10th Sunday after Pentecost

A crowd clamors after Jesus for healing.
The Great Physician is curing the sick and there are many in search of his healing
touch.
But there is something more going on here than a health clinic or even a faith
healing revival.

The Gospel of John tells us:
“A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing
for the sick.”
Notice that John tells us the crowd “saw the signs.”

In John’s gospel, miracles are signs that point beyond themselves.
The miracles are not important merely because someone is healed,
or because Jesus changes water to wine and so on.

The miracles are signs that point to the reality of who Jesus is:
They point to something much more than the miracles themselves.
And so the crowd gathers for healing:
But they keep following Jesus because of the signs:
Because the miracles, and the healing, point to something even bigger.

And Then Jesus provides a new sign.
He has been feeding them spiritually and now he will fill their stomachs as well.

He takes the small offering of bread and fish:
Gives thanks for them and distributes the food to the hungry multitude.
And there is enough bread for twelve basketfuls of leftovers.
As for the fish, we are told that everybody ate “as much as they wanted.”

This new sign points not simply to Jesus’ ability to perform miracles:
But how-- with Jesus we move from scarcity to abundance.

The people were in scarcity.
Philip told Jesus that there was not enough money to buy food as:
“Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
Andrew told Jesus, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.
But what are they among so many people?”

The disciples look at the situation and see that there is not enough to go around.
Why spend what little money we have when even a mound of money would not
be enough?
Why take the little food the boy brought when it wouldn’t even be an appetizer
for Jesus and the disciples, much less a meal for a multitude?
Resources were scarce.
And people think: when there is not enough to go around:
it is not the time to share, but the time to hoard.

Even the disciples thought:
There’s not enough:

So we might as well quit…
We might as well leave.

Jesus has a different view of the situation.
Because Jesus operates out of abundance.
With Jesus: there is more than enough:
There’s more than anyone can even imagine: let alone want or need.
There’s enough bread to gather together twelve basketfuls of LEFTOVERS.

As the people gathered on the grassy hillside that day,
They held in their minds the stories of miraculous feedings in the past:
When during the Exodus: Pharaoh horded food:
Turning bread into bread of fear, scarcity, and slavery.

In the wilderness, the people were fed with manna, the bread of angels:
Bread that could not be horded: Bread that was just enough:
And would rot if someone tried to store it for even the next day.

The leaders and kings of the past only offered scarcity:
Hording riches in palaces that the average person could never enter.

And now: There’s Jesus on the hillside:
Not in a big palace:
Not in a fancy church:

But on the hillside:
In the midst of his own great creation:
freely offering abundance.

Jesus certainly offered free healthcare and free food.
And also a change from scarcity to abundance.
A sign: pointing to something much bigger:
That there would be more than enough for everyone.

Just after our reading for today, Jesus says,
“Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because
you ate of the loaves and were filled.”

You saw. You ate. You felt. And you filled.

Jesus wants much more than to heal people who will later get sick again:
Or to feed people who will again hunger.
Jesus wants to give them more:
To fill in every single way.

In the coming weeks:
We will continue to read through John’s Gospel:
And we’ll hear a lot about bread:
A lot about how Jesus himself is the bread of life.

And for now:
We see the abundant God:
Who strives for something more:
Who strives to fully fill:
Who leads us out of scarcity into abundance:
Out of fear and into joy:
Away from Hording: Into a life completely satisfied.

The multitude, satisfied by the meal, desired to always have Jesus care for their
every need in this life.
Yet they didn’t understand that Jesus’ reign is much more than that:
Eternal, not bound by time or place.
And utterly abundant.

Much more than healing the sick, and feeding with physical food.
They did not yet know that Jesus himself IS, the Bread of life:
Jesus himself IS abundance.

With Jesus, we offer our very lives – ourselves, our souls, and our bodies as a
living sacrifice.
We offer the broken places that need healing.
We offer the sinful places of our lives that need repentance, forgiveness, and
redemption.
We offer our spiritual hunger and thirst and find spiritual food and living water in
abundance.

We come here:
Gathered together, to share the bread:
The body of Christ.
And yet we must keep our eyes open:
Looking for the signs:
NOTICING the signs of abundance, that point to something much more:

Rather than being afraid of potential scarcity:
Or hording up treasures that bring us little joy or health.

We find in Christ the Reign of God breaking into the here and now:
Making us strong and Holy as today’s collect says--
While Jesus continues to gives us our daily bread:
In ways that point to something more:
In ways that are far beyond our understanding:
Far beyond our earthly hopes and desires.
With baskets and baskets of abundant leftovers.

Amen.