According to John 6:1-15 (NLTse)
6:1 After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. 2 A huge crowd kept following Him wherever He went, because they saw His miraculous signs as He healed the sick. 3 Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with His disciples around Him. 4 (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) 5 Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for Him. Turning to Philip, He asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” 6 He was testing Philip, for He already knew what He was going to do.
7 Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!”
8 Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. 9 “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?”
10 “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered 5,000.) 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward He did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. 12 After everyone was full, Jesus told His disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” 13 So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.
14 When the people saw Him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, He is the Prophet we have been expecting!” 15 When Jesus saw that they were ready to force Him to be their king, He slipped away into the hills by Himself.
He begged his mother for permission to make a day of it. He’d heard about the Man; everyone was talking about Him! At first she told him he was too young; that he wouldn’t understand, and he’d go all that way and find himself bored and wish he’d never gone. But he’d pestered her! and she had finally given him his way. So she’d packed him a little bundle of food – enough to see him through the day – and sent him on his way.
It wasn’t hard to find the Man. Many from his village were going to see Him, too, and it was simple to just follow the throngs crowding the roadways. With Passover near, Jews from all over the Empire had come to Jerusalem to celebrate, and having heard the stories about Jesus’ wisdom and teaching, and about His miracles and healings, they’d come to see for themselves: Could He be the One, “the prophet” Moses and the Lord had promised them so long ago?
He’d been able to get surprisingly close to the Man once he’d found Him. And one of the Man’s followers – his name was Andrew – was really friendly and helped him find a place to sit nearer still!
He hadn’t thought it was a big deal that he’d told Andrew about the food he’d brought. He was proud he had it since he could hear many of those around him concerned that they hadn’t thought to bring anything for themselves.
When Andrew came back over to him and told him that the Man was asking if the boy would give Him his dinner, he was sure his mom wouldn’t mind and so he handed it over. (It didn’t occur to him that it was the only food he had and that he might want it when he got hungry later.)
The Man had opened up his bundle and lifted it over His head giving God thanks for it. (Only the Man called God His father which was different from the way the boy had grown up hearing his own dad pray.) And then Andrew and the Man’s other followers each took some of the fish and bread and started handing it out to all the people. And Andrew came over to him first and gave him a great big hunk of the bread and section of the fish. And after he’d finished that another one of the Man’s followers was nearby and gave him another big hunk and section of fish. And he ate and ate and was deliciously full. And he looked around and noticed that everyone else seemed like they were pleasantly full, as well. Everyone had eaten. And all from his dinner! He couldn’t believe it. Did you see what happened, he looked around to tell Andrew or anybody. He couldn’t wait to get home to tell his mom about the miracle that he and the Man had done!
Child-like faith, Jesus calls us to! The Lord asks, and the boy gives, and there’s more food left over afterwards than there was to begin with! Jesus wants us to do miracles with Him.
But how are you when it comes to “your stuff”? John tells us that this boy was the only one among this crowd of 5,000 who had brought any food with him. If it were you and me, perhaps we’d be thinking, “Well, everyone should’ve planned ahead. I’ve got to keep this for me. Who knows what’ll happen to me if I give it to the Lord to use?”
You and I, if we’re in Christ, we’re new creations. And as our old nature would have us judge things, it is the all-important “I” that is first among the personal pronouns; that holds the center of the stage in our lives; that must be primarily considered in all things. Those ‘round about us only come second, and those farther off, occupying a not even close third: I, first; then you, next; and lastly he and she and them. All the saints across the centuries have warned us about this temptation toward thinking this way, thinking again like our old self, the “us” Jesus put to death when He came and gave us His Life, calling them the devil’s pronouns, this “I” and “me” and “mine”!
In the parable of the talents the Lord Jesus makes plain that it is “one-talent” thinkers who are most likely to falter and fail Him, because people with a “one-talent” mindset think they need to hold on to what they’ve got; hoarding, keeping what they have and what they are for themselves, just in case… Others with a “one-talent” mindset think that anything they could do is so trivial as to be not worth doing! What can we do that can make any noticeable difference for the Kingdom of Heaven, they think? Better left undone; our gift will never be missed. “One-talent” believers can’t comprehend of the possibilities in Jesus’ hands.
Jesus shows us by taking one little boy’s meal how disastrous that way of thinking is to His work here in the world. What if that little boy had been thinking about “I”, “me”, “mine” and kept it all to himself? Or what if that little boy had been too self-conscious that he was just “little old me” and had held it back demanding that it wouldn’t make any difference! “One-talent” thinking, “I”, “me”, “mine” thinking, it robs the Lord, and slows His work.
When we give what we have and what we can do to Christ, He multiplies it, He sanctifies it, He transforms it once it has become “His” into so much more than what it was when it was only “ours”.
Perhaps we don’t trust He’ll take care of us if we’re giving to Him what we’ve worked for to take care of ourselves? Worse yet, what if we’re so full of activity and to-do’s that we justify saying no to helping, no to giving, because it would be a pain, because I’ve already got too much on my plate, because that’s the night of my favorite TV show. And we don’t think to say no to other things that might be overflowing us – things that have nothing to do with the Kingdom of Heaven and eternity and truly loving those around us… And we rationalize it thinking that somebody else can probably do a better job anyway.
What are we holding back from Jesus? Where are we holding back from God? It is my strong conviction that each and every Christian needs to be involved in at least one Bible study, growing in the Lord, learning His ways that are so very different from our ways, getting to recognize His voice so we can answer when His Spirit speaks to us… And it is my strong conviction that each and every Christian needs to be involved in at least one ministry, nurturing servanthood, practicing walking with Him with the support of others, getting to experience the fun as well as doing the hard work, of doing miracles with Him: Seeing lives changed and families healed and communities transformed by the steady spread of the gospel – like yeast through dough or like a virus across the internet – working God’s wonders as it goes.
If you’re not involved in a study, now’s the time to begin looking as many of our small groups will start up again in September and October. If you’re not involved in ministry, now’s the time to begin letting me know you want to get involved, letting Jeanne Newell in the Church Office know you want to get involved, letting Elder Joe Bell who’s working with different ones of us to help us identify the gifts the Lord has given us so that we can use them for Him!
Poet T. E. Brown, musing on the beach one day over an empty shell, penned this:
If thou couldst empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell disinhabited,
Then might He find thee on the Ocean shelf, And say – “This is not dead,” –
And fill thee with Himself instead.
But thou art all replete with very thou,
And hast such shrewd activity,
That, when He comes, He says, This is enow
Unto itself – ‘Twere better let it be:
It is so small and full, there is no room for Me.