You know how it feels – or you can probably imagine – when it’s twenty-five past five and the boss is still talking. Still generating new projects, solving problems, playing to an audience, and you just need the day to end.
I imagine that’s what it felt like when the disciples go to Jesus and say: “You’ve been healing all day. You know no one is going to leave until you tell them to. Send folks home before the whole world shuts down for the night, or they’ll never get any dinner.”
I feel like Jesus’ response shouldn’t come as a surprise to the disciples, but I bet it does:
“No need to send people away! You give them something to eat!”
Does this ever happen to you?
You ask God for something – something perfectly reasonable like comfort for a friend, or a peaceful home. And the “you do it!” answer doesn’t come in words, but you just keep feeling more and more responsible for your friend, for the relationships among your family, the climate of your home. The ball just stays in your court.
Or you say to God: I’m exhausted by all this injustice. I’m so done with this protesting and tension and violence. Can’t we please have some cooperation and good news? And then all the next five emails or news stories or conversations that come into your life are about how you have to act now to bring justice and peace and safety for all.
Me?? Seriously? Do you know how big this problem is, Jesus? This is impossible!
We’ve got nothing here. There’s five, ten, fifteen thousand people involved and we’ve got about two dozen tuna fish sandwiches.
You can imagine how that feels.
Jesus isn’t going to quit, though: “Okay, bring me what you’ve got.”
He takes it, blesses it, hands it back to the disciples to distribute – and there’s so much more than enough that you’ve got to go back through and collect the leftovers.
I’m starting to realize now that Jesus was going to do this anyway.
If people are too enthralled by his healing work to take care of their own dinner, he’ll take care of it.
Jesus is just going to feed and heal and teach, whether we notice or not.
God is going to work through the salvation of the world whether or not we ever get involved.
I think it’s entirely possible that if the disciples hadn’t mentioned anything, had just left the problem alone, they’d never have noticed that all those thousands of people just ate dinner when they needed to, whatever, wilderness or no.
But Matthew tells this story – the whole Christian community tells this story over and over – because Jesus wants us to be involved.
Jesus lets – possibly encourages – the disciples to take him aside and talk about their concern so that they’ll notice the miracle. And get involved.
Jesus wants the disciples to ask – Jesus wants us to look at the needs and hopes, the challenges, irritations, and opportunities of the world, and bring them to Jesus – so that we’ll be able to see the divine work that feeds and heals and makes the world whole. Not only see it, but be involved.
That’s why we pray intercessions. It’s why we talk to God together about those who are sick, injured, dying, oppressed, or hungry; why we draw God’s attention and our own to the needs of the nation, world, and church in our worship together.
It’s why we pray personally for healing and comfort for family and friends; for the wounds of the world and our nation, or the fulfillment of hopes we treasure.
We pray for others – and for ourselves – because Jesus wants to involve us in the miracle. Wants us to see what God is up to, and to get our hands into the power of God.
Maybe you pray, and stay close to a friend who’s supposed to die. You take her to the doctor when it’s hopeless – and then you see just how miraculous the surgery that saves her is. Or you invest some time in asking the powerful for action on injustice, and the miracles of slow change taking place in law and culture become visible to you.
You might have noticed that when the disciples bring their need to Jesus, and he tells them (us!) to take care of it, he also makes it possible.
He takes their few loaves and fish, prays the blessing they’ve known since childhood, and then shows them that in their hands, these two things – bread and blessing – are tools of God’s abundance.
Jesus doesn’t do this to wow the crowd. They don’t even know it’s a miracle. They just hear Jesus tell them to sit down, and then here come Jesus’ friends, offering them dinner. The crowds don’t seem to notice the wonder.
Only the disciples see the miracle. Because they asked Jesus to get involved, and then God invited them to help.
This is what happens when we pray, too.
Not exactly like this, every single time. But God is always listening and waiting for us to ask Jesus’ help with the needs around and in front of us. Within us, too.
And then Jesus invites us to get involved, and makes it possible.
I asked you to imagine how it felt when the disciples were asking Jesus to end the day. Can you imagine now how it felt to be handing around a couple of sandwiches – barely enough to feed yourself – and discover as it leaves your hands that you’re handing out a full meal for hundreds – maybe even a thousand people?
To discover that you – you – are passing around God’s power to change the world with your own hands.
God never turns our prayers back to us without making the miracles possible, without putting the tools and the wonder in our hands.
That’s what Jesus shows the disciples, shows us, when he blesses the food.
Jesus would have taken the bread and said, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.”
The traditional blessing over bread does not bless the bread itself. We bless God, who provides the miracle, who provides what we need, before we even knew to ask.
That prayer does not count the loaves in front of us, or the people who need to eat. Simply, we bless God, who creates and provides. God, who heals and feeds and saves whether we notice or not, because that is simply who God is.
Then, now, always, we bless God who provides the tools and the opportunity for you and me to take part in God’s miracles.
Just ask for God’s help, and you will, too.
No comments:
Post a Comment