
Let’s step back into this well-loved story for a minute. We are right to be amazed at how Jesus fed five thousand people with just five barley loaves and two fish. Just think about that: five thousand men and women and children, moving toward Jesus and his disciples, following Jesus because they have seen the signs he was doing for the sick. And Jesus knew all along what would happen next: he would invite them all to sit down on the grass and be fed in God’s abundance, using only what a small boy in their presence had to offer. A supernatural feeding, as one commentator put it.
Abundance—all that food, from so little, to feed so many—this is the miracle I usually see in this story. But today, I see something else to marvel over, something else to ponder: people being satisfied. People being content with what they have received, so much so that a great amount is left over. John’s Gospel says that Jesus himself distributed the bread and the fish to the hungry people sitting on the grass, and that they received as much as they wanted and were satisfied, leaving baskets of leftovers: 12 baskets of leftovers, in fact. I wonder what that was like. It sounds so different than the story of my late-night wandering into the kitchen, doesn’t it?
Just like the great crowd following after Jesus in our story, we too have great needs, and sometimes we don’t even know what they are.
But therein comes a pearl of truth within today’s story.
Jesus knows all about us, each and every one of us, and what we need when we approach him. And, it is his presence itself, his essence, which is the only thing that can satisfy, the only thing that can fill us up. Only this Bread of Life, can satiate and give way to such contentment, such wholeness, that you and I can’t help but to offer up the excess for others. What is left over is also abundant and remains, available for others. For just like the 12 baskets of leftovers in the story, no amount of the Bread of Life, the very presence of Jesus, will go to waste.
I invite you now to imagine a time in your life when you felt so fed, so satisfied, so whole, that you had so much left of yourself to give. Imagine that time, and that place. What do you see? Who do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear? Can you taste the Bread of Life?
Maybe you are in this place now, maybe you are not. If not, what would it take to return, even for just a moment?
Last week, I, along with a fantastic group of kids and chaperones, ventured into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for some leave no trace camping, canoeing, and fellowship. There were some tough moments for most of us – paddling for hours in the hot sun looking for campsites; carrying heavy packs and canoes through difficult portages; acclimating to life in the woods without creature comforts like clean clothes, comfy places to sit and sleep, running water and toilets. One day we decided to stay over one extra night at our campsite and take a short paddle to a beautiful waterfall for lunch and bible study. We sat in this heavenly little nook for some time, listening to the rush of the water, marveling at all the life we could see, above ground and under in the water below. Many of us remarked at how we could feel God in this serene place. We could sense the abundance of God’s love for all of creation and our part in that good creation.
I wonder if that is some of how the five thousand felt as they feasted on the bread and fish provided by Jesus on that day. Perhaps, they were, like us, fed and satisfied, not looking back or forward, but fully present and content, aware in that moment of the abundance of God’s unfailing love.
Will you pray with me?
Jesus, help us to come seek you where you may be found. Satisfy us with your love and presence. We search for so many things in our lives, Jesus, that sometimes, we forget that we need you the most. Grant to us an awareness that you are the Bread of Life; that you are all the nourishment we truly need; that when we trust in your promises, we are filled to the brim and there is always extra to share.
In your most holy name we pray, Amen.
Vicar Kristin Dybdal Faith-Lilac Way Lutheran Church July 25, 2021