Year B
 2 Kings 4:42-44
 Psalm 145:10-19
 Ephesians 3:14-21
 John 6:1-21

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

The Passover…  the festival of the Jews was near…  and why is Passover relevant in today’s reading…  because it reminds us that after the last plague…  after the Pharaoh’s son died…  the Israelites were released from bondage…  ] and Jesus going up on the mountain…   reminds us that during the Exodus…  Moses went up the mountain too…  ]  the feeding of the 5,000 reminds us about how God gave the Israelites food in the wilderness…  and that those who had much did not have too much…  and those who had little did not have too little…

And our story from 2 Kings gives us an earlier foretaste of God’s abundance…  Elisha the prophet served in a time of great strife…  during a time of war between Syria and Israel…  when scarcity was the rule of the day…  and there were many reasons to live in fear…  Elisha’s name means…  God has granted salvation…  but it was difficult for the people to hear this in the midst of their troubles…  but in a demonstration of great faithfulness…  a man came from Baal-shalishah…  a region fifteen [ Roman ] miles north of Lydda…  bearing an offering of first fruits…  Elisha chose not to receive them himself…  as was his right…  but he instructs his servant to give it to the people so they may eat…  the servant balks…  because it won’t be enough…  so Elisha invokes the Word of the Lord…  that they shall eat and have some left over…

There’s no effort to explain the mechanics of how this happened…  but what is clear is that in the midst of human need…  a man generously turns the best of what he has…  into a meal for a hundred of God’s people…  the results are beyond expectation…  and that’s the point…  that God is at work beyond our expectations…

In the Gospel…  this large crowd…  these five thousand men…  plus uncounted women and children…  saw what Jesus was doing for the sick…  and they kept following him…  and he went up the mountain…  a thin place where one might encounter God…  and a high place from which one might be heard more easily… 

And the crowds followed…  and Jesus asks Philip…  Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat…  intending to test him…  and Andrew points out the boy whose basket was full…  the text doesn’t say whether the boy held out his hands offering up the food he had…  which is so like what a child would do…  but Jesus had in mind what he was going to do…  and all the text says…  is that he took the loaves and fish…  and gave thanks…

Again…  there’s no effort to explain the mechanics of how this happened…  we’re not privy to the cosmic apparatus by which Jesus did this…  though John 1:3a affirms that…  all things came into being through him…  and everyone ate as much as they wanted…

Now perhaps the women in the group knew that they were headed out into the middle of nowhere…  and so they brought provisions…  and maybe enough women did this…  so that when Jesus took the loaves and fish and gave thanks…  he embodied the deeply spiritual truth of the heavenly banquet…  and it touched something within these maternal caretakers…  who thought…  Well…  I wasn’t going to share…  but I did bring a little extra…  and so I’ll share with those right around me…   and before you know it…  everyone who had too much…  shared with everyone who had too little…  and everyone ate as much as they wanted…  and we don’t really know how much they ate…  perhaps we think of today’s entrees at restaurants…  many of which are really enough to feed two or maybe three people…  when all they may have needed was enough to stave off their hunger until they returned home…  the text says they ate as much as they wanted…  but we really don’t know…

The number twelve…  a number of completion…  occurs 187 times in the Bible…  it’s the number of Jacob’s sons…  who became the twelve fathers of the twelve tribes…  Jesus’ choice of twelve disciples…  and Revelation…  written by John at about the same time…  which tells that the New Jerusalem has twelve gates guarded by twelve angels…  its walls are 144 cubits high…  which is 12 squared…  and the walls are adorned with twelve jewels…  and this is where John may have taken known scriptural references…  to tell the truth of God’s abundance…  because even when everyone ate…  the left overs filled twelve baskets…

But however we understand this story…  Fr. John Shea writes…  we can acknowledge our spiritual selves as gifts from our Source…  we are not our own…  but we are sustained at each moment by Spirit which is beyond us…  this fills us with gratitude…  and our gratitude overflows to others…  and it is in this distribution that growth occurs…

The physical law of scarcity can understand “giving away”…  only as a process which leads to having nothing…  while the spiritual law of abundance understands “giving away” as a process which leads to a sacred fullness…  so one aspect of what Jesus did…  was to see whether the people were able to gather up that abundance…  or whether they would be controlled by a consciousness of scarcity…

But the crowds of people…  even though they shared what they physically had…  did not receive this spiritual teaching…  they saw the sign…  but couldn’t follow it to its Source…  and so it’s no wonder that they tried to use force and make Jesus king…  a king who provided what they needed…  who allowed them not to change…  and again…  Jesus goes up the mountain…

And we’re not told why…  but the disciples can’t wait any longer…  and they get in a boat and start rowing…  it reminds us of the Israelites who couldn’t wait for Moses to come down…  when he was up on the mountain for forty days and nights…  when they took things into their own hands and built the golden calf…  and so out they rowed…  and a strong wind blew…  and the sea became rough…  now the image for the church is a boat…  the diocesan seal contains a boat…  and sometimes…  the church is on the stormy sea of chaos…  of chaos in the dark…  and it’s frightening…  but quite a ways out…  Jesus walks out to them…  and his walking across the sea reminds us of the Israelites walking through the parted Red Sea…  and Jesus says…  do not be afraid…  it is I…  it is I AM…  the name that God said to Moses at the burning bush… 

But as Bp. Satterlee recently said…  the thing to do…  when it seems that Jesus has gone away…  the thing to do…  when it seems that God has forgotten us…  would be to wait…  not build idols…  or go off rowing on our own…  but to wait…  because he said he would come back…  and while we understand that Jesus feeds us…  with bread and wine…  and with his very Being…  we can agree…  that when Jesus is with us…  really…   truly…   fully with us…  when the Mind of Christ is with us…  we immediately get where we’re going…