Text for the Week: Where Are We…

Scripture: John 6:1-15

¹After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ² A large crowd kept following him because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³ Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴ Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. ⁵ When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰ Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place, so they sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹ Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

¹⁵ When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Questions

1. Why does Jesus express a need to feed the crowd around him rather than just sending them home to get food?
2. What is the test Jesus is placing on his disciples when he asks them to feed the crowd?
3. The other three Gospels did not include the boy with the food, why does John include this detail?
4. Why do the disciples rely on the boy’s food, did they not have any or were they unwilling to share what they had?
5. How would you respond to this miracle if you were on of Jesus’ disciples, what about one of the people in the crowd who were fed?

Background

Related Scriptures: Exodus 4, 16; Malachi 3:7-15; Matthew 14:13–21; Mark 6:31–44; Luke 9:12–17;

The crowds at the beginning want to follow Jesus (a reference to discipleship) but by the end aren’t willing to commit to doing things Jesus’ way and so he leaves them.

In the other Gospels Jesus feeds the 5,000 after they have spent the day listening to him, in John’s Gospel he prepares for feeding them the moment he sees the crowd gathering.

Early Christians saw Jesus’ test of Philip as a test of his faith that Jesus could do the miraculous and thus prove to him when Jesus spoke there would be a solution.

Jesus withdraws from would be followers the same way he does from the unbelievers when the would be followers represent a militarism at odds with his goals.

Reflection

I wonder what it was like to be Philip when he was standing next to Jesus watching the crowd approaching and Jesus looks at him and asks about providing a meal for all of these people. I think, I would have had a difficult time with what was happening, trying to process if Jesus was talking about providing a literal meal for these people or if he was somehow speaking metaphorically, as he frequently did. What was it like for the disciples, realizing that Jesus was serious about feeding the crowds, and looking around at the wilderness and recognizing that the food they had available consisted of a few fish and loaves of bread. Did they bring the boy to Jesus cynically, trying to point out that this was the only food for miles around? In my mind it plays out that way, the disciples bring the boy to Jesus sarcastically saying, “this is all the food we can find” and Jesus responds, “Great, buy it from him.” (After all, we cannot expect the boy to donate food to Jesus’ ministry when Jesus’ own disciples are not.) I can then see the disciples looking around at one another as Judas pulls out the moneybag and gives the boy a few coins, looks of bewilderment on their faces.

Now John tells us that Jesus wanted to test his disciples and that is why he placed this strange burden on them, but John does not tell us what the test was meant to discover. I think he was testing both their faith, forcing them to ask whether or not Jesus could preform such a miracle and their willingness to participate in the miracle. Christians tend to focus on the first of these, do we believe Jesus can preform this miracle, but we shy away from the second, do I want to participate with Jesus in this work. Jesus’ comment to Philip forces him to think about this second point, what can I do to help and what do I want to do to help. And like so many, Philip seems to see the crowd of people and says, let them find their own food because feeding them is too much for us. He looked at the overwhelming problem and not the person of Jesus standing by his side. But Jesus was not simply looking for Philip to say, “you’ve got this Jesus, I believe in you.”  Jesus wanted Philip to say, “How are we going to feed them.” A response that reflects both trust in  Jesus’ ability to preform the miracle and a desire to participate in it.

One of the strangest connections that I have seen made with John 6 comes from John Chrysostom who observed a connection between the feeding of the five thousand and the calling of Moses in Exodus 4:2. In that verse God’s statement to Moses is “What is in your hand”, Chrysostom connects this idea to the question that Jesus asks Philip when he sees the crowds, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”. The reason why Chrysostom can so easily connect these two stories is through the fact that in both cases God wants to do things that we consider miracles, and in both cases God wants to work through what we already have. Chrysostom is drawing this odd parallel so that we can more easily recognize that God’s desire is to work through humanity, to allow us the opportunity to participate in miracles, even if our participation is very limited. Moses had a staff and God uses it, a boy had lunch and God uses it, the point is to show that God does not require us to bring resources to the table, God simply wants us to trust that whatever we bring to the table is enough and even our limited resources will accomplish great things.

It can be tempting to say, “Yeah, but in each of those God made a specific request for a specific miracle.” But what we are meant to recognize is that living in God’s kingdom is about expecting God to act in the world at any time. And living with an expectation of God acting in this world involves living with eyes open to where I can actively use my resources to work with God, not because God needs my help but because desires to work with and through me. The point of asking the disciples to feed the crowds was to help them understand that as limited as their resources were, in God’s hands they can still do great things. And the same lesson is true for us today, if we are willing to give generously to what God is doing even our most meager resources can become miracles.