Food for All
John 6:1-14
July 26, 2009
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, 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. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’
I recently read a very good book that I probably won’t recommend to too many people. The book is titled, Jesus Interrupted, by Bart Ehrman, a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina. It is a very, very good book in terms of talking about a topic that many Christians shy away from. It’s a book about the contradictions of the Bible, about dealing with passages, parables, and stories that contradict each other. For people who really understand the Bible, it’s a very good book. The problem is that for people who don’t know the Bible very well, nor how to understand these contradictions, the book can diminish faith. The reason is that Ehrman is an atheist. Imagine that, an atheist biblical scholar. Being an atheist, he interprets these contradictions in a way that causes those inexperienced with the Bible to lose faith in the Bible.
What makes the book good is that it is sophisticated in its arguments, but simple in its writing. Being an atheist allows him to look at the Bible in an honest way that many Christians won’t. He bases his writings on what is called the historical-critical method. This method of understanding the Bible is nothing new. It arose out of German biblical scholarship in the nineteenth century, and it has grown in its use ever since. Most credible biblical scholars are experts in this method. It is a way of looking at scripture in a way similar to how historians research history, and how literary scholars research literature. The point of this method is to get away from reading scripture to hear only what we want to hear, and to read it more in light of what it actually says.
So, to read scripture in this way means letting go of the focus most of us have when we read the Bible, which is to ask, “What is God saying to me through this passage?” Instead, we read it and ask, “What was going on when this passage was written? What was going on nationally, socially, culturally, and historically? Who wrote the passage and what was he or she hoping to say—what was his or her agenda? Who was the author writing to, and what problems were they facing?” The method is a wonderful for getting to the heart of what the passage is saying, but it has a darker side. It is an ultra-rationalist way of reading scripture, and in the process of being moved to a more rational perspective, people can lose their sense of awe and reverence.
I know this happens to a lot of people when they go to seminary, where the historical-critical method is taught. A common complaint among many seminary students is that they lose their faith because of it, and then have to try to reconstruct it afterwards.
Now, why am I mentioning this book? I’m mentioning it because our passage for today is one that perplexes scholars like Ehrman, and those who use the historical-critical method. The fact is that it doesn’t fit easily into historical-critical formulas for deciding whether or not a biblical event really happened. Determining whether or not an event occurred is a concern for many of these scholars. They believe that some biblical events may be fabrications created to sway people to a particular point of view. As a result, they develop semi-scientific formulas for deciding whether or not an event really took place.
One of those formulas is a simple one that determines the probability of that a gospel event occurred. For example, if an event appears in only one gospel, then there is only a 25% chance that it occurred. If it appears in two, 50%. Three, 75%. Four, 100%. So, for example, according to these scholars the virgin birth only has a 50% probability of having occurred because it appears in only two gospels—Matthew and Luke.
What I find to be a problem with this way of deciding the veracity of biblical events is that it discounts the possibility that a writer of a particular gospel has to pick and choose what to include based on the audience. Think about this for yourself. If you are telling the story of someone’s life, with the hope that it will inspire your audience, what events will you include and leave out? You only have so much room. A fantastic story might inspire one group, but not another. So, you would tend to cite those events that resonate in your audience. I think that this may have taken place with the gospel writers.
For instance, Matthew was writing to Jews who care about the fulfillment of prophecy, and the virgin birth is a fulfillment of prophecy. Luke was writing to Gentile Christians who had previously been part of religions, such as the Greek or Persian ones, that had myths about great kings being born of virgins. For their audiences, the virgin birth was important. Mark was writing to Roman Jews who probably didn’t care so much about a virgin birth. So he left it out. John bypassed the virgin birth in favor of a deeper understanding of Jesus, which is that he already was at the beginning of creation. I believe in the virgin birth, but I also believe that it wasn‘t then, nor now, a crucial belief for belief in Christ. I don’t need the virgin birth for my faith, but some people do. I can still believe it happened, even if it isn’t as influential. Apparently Mark and John agree with me.
The other formula has to do with rational likelihood. Ehrman has another term for it, but let’s leave it at this term here. Basically, this formula registers the likelihood of something happening according to how well it corresponds with rational conclusions. So, for Ehrman, many miracles aren’t rationally likely. He would say that if a miracle appears in only one gospel and isn’t rationally likely, then it probably didn’t happen.
So, here’s the issue: this passage confuses scholars today. It also confuses pastors and laity, and it even confused people back in the early church. Did it really happen, and if it did, why would Jesus waste a miracle on feeding people when they probably could have gotten food on their own?
It’s hard to understand this miracle until you do something that Ehrman says we should do. Don’t focus so much on the actual event, but on what the writer is trying to say through writing about the event. Ehrman’s absolutely right about that. You see, the author of John’s Gospel wants to teach us about Jesus through the telling of the event, and to do so he uses lots of symbols in the passage.
