#five loaves

Do you remember learning your multiplication tables?9×9=81… 6×7=42…4×8=32 — and somehow that information is still tucked away in our brains! No calculator needed! But there’s a kind of multiplication that no classroom ever taught us — the kind only God can do. Remember those words: “Little is much when God is in it!? Picture this? A crowd of thousands, miles from the nearest “drive-thru,”…

My devotion this morning read: 

“Because I am infinite in all My ways, you need not fear that I will run out of resources. Abundance is at the very heard of who I AM.” ~Sarah Young, Jesus Calling

In this scary time of the world with COVID-19 and the fear of not having enough medical supplies and protective equipment, hand sanitizer, food, or even toilet paper... take heart in knowing that there is One who never runs out of anything. 

Remember the feeding of the five thousand in the Bible (John 6:6-14)? It was seemingly impossible to feed that many people out of just five loaves and two fish. But, we forget: All things are possible with God (Matthew 19:26). And what’s crazy about that story was that there wasn’t just enough to feed everybody, but there was an overabundance of food left afterward. The Bible says: 

When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments leftover, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ~Matthew 6:12-13, NRSV

Revised Common Lectionary Proper 12 Roman Catholic Proper 17

Complementary Hebrew Scripture from the Latter Prophets: Isaiah 25:6-10a

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples  a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,  of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain  the shroud that is cast over all peoples,  the sheet that is spread over all nations;  he will swallow up death forever.¹ Then the Lord GOD will wipe away the tears from all faces,²:  and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,  for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day,  Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him,  so that he might save us.  This is the Lord for whom we have waited;  let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For the hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain.

¹This sentence is quoted in 1 Corinthians 15:54, ²This phrase is quoted in Revelation 7:17.

Semi-continuous Hebrew Scripture from the Writings: 2 Chronicles 9:29-31

Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, from first to last, are they not written in the history of the prophet Nathan, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite, and in the visions of the seer Iddo concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat? Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years. Solomon slept with his ancestors and was buried in the city of his father David; and his son Rehoboam succeeded him.¹

¹There is a parallel passage at 1 Kings 11:41-43

Complementary Psalm 111

Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,  in the company of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the works of the Lord,  studied by all who delight in them. Full of honor and majesty is his work,  and his righteousness endures forever. He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;  the Lord is gracious and merciful.¹ He provides food for those who fear him;  he is ever mindful of his covenant. He has shown his people the power of his works,  in giving them the heritage of the nations. The works of his hands are faithful and just;  all his precepts are trustworthy. They are established forever and ever,  to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. He sent redemption to his people;  he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name.²: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;  all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever.

¹This sentence is quoted in James 5:11. ²This and the preceding sentenced are quoted in Luke 1:49 (part of the Magnificant).

Semi-continuous Psalm 37:12-22

The wicked plot against the righteous,  and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked,  for he sees that their day is coming.

The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows  to bring down the poor and needy,  to kill those who walk uprightly; their sword shall enter their own heart,  and their bows shall be broken.

Better is a little that the righteous person has  than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken,  but the Lord upholds the righteous.

The Lord knows the days of the blameless,  and their heritage will abide forever; they are not put to shame in evil times,  in the days of famine they have abundance.

But the wicked perish,  and the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures;  they vanish—like smoke they vanish away.

The wicked borrow, and do not pay back,  but the righteous are generous and keep giving; for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land,  but those cursed by him shall be cut off.

New Testament Gospel Lesson: Mark 6:35-44

When it grew late, Jesus' disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” And he said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.¹

¹There are parallel passages at Matthew 14:15-21, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:5-15 (which was included in the Sunday Gospel lesson).

Year B Ordinary 17, RCL Proper 12, Catholic Proper 17 Wednesday

Readings

2 Kings 4:42-44

Ephesians 4:1-6

John 6:1-15

There has, since as early as the 4th century, been a church on the northwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. The Church of the Multiplication as it currently stands is not, it must be said, a particularly attractive building from the outside, having been built toward the end of that architectural dark age that was the 1960s to the 1980s. Fortunately, some of the beautiful 5th century mosaics have survived, the most famous of which is of course the familiar one of the loaves in the basket, flanked by two fish, located just in front of the altar. Under the altar is set a large limestone rock, said to be the very spot on which the miracle happened. As with nearly all such precise biblical archaeological claims, it is difficult to know what to say about historical accuracy here, except that it does not much matter.

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In June this year, the church was vandalised and, it seems likely, set on fire by Zionist extremists. The graffiti, left in red painted Hebrew, said, “False idols will be smashed”. The response from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish authorities came in swiftly, and with one voice, condemning the aggression of the extremists, and appealing to the Israeli government to do more to protect the different religious groups in the region. We don’t hear nearly enough stories about different religious groups coming together like this, and when we do, it is almost always in the wake of some kind of violent conflict. That’s a shame.

