Sharing Abundance
Miss Piggy, of The Muppets, once shared her thoughtful considerations about serving sizes for meal times: She said, “You should never eat more at one sitting than you can lift.”
By the time the disciples were gathering up the leftovers, everybody had eaten more than enough at the lakeside picnic with Jesus. But this story actually began with a scare. Suddenly the disciples had become scared, nervous about not having enough- scarcity.
It turns out that God’s solution is twofold- abundance and then sharing. And, it turns out that this is still how God responds today. While God Provides, the lesson of sharing this abundance turns out to be the more difficult one for humans.
When the disciples are asked by Jesus about how much food they have on their plates, and how much of it their willing to share, an interesting thing happens.
The way I reimagine it, is that the disciples responded to Jesus like my old neighborhood friend Shawn might have. More than once, I rode my bike downPacific Circleand there was Shawn on his parents’ driveway munching on one of those 20 piece boxes of chicken nuggets. And I would be like, “Hey, what’ya got there?” To which, he would say, “Nothing… get your own.”
Jesus asks the disciples, who apparently care for the hungry crowds, “What do you guys have? How much food do you have to share?” To which the disciples respond, “Nothing really, I mean, we’ve got enough chicken nuggets for us, they’ve got to get their own….I mean, We’ve only got five loaves of bread and two fish; but that’s our dinner, Jesus!”
Perhaps the biggest miracle that happens during the feeding of the thousands of men women and children: is the miracle of sharing. This is the miracle of church disciples responding to Jesus, who asks, “How much do you have that you will give away?” The miracle of disciples, not unlike each of us, who Jesus asks “And how much time do you have to volunteer in ministry with?” “But Jesus, I’ve barely got any time for anything, let alone…”
God’s response to scarcity, is abundance, but also the requirement that we share. God wants to bless others through our sharing. And this is what we practice at the offering time especially. God’s blessing of abundance, God’s blessing to share
Miss Piggy, was also known to say… “Many people think money is something to be set aside for a rainy day. But honestly, how much money do you really need for a dozen or so hours of inclement weather?”
The disciples finally understand the testing and so share with servant hearts and to their surprise they find abundance, even more than they started with.
This key miracle in the gospel is the miracle of sharing; and that sharing experience has two aspects to it.
First- Sharing when you aren’t sure if you’ve got enough to begin with; and
Second- sharing when there is plenty left over.
The Spiritual life of God requires us to learn both lessons.
Dorothy Day who shared much of her life with the poor and needy, used to have a sign in the Catholic Worker House in New York City that said: “Thank more and need less.” At some point, it was changed with a marker to read: “Thank more and eat less.”
Now, I’ve rarely been starving in the wilderness, as my figure shows, so I can’t really say I needed a spare chicken nugget. Everyone in today’s gospel, men women and children ate until they were satisfied, yet the lesson ends with a question on my mind, what are they going to do with the leftovers?
I probably shouldn’t say this, but when I used to work in hotels at the front desk, the days I loved work the best, were the ones during a wedding reception. Do you know why? Because there were always leftovers, and our hotel crew always ate good that night.
In our Gospel we heard about the disciples taking back up 12 baskets full of leftover broken bread pieces. However, there are certain other things you just don’t keep around for later. Absent in the leftovers, is the mention of leftover fish.
Yet even better than simply eating leftovers, Jesus has invited us to be part of the holy meal to begin with. Jesus shares the bread of life with us.
Our communities, like Jesus, like my neighbor Shawn, like each of us- are being asked to share, not only our food, but especially our spiritual lessons.
The disciples had become scared, nervous about not having enough.
It turns out that God’s solution is twofold- abundance and then sharing.
To practice God’s Spirituality then, our Worship includes a shared sacramental meal with this type of Bread, a Wonder-full Bread, God’s food for body and soul.
Amen.
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