Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading comes to us from the Second Book of Kings, a book in the Old Testament. It describes a man coming to Elisha and bringing twenty barley loaves. Elisha told him to give it to the people to eat. The man protested that there wasn’t enough for a hundred people. Elisha promised that all will eat and there will be leftovers. John’s Gospel describes an event that is written of in all four Gospels. Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee and a large crowd followed him (it was almost Passover). Jesus looked at the crowd and told his disciple Phillip to buy enough food for the crowd. Phillip protests that even 200 days’ wages wouldn’t buy enough food for everyone. Andrew, another disciple, found a boy who had five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus instructed his disciples to have the crowd recline. Then he blessed the food and distributed them to the crowd. When everyone had their fill there were enough leftovers to fill 12 wicker baskets.
A colleague of my wife once told me that conflict occurs for only three reasons: resources, values, and feelings. These readings speak to conflicts over resources.
Throughout our history with each other, conflicts over food and nutrition have held a critical place. Ironically it was much more of an issue when these readings were written while today it’s become much more of a political issue.
The fear of starvation strikes us to the core. From our first experiences as humans, we spent virtually all of our energy seeking enough food to live. We learned to hunt, to forage, eventually to farm, and eventually to herd. And we’ve been successful. Today most of us never eat anything that hasn’t been packaged, processed, or travelled thousands of miles. We can easily think that these readings have no relevance to today.
And we’d be wrong. Most of our history with each other centered around finding the technologies that would provide enough food to feed us. By and large we’ve won that fight. Today we need to center on the reality that we are responsible to ensure that the food we provide is evenly divided, or at least divided where everyone has enough to live.
But we’re still a long way from that. I do genealogy as a hobby and a few years ago I obtained the death certificate for Joseph Arthur Calixte Lizotte. He was my 7th cousin twice removed (that means that his 6th great grandparents are my 8th great grandparents) and he died in 1915 when he was sixteen months old. The doctor who signed his death certificate listed two causes of death: cholera (that he suffered for three days) and malnutrition (that he suffered his entire life). He didn’t die in some far corner of the earth or in the middle of a famine: he died in Greenville, New Hampshire. There was enough food in Greenville then for everyone who lived there but not everyone had access to it. He spent his entire life hungry in a place where others had more than they needed. Granted he died of cholera, a disease that now has an 80% cure rate and is nearly nonexistent in developed countries. But the fact that he was malnourished his entire life certainly contributed to his death.
Fast forward 75 years to my seminary days in Washington D.C. Through the generosity of countless people we lived well. Well enough to need an exercise room in the basement. We had the usual equipment: a treadmill, a rowing machine, free weights, etc. Some of my classmates wanted us to add a stairmaster to which the rector replied: “We live in a four story building. Why do we need a stairmaster?” We ended up getting the stairmaster but his point was well taken: why did we need to spend money to burn off calories when there are others (in the same city) who spend inordinate amounts of time working to get calories?
You see, while circumstances change in our world, we often don’t. The fear of food scarcity still holds a place in our minds even though likely everyone who hears this has no reasonable fear of this.
I don’t wish to shame us, and God knows I struggle with this myself. The world of advertising spends a scary amount of money telling us that we should eat as much as we can, that hunger is an awful thing we need to fight off, and that hunger is just around the corner. They’ve been incredibly successful. Fun fact: nearly everyone on planet earth knows about McDonald’s. In the 1960s they advertised their hamburgers and one hamburger has 240 calories; in 1968 they introduced the Big Mac that weighs in at 530 calories. Today you can buy a “Big Breakfast with Hotcakes and a Large Biscuit” for 1150 calories (with 540 calories from fat). If we’re supposed to consume 2000 calories per day, that breakfast gets you 57% there. OK, so let’s not pick on just McDonalds. Here in the Western United States we have another burger place called Carl’s Jr. Carl will serve you a “1/2 Pound Mile High Bacon Thickburger” that weighs in at 1230 calories.
And so while the reality of starvation is unlikely to visit us, our fear continues. And I think that’s why we can look at these readings. Both passages show us a seemingly miraculous creation of food out of nothing.
The 2nd Book of Kings narrates the history of Israel shortly after the time of King David. Not everything then was good and the passage just before this speaks of a famine. This man (who is not identified and comes from a place we know next to nothing about) speaks to Elisha. Elisha is the successor to Elijah and both are clearly foreshadowing Jesus; in chapter 4 alone he has saved children from slavery, raised another child from the dead, and here feeds 100 people with only a small portion of food. Readers of this passage obviously looked on this passage feeling very good about their choice to follow God. No matter how desperate you situation, God will provide for you.
Likewise in John’s Gospel Jesus feeds 5000 men (Matthew’s Gospel describes the crowd as “5000, not including women and children”) with 5 loaves and 2 fish. Clearly that amount of food cannot be divided 5000 ways, and yet everyone had their fill. How did this happen? Did the disciples pull out a loaf or a fish and find another still in the basket? Was there a secret stash that didn’t make it into the story? Or did the 5000 begin to share with one another?
Perhaps that’s it: Some came to listen to Jesus and brought more food than they needed, some enough, and some not enough. After hearing Jesus’ message they saw each other in a new light, overcame their fears, and shared with each other. Clearly nobody went home hungry as the leftovers filled twelve baskets.
If so, the true message of these readings isn’t about food, it’s about fear. Scripture is laden with the phrase “fear not” and it’s always followed by a promise that God will care for us. These readings show that we are not alone and ultimately our fears, whatever they may be, do not rule us. The generosity that calls us as disciples demands that our resources, no matter how scarce or abundant, must be shared with all. Those with more than they need can share with those who don’t have enough, assured that our surplus better serves them than it serves our fears of the future need.
A hundred years later I wish these readings had reached the wealthy neighbors in Greenville, New Hampshire who could have saved my distant cousin. Let us commit to make sure it doesn’t happen now.