For all the social progress we have allegedly made, there is still an intolerable antipathy across sectarian religious lines, not just in dry and dusty lands far away, but even here and on the neighbouring continent. Consider the arson attacks on mosques in Sweden earlier this year. Again, masses of people came out to disavow these atrocities, but the fact is that such acts are all too common. In Germany, there were over 70 attacks on mosques between 2012 and 2014. In France, in the week after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, there were 54 anti-Muslim incidents reported. Closer to home, consider the negative stereotyping and verbal abuse that British Muslims—particularly British Muslim women—face much more than we might realise, or care to find out about. And while the mass media moguls and their chattering classes are focused on the horrific acts of extremist Islamist groups, let us not forget that there are also violent extremists who claim Christian and Jewish identity.

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The story of the feeding of the five thousand is, as we have heard, an unmistakably Jewish story. Elisha feeds 100 men during a famine, with twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain, and had some left over. St John, not to be outdone, has Jesus feeding 5,000, with considerably less food, and considerably more left over. This will not, as we know, be the last example of petty one-upmanship in the sordid history of inter-faith relations within the Abrahamic traditions; indeed, it isn’t even the only case in St John’s gospel of what might be read as an incipient Christian anti-Semitism. 

And yet, and yet, the story of the feeding of the 5,000 is unmistakably a Jewish story. And St John’s gospel is unmistakably a Jewish text. And early Christianity is unmistakably a Jewish sect. Similar things might be said about the relationship between Christianity and early Islam. By the by, Christians tempted toward supersessionist narratives in which Christianity has replaced Judaism might want to reconsider, given Islam’s historical location and her current increasing popularity.

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There is one body and one Spirit, one hope [to which we are called], one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.

This lyrical section of the epistle to the Ephesians is often cited in the context of ecumenical conversations among Christians. It is usually used to emphasise our similarities—the beliefs we share in common, for example—over our differences. As such, it might be somewhat less helpful for thinking through inter-faith issues. It is less clear that we share one hope, one faith, one baptism, and so forth with our Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu friends.

And yet, the implications of our commitment to the oneness of God should make a difference to our relationships with people with whom we significantly disagree theologically. This is not because there are no substantive disagreements across religious traditions, but because Christian orthodoxy is necessarily a generous orthodoxy. And this is because, as St Paul writes, “There is…one God…who is above all and through all and in all”. In other words, God is the one from whom all things have their existence, and who is therefore beyond all existing things, and therefore also beyond all manners of thinking and speaking about existing things.

There are, and have always been, two attitudes to take toward the unutterable mystery of God. The first is to refuse to speak at all; that is, to give in to the fear of blasphemy that is based on the odd notion that God’s feelings are somehow hurt by our failed attempts to talk about God. The second, which is the path the Church and her theologians have generally trodden, is to say as much as humanly possible, daring to exploit the intellectual and linguistic resources of every age and culture encountered by Christian people. This has always included Jews and Muslims, and now also includes a much larger variety of religious and cultural traditions. Without Moses Maimonides and Avicenna, there well may not have been Thomas Aquinas, or at least not as we currently have him. God only knows what our future blindspots will be if we now ignore or demonise or patronise our brothers and sisters from other faiths.

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We have, you and I and ours, much to repent, not least the pathetic defensiveness with which we cling to the false securities of a Christendom long gone. Religious fundamentalism—Christian or otherwise—is, almost always, a kind of death tremor.

We have much to repent; not least the failure to recognise that God is not first of all to be found in doctrinal statements about which we can agree and disagree more or less vehemently, but rather to be encountered—known, as it were, in the biblical sense, carnally—in the eating and drinking of his flesh and blood.

In this eating and drinking, we are committing ourselves to the kind of self-abnegation that Jesus himself demonstrated before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate. In the face of violence, we do not raise our swords. In the face of disagreement, we do not score cheap rhetorical points. In the face of moral criticism, we do not make lame excuses. Instead, we are called to a different ideal. Thus, the epistle to the Ephesians, the fourth chapter:

Supper Club does IOP

This past weekend, the hubs and I headed to Isle of Palms to see one of his high school best friends tie the knot! The wedding was perfect.

The rehearsal dinner was at the Boathouse. The wedding was at Lowndes Grove Plantation in Charleston.

I was excited to try out some new restaurants while we were in town. I met up with one of my besties from home, who also had a wedding in Charleston, at Five…

There is another ministry that is offering hope to young men who want to practice their trades and show value to the occasions they create.

Urban Avenues was created by a friend. He is doing so much for the kingdom and all in the background. Most that he does will go unrecognized except by the very One who counts in the end. Urban Avenues seeks to create pathways for those in the urban…