Bread For All '06

Texts: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21

Today we start a four-part mini-series on chapter 6 of St John’s Gospel with the central theme of bread, a classic symbol of God’s free graciousness to all humanity. In some ways we could argue that this chapter 6 is the central core of this gospel, and perhaps even the whole of the New Testament. In a quite marvellous way St John manages to summarise our faith history from the exodus right up to and including the Eucharist we will celebrate here this morning in a few minutes time.

There are many stories in the Scriptures about what are sometimes called miracles of multiplication – perhaps we should just call them miraculous feeding stories. They follow a fairly strict pattern with certain elements almost always present. They are set in circumstances of great need, where it seems impossible for that need to be met. This is highlighted by someone representing human economics and commonsense. Set against that is a prophet or other representative of God who prays, sometimes petitionary prayer as we would expect, but sometimes a prayer of thanksgiving, and then a great abundance of food is provided, with enough for everyone and some left over.

In our first reading this morning we have a cameo of this type. An unidentified man brings to the prophet Elisha twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe corn, along with some ears of new corn. The detail we’re given here tells us immediately that this is some kind of ritual offering of the first-fruits of the grain harvest. Such an offering should have been taken to the royal sanctuary at Bethel , but the priests there are apostate, they have turned away from Yahweh. So whoever this man is, he prefers to bring the offering to a real man of God, Elisha.

Elisha tells his servant to give the food to the people present, but there’s a problem in that idea. There are a hundred people present, so the servant becomes the spokesman for all those of us who think in terms of economics and commonsense. How can I set this before a hundred men?” he asks. However, Elisha insists, citing the word of the Lord, so he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over.

Far more famous examples of this kind, of course, are found in the various accounts of the Israelites’ wanderings in the desert after the escape from Egypt . We get them about drinking water, about bread, and about meat. A classic case is found in Numbers 11, where even Moses loses the plot. The people are now grumbling because all they ever get to eat is manna from heaven; they are sick of it. They want some real meat to get their teeth into. Rebellion breaks out in their ranks yet again, and in desperation Moses turns to God, or perhaps that should be, Moses turns on God.

At this point the narrative takes on an almost comic turn. God tells Moses, Now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month – until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it – because you have rejected the Lord.

There’s a sort of Oscar Wilde quality about this response; be careful of what you pray for in case you get it! But far from backing off, Moses becomes the spokesperson for human economics and commonsense. “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, I will give them meat to eat for a whole month! Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?’

It is obviously stories like this that St John has in mind as he writes this wonderful chapter. The scene is the far side of the Lake , representing the wilderness. Jesus goes up a mountain, reminding us, perhaps, of Mount Sinai . A great crowd of people gather, representing the multitude in the wilderness. And just in case we have missed all these clues, we come to verse 4: The Jewish Passover feast was near. Purely in narrative terms that adds nothing to the story, it’s a master-stroke nonetheless.

It concludes the scene setting by summing up the historical setting. The Passover Feast is the annual celebration of the escape from Egypt , the Exodus, so St John is asking us to have all that in the back of our minds as we come to this new story. But it is also deliberately looking ahead to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion. Only in St John’s Gospel do we see the clear link between the slaughter of the Passover lamb and Jesus’ death on the cross, as well as the link between the Last Supper and the Passover Feast. And, of course, the link between all that and the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

So in this one short verse, St John is showing us in a quite brilliant way the thread that runs through our faith history from the miraculous feeding of the multitude in the wilderness, the Feeding of the Five Thousand on the far side of the Lake in Galilee, the Last Supper and all that was involved there, and the celebration of the Eucharist here today.

So let the story begin, and again we find an almost comic element to it, as Jesus tests or even teases his disciples. He asks Philip, who is apparently a local man, “Where shall we buy bread for each one to eat?” And so Philip is cast in the role of spokesman for human economics and commonsense: Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” And, of course, he is right in his own terms.

But in Jesus’ terms he is wrong; because this isn’t a home economics class, this is a Eucharistic celebration. Watch what Jesus does. He takes a very small offering, five small barley loaves, about a quarter of the bread available in our first reading, and “gives thanks”. The word for that in Greek is the word from which we get “Eucharist”. In the other gospel accounts of this story we’re told that Jesus “blessed” the bread. Not a great difference in meaning, perhaps, but a great difference in significance. St John uses the terminology of the liturgy to make his point.

As usual in these stories, everybody has enough to eat, and there’s plenty left over. It is suggested that the twelve baskets represent the twelve tribes – that is, the whole of Israel . If so, the idea is that it is not just this crowd of people who are fed by the grace of God, but the whole nation.

Once again this sign raises the question of who Jesus is. The people are supposed to put two and two together and make four; they are supposed to realise that only God can feed multitudes with next to nothing; therefore Jesus must be God. But arithmetic is obviously not their strong point. They conclude only that this man is good enough to be a prophet-king, and plan an impromptu coronation, so Jesus leaves in a hurry.

The crowd got it wrong, but what about his disciples? Have they twigged yet? St John gives us the answer in his account of Jesus walking across the Lake to the disciples’ boat. If they had twigged that Jesus was God, they would not have been too surprised at this latest extraordinary event. Their terrified response shows that they had not yet worked it out.

They lacked the wonderful insight and imagination of St Paul . Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to the power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever. Amen! St John would certainly add his amen to that.

And so do we whenever we celebrate the Eucharist. As we come today, can we bring in our hearts and minds all these links with our faith history? Can we see in the wafer both the smallness of our human resources and the magnitude of God’s grace? Then we shall all be satisfied, and there will be enough left over to feed the hunger of the world.