A hungry old woman prayed for food. Her atheist neighbor put bread and fish outside her door. She thanked God aloud. Her neighbor derisively shouted, “It was me and not your God who put food there.” She replied, “Thank you, Jesus. You never fail me even if you have to use a devil to work a miracle.” The hero of today’s tale is a Hall of Fame Jewish child. Only Norman Rockwell could do him justice. The boy is the rarest of individuals – a person who gives away everything he possesses. Our attention of course is drawn to the Christ distributing all those fresh rolls and seafood.
But reflect where He got the food that made the miracle a fact. First the dramatis personae! John speaks of 5,000 men. But even then women were not about to let husbands wander by themselves over the countryside unattended. So, one can be certain there were women and children in attendance. We are talking about 15,000 people. St John lays himself open to the charge of being a chauvinist. He obviously did not think women were important enough to mention. Yet the record down through the centuries shows women more faithful to Jesus than men. 15,000 people tell you what socko box office appeal the Master possessed in His own lifetime. Though 2,000 years later He still remains an enigma wrapped in a mystery, He has not lost His touch. He is bringing many millions together around the globe each week to worship Him. You do get the feeling that He is here to stay, don’t you? It is the Christ who mentions that this exhausted mob must be hungry. Once again, He proves He is interested not only in life after death but also life before death. He wants every mother’s child of us to have three full meals in the here and now.
He wants nobody to go to bed hungry. The Master, like any Chief Executive Officer, wants His employees to be problem solvers. But only Andrew has the smarts to work the crowd looking for food. He finds that nameless child. Better said, the boy finds Andrew. He shouts to him, “Hey, mister, come here.” He rips out of his chino pockets five thoroughly squashed slices of bread and two suspicious looking fish. This was to be the boy’s own lunch. Let the record show the kid was giving not out of his surplus but all he had. Joseph Donders pictures the child checking the Nazarene out with open mouth and running nose. Wily Andrew does not want to hurt the boy’s feelings. He takes the unattractive morsels over to Christ. To the boy’s mortification, the mob laugh up a storm at him. But not so the Christ! He accepts the boy’s gifts with proper ceremony and gratitude.
He invites His guests to draw up a seat on the grass. This is a crowd who not only looks for something for nothing but also want it gift-wrapped. Only that kid remained on his feet. His eyes were large as dinner plates. He was wondering what this strange Man with the massive hands was going to do with His lunch. The Master tells His people to share the boy’s gifts among the humungous crowd. They look in disbelief at the soggy pieces of bread and convincingly dead fish. They ask, “Master, are you pulling our leg?” Their Employer retorts somewhat hotly, “Who’s running this show?”
They share till every belly on the field was full with fish sandwiches. The Nazarene took the boy’s squashed slices and turned them into WONDERBREAD. I have a hunch too that He winked at the child. The twelve leftover shopping bags I wager He gave to the child as a gift. One hopes he had a buddy along to help him. I would not be at all surprised if Jesus held up the boy in His arms for all in the crowd to see. Had a TV anchor person been there, he would have recorded Him saying, “I want all of you to be as generous as this child.”
The next time you are asked for something you feel you cannot give, remember this Jewish boy and think again. Even if your gift is small, Christ will make it grow. There would have been one great deed fewer in history, William Barclay says, if that boy had hoarded his gift. Once again, as the psalm puts it stylishly, a child will lead us. But will we adults have the smarts to follow him? Once I heard a man say. “When I worry about money, I know I haven’t been giving enough away.”