Nothing is Lost

2 Kings 4:42-44
John 6:1-21

Lives get shattered. Broken.

And when they’re broken, they are like hard barley bread and crumbs, pieces and flecks go absolutely everywhere.

Tragedies break us. Unexpected, awful, unfathomable things. I remember the feeling of when I was ripped in two. How the world slowed to nothing. How the realization of what had happened – the unspeakable – curled in my stomach. It felt like I was falling. I did fall. It felt like I was unable to breath. I wailed. I kept trying to think and yet my brain was free spinning and unable to pick up any thought for more than a second or two.

Broken.

When Jesus took the bread at the Passover supper with his closest friends, he held it up and broke it. “This is my body, broken for you.”

Shattered. Scattered. Broken.

At a previous Passover, according to John, Jesus sat in the wildness. On a mountain or high hill. As he looked up from praying and resting, he saw the valley becoming full of people. A crowd had followed him. They’d followed the signs and seen all that Jesus was doing for the sick. Rather than staying home and celebrating, or going to the city to visit the Temple and sights, for the holiday these people have utterly left all they know and followed Jesus into the wilderness.

Jesus sees this, and turns to Philip to ask, “Where are WE to buy bread for these people to eat?”

Not – where are they going to eat? Where are they going to sleep? What will shelter them in the heat of the noon sun? How could they be so stupid to come this far unprepared? How did they let themselves get into this mess?

No. Jesus takes responsibility of his flock. WE are going to feed them. But how? WE are going to care for them. But how?

This is not asking them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Jesus sees they don’t even have those. These are the desperate. The forsaken. The leftovers of society.

The “undesirables.”

But WE are going to welcome, and care, for them.

Philip looks at the mass of crowd and is bewildered, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” We don’t have money to even properly feed ourselves – we’ve been living on charity. How are we going to feed everyone?

Philip realizes how broken the crowd is. Each of their lives are shattered in different ways.

Some are besot by the demon of mental illness. This is long before antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and psychologists. And then, just as now, people’s brains could be born with or develop illnesses. Then, as now, a stroke could steal your loved one’s memories, or even personality. It could break the family up one chunk at a time. Then, as now, Alzheimer’s Disease worked the same way. Then, as now, PTSD brought flash backs and hallucinations and panic attacks. The crowd is asking to be whole again.

Others in the crowd have been broken spiritually. Inside. In their souls. Women were told only men can work in the official religion. Men ought to be the leaders. Were told if they got unwanted attention from men, it was because they were dressing wrong. Or speaking wrong. It was never the man’s fault. Children were told to be seen but not heard. That they were too young to participate but must act like adults and sit still. They were considered the most easily replaceable. Men were told they could not cry, or show ‘woman-emotions.’ They couldn’t spend too much time with their children and it was their responsibility to protect the family. How do you protect the family from tragedy? From car accidents? From senseless accidents? The crowd came seeking to be recognized as who they are. Valuable just as they are. Loved, without needing to prove their worth. Spiritually seeking to be whole again.

The Bible tells us many sought physical wholeness. Being able to see again, or walk again, or even be alive again. How many elderly came seeking relief from arthritis? How many brought worn out hips, cavity-filled teeth, sugar issues, and suspicious growths? How many brought children born with deformities, teens suffering broken bones, and workers missing fingers or hands? Our bodies break. Shatter. We glue them back together, but with each gluing, the fragile clay pot gets weaker and weaker. People came to Jesus seeking their physical bodies to be whole again.

And instead of telling all these people to heal themselves, care for themselves, put their lives back together… Jesus says WE are going to help facilitate their healing. WE won’t send them packing. WE will feed them.

But how?

Philip is at a lost. There is so much need and so little ability to help. Who am I to take on an issue like AIDS, or homeless, or domestic abuse? How can I do anything? If I gave up 1/2 of my year’s income, these problems would STILL not be cured.

