A Lot of Nothing
Lectionary 18 + August 6, 2023 + Pr. Brooke Petersen
When I was growing up, the thing I knew most about money was that we didn’t have enough. No one ever sat me down to say, okay, if you have a single mom who works in social services, things are going to be tough, but there were lots of ways that money impacted us. Money was scary, because when we talked about money it was usually because something was wrong- bills were due, or we were getting a lot of envelopes in the mail with some bold red letters, which meant that they hadn’t been paid. I can sometimes surprise myself even now by how out of the blue my childhood experiences of money will creep up on me, because how we learned about money, how we learned about how the world works, about who has enough and who doesn’t, about who deserves something and who doesn’t, it is buried pretty deep. You can’t just logic your way out of it, because, for many of us, we learned these lessons before we could think logically, we have emotions tied here, fear and judgement, scarcity.
Naturally, I think, I learned only to talk about money with fear in my voice. Scrimping, saving, or trying to, was just the water I learned to swim in. I don’t think I’m alone. Almost every election, the state of the economy finds its way to the top of voters minds, even if it seems fairly clear that people don’t quite understand what all the information means. I can hear echoes of scarcity in the news and in political debate- over and over this feeling that there isn’t enough, and some people, usually marginalized people, are taking too much, and we have to do something about it. How quickly we start to feel afraid, and how many of us know that fear.
Let’s hold that, this fear, this morning. Maybe even look at it together, because I find that often, perhaps when I least expect it, Jesus has something to say about our fears. Our gospel is one of those famous bible stories. A very similar story appears in all four of our gospels. The only miracle to make it on the pages of every single gospel. Some of the details might be a bit different, but the shape of the story is the same- a bunch of hungry people are out in the wilderness with Jesus, and there isn’t enough food to go around. So out of a measly offering of a few loaves and some fish, an abundant meal is served, and all the people, thousands of them, leave satisfied.
But the story begins a little differently in the gospel of Matthew. Because in this gospel, when it starts, “when he heard this, he withdrew to a deserted place by himself,” we know that Jesus goes out to the wilderness because he has just received terrible news. John the Baptist has been beheaded. John the Baptist, his friend, cousin, the prophet that proclaimed Jesus’ divinity, he’s dead. Because he spoke truth to power, because he said that something new was happening and the people needed to prepare themselves because liberation was at hand, well, John’s days were numbered. Because power that is threatened rarely just sits back to see what unfolds. So Jesus receives this terrible news, and Jesus leaves and goes off to a deserted place. Do you know that feeling? Because I do. Perhaps it is not as tragic or shocking as a death, but it is that feeling when you just have nothing left, when you want crawl under the blankets and wait until it is a new day. That feeling that comes over you when it seems as if the world itself has become one big disappointment, and there aren’t any good options left. That feeling when someone dies, or when you face tragedy, or when the world just overwhelms you. I imagine that is what Jesus was feeling after this tragic murder of his friend, because this is the cost of liberation, this is the cost of the miracles, this is the cost that comes from doing what is right. And so Jesus feels what we feel when tragedy strikes- sadness and grief, horror and despair, and so he goes off to a deserted place.
And even in the pain of the loss of this friend, the crowds still follow Jesus. They follow him into his lonely place, and they themselves are sick and hungry. I imagine Jesus is scraping the emotional bottom, but what does he do? He sees that great crowd, thousands of people, and he has compassion for all those sick, sad, lost people, and he goes to them and he heals them.
And after Jesus heals these people, night begins to fall. They start to look a little hungry. Their collective tummy starts to growl. So the disciples come to Jesus asking him to send these people to the villages so they can get some food. But Jesus doesn’t send them away. He looks at the disciples, and he says, “you feed them.” You feed them. But with what? They don’t have anything. How can they feed a crowd of 5,000 men, plus numerous women and children? How can their nothing feed this huge something?
