God's Abundant Feast

Sunday, July 23, 2006
First-Trinity Presbyterian Church (USA)

Mark 6:30-46


“Give them something to eat.”

“Excuse me, Jesus, what did you just say?”

“You give them something to eat.”

“Okay … we thought that’s what you said … umm, Jesus … how exactly should we do that … I mean, is there a plan … did you appoint a fellowship committee to organize the food for today … because there’s a ton of people here … and well … we just don’t see how it’s going to be possible to feed all of them this late at night.”

The disciples, you’ve got to love them. They are a ragtag group of people, bumbling and stumbling their way along with Jesus, most of the time trying to figure him and his sayings out right along with the rest of the crowd.

But they have been commissioned recently and they have just returned from their latest mission, a mission that took them to villages in pairs. They took nothing with them, yet found food and shelter along the way. They have returned to Jesus excited about the fruits of their labor, excited about telling their leader all that they had been able to do that they didn’t think was possible. They had cast out demons; they had anointed the sick with oil; they had cured the lame; and they had told all to repent and believe the good news. Their hard work had multiplied the believers and many had been touched by God. The transformations they had seen were nothing short of miraculous.

And then they are faced with the challenge of feeding thousands of people who have come to hear Jesus and it’s like they have forgotten all that they have just done over the past few weeks in the name of the Lord. And Jesus gently prods them along and asks, “What do we have available to us? How many loaves of bread do you have?” And the disciples come back, reporting that they have only five loaves. But they also find two fish they can add to that. Still, together it’s not even close to being enough for the throng of hungry people gathered.

But Christ takes the offering and the whole scene is transformed before the disciples’ very eyes.
• The setting has changed. It’s no longer a deserted place on the other side of the lake overflowing with pesky individuals; it’s the place of a grand picnic with groups of people gathering together on the green grass, preparing for supper from their shepherd.
• The nourishment has changed. Five loaves of bread and two fish in the hands of Jesus become God’s abundant feast for all of the thousands gathered. And there’s even leftovers at this early church picnic – twelve baskets full of pieces of bread and fish to be exact.
• The disciples have changed, too. They have gone from being exhausted and doubting to witnessing Jesus perform a creative miracle and feed the multitudes.

And any trace of scarcity in the picture is denied – the setting is lush, the food is present in abundance with leftovers to spare, the people have been nourished by bread and word and are satisfied, and the disciples are amazed. It is a miracle and God is indeed generous.

But the disciples didn’t immediately think of God’s generous and abundant nature when confronted with the task of pulling together a last minute church picnic for thousands. They had doubted that anything could be done. They had bought into the myth of scarcity; they had believed that there would never be enough, not even with Jesus – the one they had seen calm the storm and heal the sick and lame; the very Son of God is right there and the disciples don’t believe there is enough.

While most of us have not been challenged with feeding thousands at a moment’s notice with just a few loaves of bread and some fish, we are yet disciples, bumbling and stumbling our way along with Jesus, still buying into the myth of scarcity, not believing that there is enough. Though the thing that seems to be so scarce in our society today is time. Even with all of the modern inventions and advancements in technology, we still cannot travel backward or forward in time or stop time or control time at all and so we often battle the clock. We learn to multi-task and we buy gadgets guaranteed to speed up the job. We continue to work and work hard – at our jobs and in our homes, at good and even great tasks – and we don’t give up or let in, because there just isn’t enough energy and time to get it all done and slowing down or stopping would just hinder the progress.

Yet, the opposite is true. Appearance not withstanding, there is enough to go around, for God is a god of abundance, not a god of scarcity. Jesus reveals to us God’s abundance when he offers to the crowd so much bread that there are twelve large baskets with leftover scraps, and when he makes his disciples catch so many fish that their boat nearly sinks.

God reveals God’s abundant nature in creation. Where once there was nothing except darkness and a formless void, there appears the earth and light and waters, and the sun and moon and stars. And then there’s trees bearing fruit of every kind and swarms of creatures in the waters and flocks of birds in the air and animals of every kind roaming the land and at the end, humanity is created in the very image of God. And the creative abundance is good; it is very good. God’s force of life is set loose in the world and the world flourishes.

