Psalm 145:8-9, 15-22
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21
Have you ever seen a small child as they try to get something just out of their reach? The sippy cup on the side table, the cookie jar on the counter… whatever it is, it’s just too far to grab. They stand on their toes, their arms outstretched as far as can go, their little fingers wiggling, trying to grow just that one extra inch…
I love this image because it shows so clearly how we reach for things in the rest of our lives. If we’re not children reaching for a sippy cup, we’re teenagers trying to fit in, or out, we’re reaching for better grades, then a job, then a better job. We reach for perfection in relationships, we reach for perfection in sports, in music, in technology. We are a people who always reach for the new, the next, the good, better, best. Then when we aren’t bombarded by external pressure, we start feeling like we should be “better people” (whatever that means).
Perhaps the disciples were only trying to be “better people” when they suggested sending the people away in our Gospel reading today? It had been a long day of teaching and healing for Jesus, and he’d originally been trying, again, to get away for some self-care. And the people needed food, and rest, and the disciples certainly didn’t have enough to feed them. Best to send them on their way now, before it gets impossibly late, so they can go to the villages, have dinner, and rest. Sounds like a reasonable suggestion… doesn’t it?
But no, Jesus tells the disciples, no they don’t need to go away. Bring me what we have, he tells them. And Christ takes the 5 loaves of bread and the two fish and blesses them, and feeds the people. And God is revealed in this moment, where there is not enough. When the disciples are shown up in their attempt to care for the crowd by Jesus’ own caring act, when there just isn’t enough, there are twelve baskets of leftovers, and God has been revealed.
We live in a world where it often seems like there isn’t enough. There isn’t enough compassion, and so we hear about one man who kills nearly 80 people in Norway. There isn’t enough medicine, there aren’t enough volunteers to respond to need in places like Haiti. There aren’t enough solutions when the economy is affecting real lives. There isn’t enough hope when domestic violence seems the safer option to some, than life alone.
We live in a broken world where there isn’t enough. And when we look at the world and don’t see “enough,” or when our daily lives do not seem “enough” to make us deserving of God’s great love, we too can feel like that small child, wiggling our fingers, wishing to be just enough taller, just enough…
But God doesn’t ask that of us. We worship a God who is more than enough. We worship a God who turns five loaves and two fish into a meal to feed thousands.
In fact, God often reveals God’s self to us in the very places where we may not expect God to be, like those “not enough” places. Or in the mundane acts of our daily lives, which may not seem like “enough,” but to God are everything. Or in the breaking of ordinary bread, the sharing of a simple cup. In water. In the death of God’s Son. In the gruesome, ugly death of one condemned as a criminal, even in that “not enough,” worldly moment, God is revealed.
So then why not in our lives? Why not in the daily tasks of washing dishes and doing laundry? Why not in the conversations at the gas station, the smiles at the Purple Cow, the passing glances at the grocery store, or any of the other moments in our lives when we are doing whatever it is we do, as children of God, whether or not we think we are “enough.”
When Isaiah says, “let all who are thirsty come to the water,” he doesn’t say, “let all who are thirsty and have done thirty push-ups,” or “let all who are thirsty and have been good people,” or “let all who are thirsty come to the water, as long as they have the right theology, read their scriptures every day, and haven’t ever broken God’s law.” No. Isaiah says, “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.”
Our God is not an “if… then…” God, a God who counts up “enoughs” in a little ledger, with a shake of the head when the numbers don’t add up. Our God is God who is found in the most unexpected, “not enoughest” of places. Our God is not a God who waits for us to be able to reach the sippy cup ourselves, but a God who pushes it towards us, who picks it up, and brings it to us, cradling us in God’s arms while we drink. This is God who brings life everlasting through God’s Son, sent to us, who brings blessing and promise in the waters of baptism: plain water! Who brings healing and forgiveness in the bread and wine on this table: two simple foods. This isn’t a god of bacon-wrapped water chestnuts and triple mocha macchiatos. This is the God of bread, and wine. This isn’t a god who waits for us to be good enough, strong enough, kind enough, smart enough, rich enough, poor enough, happy enough, sad enough, or any other kind of enough. In fact, it is in our very not having enough…whatever… that God reveals God's awesome self and life-giving grace and glory. Whether it’s 5 loaves and 2 fish trying to feed the multitude, or our own shortcomings, failures, and flounderings… it is all more than bridged by God’s love and grace through Jesus Christ.
It doesn’t matter how far we think we have to go, it doesn’t matter if we are barely in reach of the cup, or if we haven’t even gotten in the same room. We can’t reach it ourselves no matter what we do. We’re human, mortal, sinful, and we always fall short, no matter how we wiggle our fingers and stand on our tippy-tippy-tippy toes. But if with 5 loaves and 2 fish, Christ makes a meal to fill the multitudes, AND have leftovers, then just imagine what God is doing with a messy world like ours, with messy people like us.
And while you’re imagining, come to the table. Come to the simple table of bread and wine, the table of forgiveness, of wholeness, of love. Come and know that you are loved, no matter who you are or how you are. Come to the table. Amen.
