The Abundance of God

I had a great evening with my family the other day. It was great because we were all home and we had no other place we had to be. Jennifer cooked a great meal and we sat around the kitchen table and ate it. And we actually looked at each other and talked to each other. We relaxed. It was a real pleasure. In fact, studies show that maybe the single strongest predictor of family happiness is whether you sit down and eat meals together or not. It’s a real pleasure.

You know what make for the worst evenings? No food. There is no food on the table and we don’t have a plan for how we are going to have food. We’re hungry, but we’re unprepared. But we’re still hungry. So we get irritable and impatient and we start to pick the carcasses of meals past, like snapping hyenas. It ‘s every man, woman, child for themselves. It’s not a real pleasure.

A lot can be learned in the Gospels when everyday human needs bump up against the grace and power of God. Such was the case in our reading for today. A great crowd, at least five thousand people, has come out again to hear Jesus teach and preach. But the day has wore on, evening has come. It’s suppertime. But they are in a relatively remote area. There are no markets or bakeries. What’s more, there’s no money in budget for a big feed. Jesus and the Twelve barely have enough to feed themselves. They’ve looked in the refrigerator and its bare. Now I’m guessing that as Jesus is teaching and it’s getting late, there are at least some who notice that. You know, a few stomachs start rattling, a couple disciples wonder when Jesus will send the crowds home so they can eat – “Go, be at peace, go fill yourselves. See you tomorrow!” Something like that.

But Jesus says to Philip, “How are we going to buy enough to feed these people?” Philip was asked this presumably because he was originally from that region. Jesus, of course knows the answer to this. He is, after all, from that region as well. He’s the Galilean.

But “he said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.” John 6.6

What is Jesus doing? Why the test? To bring them to the point where it’s God or nothing. To help them see what God can do.

Sometimes we need a crisis to show us the reality of our situation. You probably don’t remember this but in 1997 Korean Air flight 801, a Boeing 747 jet crashed into the side of a mountain on the island of Guam. 228 of 254 passengers died in the fiery crash. Why did it crash? Was the weather particularly bad? Did an engine catch fire? Did a terrorist set off a bomb? No, none of those things happened. In fact, those things are not the cause of most plane crashes. It doesn’t happen in real life like it does in the movies. Some engine part doesn’t explode in a fiery bang, or the rudder doesn’t suddenly snap under the force of takeoff. The captain doesn’t gasp, “Dear God,” as he’s thrown back against his seat.. The typical commercial jetline is about as dependable as a toaster. Plane crashes are result of an accumulation of minor difficulties and trivial malfunctions; and one other thing - human denial and miscommunication. Airline safety officials analyzed the black box recording from flight 801. There was no dramatic yelling and screaming. Everyone spoke very calmly and politely. But for various reasons, even when it became clear that something major was amiss, no one was willing or able to speak up and say we have a crisis on our hands. They politely crashed to their deaths.

Rahm Emmanuel, counsel to President Obama recently and famously said, “Never waste a crisis.”

Crises can point us in the right direction. Crises can save our lives. God can really use a crisis? I’m saying he creates them. I’m saying he uses them for good. If we are willing. Remember, he’s the Third Day God. He shows up when our need its most dire. He shows up when its darkest, when its curtains for us.

Jesus knew what he was going to do to feed those thousands of people. But he wanted them to own the crisis first. Don’t deny it by pretending things are okay. Don’t deny it by sending the people away hungry. Own it.

Then Jesus said, “Whadda we got?” What they had was the meagerest of provisions – five loaves of bread and two fish. These loaves weren’t big loaves of bakery bread that you or I might buy. They were more like the size of biscuits. The fish were not Gulf stream tuna. They small already prepared morsels. But this is all that was available. They got this from a boy. Could it have looked any more pathetic?

But Jesus said watch me work. And he did. The pathetically small amounts just kept on spreading as they distributed to the crowd. All were fed. There was more left over than what they had started with.

It’s a good Bible story. But that can’t happen, can it?

Well, God says it can. God has an abundance to work with.

“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” Psalm 24.1

God has the fullness. Is it too hard for God to feed five thousand when he’s now feeding billions? Ah, but you say, theoretically, philosophically, I guess he could. But does God really get that involved in human affairs?

He says he does. “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1.17

The God who created the heavens and the earth as a gift is still giving.

“Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” Matthew 6.33
Something great was said at our Ad Council the other night. Someone said this: “We have a lot of vision here.”

We do. God has blessed us with vision. And when God gives vision God will give the resources to fulfill the vision.

It’s true. We don’t have enough simply by ourselves. And maybe the first faithful step is naming the dilemma, stating the crisis. We’ve got all these needs and our resources are the equivalent of five loaves and two fish. But now will you take the next step of believing that God has the abundance we need? Let’s present our bread and fish to Jesus and see what he might do with it.

Like the hymn says, let’s “ponder anew what the Almighty can do.”

In this economy we are getting used to thinking in terms of scarcity. I yell in fright every time I look at my pension statements. But just because things are scarce . . .maybe because things are scarce, we can start relying on the Third Day God.

The church in America has poor soil for growth so much of the time because we are so wealthy. Wealth makes it very difficult to grow the word. Maybe now, that we begin to feel the pinch financially, God can get our attention.

Maybe he has us right where he wants us.