And then God pauses, takes a step back and admires all of the new creation; and then God decides it’s time for a day to rest from all the work that has been done. And God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe, takes a break; and it’s more than just a ten-minute coffee break or a hurried 30 minute nap – it’s an entire day. And God blesses this seventh day and makes it holy, set apart from the other six. And in doing so God continues God’s liturgy of abundance. For it’s not just all of the visible world that was created good and in abundance, but also time.

So, time is not the enemy. God has given us enough time. Six whole days to work and labor and be productive, and then just one day set aside as different. Yes, God has given us an abundance of time to rest in that single day. But that’s not the way we view it. We look at time through the eyes of the world and see another day to do things and run errands and just generally remain busy with all the tasks of life because we are racing the clock at the start of another week. But time is not the enemy; we are the enemy, for we who were formed in the image of God do not follow the pattern of God, working six days and resting on the seventh; we are the ones who do not pause to sit down and notice God’s abundant feast for our souls offered in the practice of Sabbath.

And so we treat this day like any other day and miss out on this good gift of God. When we don’t make an effort to remember the Sabbath, we miss out on holy rest, holy restoration, and holy redemption. For the Sabbath is not just about rules of do’s and don’ts. Do spend lots of time with God. Don’t cook or clean. Do sit still and reflect on life. Don’t go anywhere. At its center, the Sabbath is not about such things. It’s about being loved by God without doing anything. It’s about trusting God to hold up one’s life and the world without our contribution of work. It’s about being okay with taking a break because it’s commanded by God. At its center, Sabbath is about building a sanctuary of time and then freeing ourselves to honor that time.

But building that sanctuary of time is difficult. We live in the midst of a McDonald’s, gadget-producing, high speed internet, fast-paced society that doesn’t leave time for all the needs to be accomplished each day, let alone additional time for rest. But we are commanded to be in and not of the world; so the world cannot dictate the rhythm of our lives. We must set that rhythm ourselves according to God’s plan and that is difficult. Sabbath is a counter-cultural practice, but we cannot let that detour us. For the benefits of rest and renewal offered in Sabbath are something that all God’s people need, that even God needed.

So, how do we recover and practice Sabbath? We begin small and keep it simple. We make a conscious decision to steal some moments or carve out a few hours for Sabbath rest, for time will not lend itself to us. We must stake our claim on that time. Then we think and pray and consider what would be meaningful and life giving for us.

Maybe you begin by taking a Sabbath hour every week – one hour in which nothing is ever scheduled and you are freed from obligations of “should,” “ought,” and “must” to enjoy God and creation, relationships and hobbies. Maybe it means that you try taking a Sabbath walk every now and again – walking slowly and silently for 30 minutes without trying to get anywhere, following your own timing and curiosity. Maybe it means that you commit to a slow sit-down-and-chat dinner with family or friends every week. And maybe it’s not something specific, and it’s just sauntering through this one day, enjoying the spaciousness of time.

I began my own Sabbath practices when I was in college. In the midst of my junior year, I felt that my life was being run by academics and I hated that. And so I began the discipline of not doing any homework or studying on Sundays. And for one day a week, I tried to free myself from the work that dominated the other six days. And it was so difficult at first. I would sneak in an hour of paper writing here or 30 minutes of reading there. And some Sundays I totally abandoned it because I was overwhelmed by the schoolwork that needed to be done. But the Sundays that I did honor were great times of being renewed and refreshed, ready for the week to come. Over the past four years, I have come to look forward to Sundays and now relish that sanctuary of time.

So, lay claim to a sanctuary of time. It will be hard because, though it is necessary and even mandated in the Ten Commandments, it does not feel necessary. There are plenty of other things in our lives to lure us away, but we must not let them. For there will never be enough time to get everything done. Remember the disciples did not get their time of rest initially because a crowd of people met them at the other side of the lake. And Jesus taught those people and then fed them. But immediately after that, Jesus sent the disciples away again for a time of rest. And Jesus himself paused for rest by going up on the mountain to pray. Jesus was determined to get in that time of rest. And we must also be that determined.

When we set aide Sabbath time, God doesn’t give us just enough. God gives us more than enough: more bread and fish than we can eat, more love than we dared to ask for, more rest than we thought was possible. But we have to bring ourselves to sit down at the table first and pay attention, because you won’t want to miss the miracles that abound at God’s abundant feast.

Thanks be to God. Amen.