A little boy approaches and offers his basket. Andrew brings the group’s attention to the child, “This boy has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?”

There is a kid I know of selling lemonade and giving the money raised to Children’s Hospital for coloring supplies for the kids. But what are five dollars and two cents among so many hurting kids? Will they each get a postage stamp piece of paper and a little snippet of broken crayon smaller than their pinkie nail?

And Jesus replied – have everyone sit down. And Jesus took what was offered in the little basket, and he gave thanks. Thanks to the boy for his generosity. Thanks to God for lovingly providing for us. And then Jesus handed out the bread and fish. Miraculously the five little barley dinner rolls and the two fish not only provided a feast for 5,000 people… as much fish and bread as they could handle, until they were fully satisfied, but there was bread and fish left over, too.

How?

Some have argued the generosity of the boy inspired everyone else to share their food.

Some have argued this is a story people began to tell about Jesus later, and it didn’t happen exactly this way. As we heard in our first reading, a sign of a prophet – a man of God – is they can multiply food and feed many. Elisha does that in our first reading. He even has leftovers, just as Jesus does.

And most Christians argue Jesus fed the 5,000 with a miracle – with the power of God. If you heard, when the disciples see Jesus walking ON water – rather than parting it like Moses – they ask “Who are you?” And Jesus answers “It is I.” Or, translated another way, “I am.” I Am is the name God identifies God’s self to Moses in the burning bush. I am. I be. I was. I will be. The Great I Am. The miracle is possible because all things are possible for God.

And God is known through Jesus to us; God is known as the one who won’t turn away any who seek God; God is known as the one who will break God’s own body, God’s own heart, to feed us… much like how a loving parent or grandparent will make sacrifices to provide for their child… or how a earnest hearted little boy will give up everything in his basket for a crowd of strangers.

God is generosity. And God is wholeness.

12 baskets of leftovers are picked up after the feast. 12 is a number of wholeness, plenty, the number of Israel’s tribes in the Bible. 12 is how many disciples there are. After the miracle, each disciple has in his own hands a basket of provisions when before they had nothing to eat. When one gave his bread, his body, his life, for others… everyone had more than enough.

Whatever is in our baskets… if we share, God multiplies that goodness, so that all our needs and others’ needs are met. Call it inspiring generosity. Call it a guiding myth. Call it a miracle. Call it whatever you will, but when we live our lives serving others, we gain our lives. We gain wholeness. We gain just what we came out to the wilderness seeking from Jesus: healing. Completeness. And we come away with our baskets heaped with more goodness and wholeness to share with others.

Broken lives find Jesus. Broken people. And Jesus gathers us up. He is concerned that not a single thing is wasted. No experience. No thought. No life. Nothing is lost to God. Everything is gathered up, every little bit, and put to good use.

The little crumbs and fragments of when our lives shattered Jesus tenderly gathers and says, “Let’s put meaning to this.” “Let’s bring good out of this.” Not that being broken is good. Not that bad things happen for good reasons. No… but rather… let’s take this awful thing, and through the miracle of God, choose to bring something good out of it. Choose to take it, just as it is, broken and fragmented and leftover, and work with God to bring about wholeness, healing, and hope in the midst of the chaos.

The child giving a coloring book and box of crayons to Children’s Hospital isn’t going to give one to every child there through their lemonade sales. But to a single child – they have given the world. Our community is not going to cure world-hunger by supporting Heifer International. But to another community, we have ended hunger. Nothing but Christ’s return shall ever bring back my daughter, but I offer my brokenness, my leftovers, to Christ and beg they be gathered up and used for good. Even if that helps just one other life.

And they are. Miraculously, God brings forth goodness out of evil. Healing out of brokenness. Connectedness and community out of isolation.

We’re asked to offer what we have now in our baskets, even if we know it isn’t enough to help EVERYONE. It will help SOMEone. Offer it to the person before us now… and trust God will work miracles.

And God does.

And then nothing is ever truly lost.

Amen.

• Sermon