Let me start by giving you some background to the passage. First, the event took place in the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus had been teaching in the city of Capernaum, and was now tired and retreating to the north-central part of the lake where the Jordan River empties into it. Capernaum is surrounded by arid land, but the area where Jesus went to, Bethsaida Julius, was off of a delta of the river, and so it was lush and green. He went by boat, a four-mile trip, but those following him walked, which was a nine-mile trip. By the time they got to Jesus, they were very tired. Also, most of those gathered around him had been on a pilgrimage south to Jerusalem, so to follow Jesus meant that they were backtracking nine miles. What does that say about them? That they were passionate about hearing what Jesus had to say.
John tells us the story, but in doing so he loads the story full of numerical symbols that the readers of his gospel would have gotten immediately, but that we don’t get today. Let me take you through the symbols. First, there were 5000 people gathered. Was that the exact number of people? Probably not. I don’t think any of the disciples went around counting. Instead, there were probably somewhere between 3000 and 7000. But the number given matters because it says something about the nature of the miracle and of Jesus.
First, we have to start with the number 5 in the 5000. The number 5 always symbolizes sacrifice that leads to receiving God’s grace. For example, how many wounds did Jesus suffer on the cross? Five—two on the hands, two on the feet, and one in the side. So what the number 5 tells us is that the people gathering around Jesus were making a sacrifice by being there. Five is then multiplied by 1000, which is 10x10x10, or 103. Why is that significant of 1000? The number 10 symbolizes God’s complete work on earth, hence the Ten Commandments. The fact that it is ten to the third power means that God is involved. The number three always stands for God, as in the Trinity. Thus, 1000 indicates that God is actively doing something complete in this place. So, reading the numerical symbology of the passage, the people heard 5000, and they immediately thought, “Wow! These people made a sacrifice because of their passion, and as a result they received God’s grace and became God’s people.
Next, we move to the two fish and the five barley loaves. That equals seven pieces of food to start with. The number 7 always stands for God’s perfection being accomplished on earth. It is the addition of two other significant numbers: 3 and 4. As mentioned above, three always stands for God, but four stands for the earth—the four corners of the earth (people back then believed there were literally four corners) and the four seasons. Thus, we’ve learned that earth was created in seven days, which means that God (3) was shaping the earth (4). When the people heard that there were seven pieces of food, they understood immediately that Jesus was about to create something amazing with that food. But there was more there than just the numbers. The fact that he started with two fish caught from the Sea of Galilee and five barley loaves said that he was with the common people. This was common food, not the food of the wealthy. It said that Jesus is one with the common folk. That was really important to John because he was most likely writing to Gentile Christians living in the areas north of the Sea of Galilee. He was saying that Jesus was one among them.
Then we move onto the scraps that were left over. How many were there? Twelve. What’s the significance of twelve? It’s the multiplication of 3x4, which symbolizes God’s influence and the multiplication of God’s work on earth. Thus, you have 12 tribes of Israel and 12 disciples. When they read that twelve baskets of scraps were left over, they knew that this meant that God’s grace was so abundant that God’s grace overflows when it works in the world.
So, summing all this up, what lessons do we have to learn from it? First, the passage teaches us that God wants to feed us not only spiritually, but also physically and mentally, but we have to have the passion to seek God out and receive it. Second, there is grace in abundance for anyone who wants it and is ready for it. It won’t run out. Third, if we are willing to sacrifice for our faith great things happen. Finally, and I don’t want to lost this in this concept, miracles do happen to those who have faith. They really do, but to experience them we have to first be open to them.
Let me close with a story that captures the last point. You’ve heard me talk before about Corrie ten Boom, a woman who brought a deep faith and prayerfulness into her experiences in a German concentration camp during World War II. She had been captured as a member of the Dutch resistance in 1944 after being caught hiding Jews. At first she was put into a prison camp, but then she was eventually transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp.
Conditions in the camp were horrendous. Not only did they sleep on hard palates, stacked against each other, but the straw they slept on was full of filth and fleas. Their food was barely enough to keep them alive. Somehow, though, they had managed to smuggle into the barracks a small vial of davitamon, or a daily vitamin supplement. Corrie and her sister first used the vial for themselves, but as people learned of it, they shared it. Each morning a crowd would gather around them. One-by-one they came forward, put out their tongue, and one drop of the davitamon would be dropped on their tongue. This went on for weeks. The vial never ran out. How many drops in a small vial do you think there would be? 100? 200? They should have run out after several days, but each morning the same people came forward, and drops were placed on their tongues. Corrie expected each drop to be the last, but every time she tipped the bottle the applicator would let out one drop.
At one point Corrie tried to figure out how much liquid was left in the bottle. She held it up to the light, but the bottle was too dark. Her sister, Betsie, told her to quit trying to figure out the miracle and to just accept it.
Several weeks later, one of the fellow prisoners in their barracks walked in carrying a large sack. She said, “Look what I managed to get out of the infirmary!” They looked into the sack and saw a thousands of vitamin pills. They agreed that they would begin taking them as soon as the vial of davitamon ran out. The next morning they tipped the bottle for the first person, and it was dry. The vial had finally run out. But the next miracle was being given other vitamins.
The point of our passage is both simple and complex. The complex message has to do with numbers and the rest, but the simple message is this: miracles do happen, they can happen to you, and all you have to do is to have a passionate faith that opens you to grace.
Amen.