This gospel story is about a lot of nothing. That is, at first glance, the state of this gospel economy. Nothing- no energy, just sadness. Nothing- no food, no drinks, just a few loaves and some measly salty old fish. A whole lot of the bottom. A whole lot of not much. A whole lot of bills due without money in the bank. Jesus, the disciples, and all these hungry people are in the wilderness, that scarce desolate place, and they are speaking the language of scarcity. At least, perhaps this is what it looks like at first glance. Because, when you see the size of the problem, a few loaves, some fish and thousands of hungry people, it is easy to forget that these aren’t just hungry people, these are healed people. Jesus has already healed them, and now, they need to eat. We might miss the other miracles in this text, because we are so familiar with the language of scarcity that we have to get used to the language of abundance.
I know that scarcity language, and I know you do, too. The language of scarcity is so pervasive that it feels like it is almost normal. We don’t have enough, time, money, energy. We are pulled in 100 different directions, we are pushed and tugged, and sometimes we really do have nothing left. I have certainly thought that on plenty of days. We don’t have enough to give anything, because there is only so much. We know the economy of scarcity, where we have to worry if others will take more of the pie, we have to make sure that our own, however we are defining our own, are protected. In the economy of scarcity it is always a zero-sum game, it is only what is taken from one that can be given to another. If someone wins, someone must also lose. People, the government, the church, the world, keeps trying to take from us, and in an economy of scarcity, we are forced to protect what we have.
But, when we look a little deeper, when we focus our eyes on the whole gospel story, the economy starts to shift. The disciples bring those loaves and those fish to Jesus. There isn’t much there. It really is a sad little offering spread out before thousands of people. But Jesus takes that nothing, and looking up to heaven, he blesses that tiny little offering, and the disciples pass it out to the crowd. And miraculously, that nothing, those tiny fish and loaves become more than something, they become a feast to feed thousands, a feast that leaves all the people loosening their belts because their stomachs are so full, a feast that leaves behind 12 baskets of broken bread.
With God, the economy isn’t based on scarcity, because God’s economy is based on extravagant abundance. Sometimes it feels like a miracle, when God takes our nothing, our little bit of time, our little bit of energy, our little bit of commitment, and makes it into something that can only be described as divine. In an economy of scarcity, we hold on to what we have until we have enough that we can be sure it is okay to share. We hold on to our time and our energy and our money because it just wouldn’t be right to give it away until we are on a full tank. But, in an economy of abundance, God seeks to use even our little nothing. God seeks to use us even when we aren’t at our best. The story didn’t start with 12 baskets of bread, it started with five loaves and two fish.
In an economy of scarcity, the person baking that bread and the person catching those fish would have kept them to feed their own rumbling stomachs. Some people say that the miracle in this story is that heavenly power multiplied those loaves like magic in the hands of Jesus. Heavenly power multiplied those loaves and fish, but I wonder if that heavenly power wasn’t focused on the 5 loaves and the 2 fish, but if that heavenly power was focused on the more than 5,000 people sitting in the grass. I wonder if this heavenly power came over a people that were already healed, that had already stepped into the miraculous wonder of God’s kingdom. I wonder if that heavenly power was what inspired them to throw in a loaf or two as the basket came their way, because even if they didn’t have much, surely the person next to them should get a fish sandwich. I wonder if the miracle was that in an economy of scarcity, in an economy we know just as well as that gathered crowd, if the miracle is that for those hungry people, for those disciples, for those hearing this story, suddenly scarcity felt like a whole lot more. The story of not enough became the story of more than enough. The story of keeping for oneself became instead a time to share in order that all might eat and be filled. This is a miracle worth printing on pages in all four gospels. Not enough, when we look up towards heaven, suddenly becomes more than enough. Enough that we can’t do anything but give it away rejoicing because the economy has shifted.
You see, so many of us know how to be afraid. We know how to say, well, we better keep what we have, because you never know. And God invites us, over and over, to imagine a world that is so radically different from the one that we know that it can only be described as divine. In this world, we believe in mutual aid. In this world, we don’t follow our fear, we follow our joy. We talk boldly about reparations, not because it makes sense, but because it is the right thing. We think about whether our neighbor has bread, because it is the right thing. We think about how we expand the healing and liberation that is at the heart of God, because it is the right thing. We examine our internal fears, because the world in fear is scarcity, but a world in love is abundant.
I think this story can seem like a miracle divine proportions, but really, maybe it is an ordinary miracle, too. The kind of ordinary miracle that still happens, can still happen in our own lives, when we live into this kind of an economy.
Amen and thanks be to God.
