A Theology of Leftovers

Matthew 14: 13 - 21 Rev. Marianne Niesen August 7, 2011

A class of children was asked to name their favorite Bible story. One little boy replied, "I like the one where everybody loafs and fishes." Apparently, so did the early church because the following scripture text is the only miracle story of Jesus that's found in all four Gospels! It is a good scripture story for the summer when we especially like to loaf and fish . . .

On that day long ago in Galilee, Jesus and his disciples were tired. Jesus had only recently learned of the death of his friend John the Baptist. So, he tried to go to a “lonely place,” a place to think and reflect and pray. But people found him and, the scripture says, he “had compassion on them and healed their sick.” In other words, at a time when he really just wanted to get away from it all, he couldn’t - you know the experience. It is called “life interrupting our plans”!! As evening came, his disciples, being practical folk, suggested he send everyone home to get something to eat. This is a good time, Jesus, to slip out. After all, the last place you want to be tonight is in the midst of more than 5000 hungry people. And Jesus said those words that reverberate through the years - send them to get something to eat? Give them something to eat yourselves! We don’t go anywhere until we are all fed.

Now, remember the disciples would have been as tired as Jesus. And they didn’t have unlimited resources. There were no highway food stands or fast food places where they could have bought food for thousands of people even if they’d had the money. Think of it - even today feeding more than 5000 people is a big task and takes planning. Us give them something to eat? They were taken aback. Bewildered. They stared at Jesus with shoulders shrugged and hands out. How do we feed that many people? We don’t have that much. To which Jesus responded with something like . . . OK, how much do you have? One of them pawed through his knapsack and responded. Only five loaves and two fish. Which is to say five little flat barley loaves and two tiny sardine sized fish. Only that. No wonder they were puzzled. Undoubtedly these were good folks and willing to share what they had - but the fact was, it wasn’t much. Not by any standard.

We are now approaching the part of the story where we, with our scientific minds and our need to figure things out exactly, usually get stuck. How did Jesus do it? How did that miracle take place? Did food just appear? Was there a secret ‘stash’ somewhere? Because miracles don’t really happen do they? And in the midst of our puzzling over all of this, we run the risk of missing the point of the story. Nobody then cared how it happened. There are no details about exactly how the miracle took place. There are just the facts, ma’am. People were hungry - they always are. The disciples, responding out of their fear, their sense of scarcity, said send them away so they can take care of themselves. Jesus, responding as always, from a place of trust in God’s abundance, said no, you take care of them. And they looked at what they had and it was enough. They had enough to feed the hungry. In other words, Jesus refused to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and he refused to let those who could do something about it off the hook just because revenues were down or the stock market was confused or they hadn’t planned ahead or they were tired.

In the end, there were twelve baskets left over - and it is not coincidental that there were exactly twelve disciples. One basket for each. A basket of leftovers for each apostle to carry from the miracle. A basket of leftovers for each apostle to distribute - bread would not have been wasted. Jesus was the one who could multiply the loaves, the apostles were left with the job of continuing the work, of giving from the abundance Jesus had provided. The apostles were left with the job of doing something with the leftovers.

Another story . . . I don't know the source but it is about an official of the United Nations who had worked many years with refugees and famine relief. He was invited to a church in upper New York state to speak about his experience. He spoke about the hunger he had seen, the death, and the suffering. Then he recalled Christ feeding the thousands from today's gospel. He told how the disciples suggested Jesus send the people away to buy food for themselves. Jesus said no. The disciples said "we have only five loaves and two fish here."

The old man paused in his story, looked around the room, and with a note of sadness and love in his voice said. "That, if you will permit me to say, my dear American friends, is not your problem." With that he sat down and a silence filled the room, not unlike the silence here.

For us, as Christians living here, the real dilemma is not that we have only so much. It is, rather, learning to use the abundance we have. Learning to share. Learning to use our leftovers well. We end Communion each time we have it with enough bread left over to feed at least one hungry person. There are people in the world for whom this bit of bread would be a feast. People who would gulp thirstily the juice we so carefully dip. So what do we do?

We are the apostles of Jesus in our day, charged with giving from our abundance and distributing the leftovers. The point being of course, that we all have more than we think we have. Every one of us has a basket of leftovers to share with the crowds who still hunger and thirst and are in need. Certainly in part, that means giving material things. Today we receive our Meals for Millions offering - a quarterly offering to help feed the hungry. Around Helena recently, you’ve perhaps heard the pleas from our local food bank. More people right here in Helena are in need of assistance than ever. Our church through the United Methodist Committee on Relief is working to provide hunger relief in the drought ravaged areas of Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti. We continue to work through UMCOR and mission volunteers in Haiti. Sometimes I’m sure we all wonder just why this is our concern? Indeed we do have problems of our own. Yet, in spite of that, Jesus’ words haven’t changed for any of us who call ourselves Christian. Give them something to eat yourselves.

Watch this YouTube clip with me about some folks in Minot, ND. [1]

It is irritating when ‘giving them something to eat ourselves’ is such a relentless invitation. And yet that seems to be exactly what Jesus had in mind.

But I'd also like to go a step further. There is another kind of basket that every single one of us holds and for which we are responsible - we hold the leftovers of our lives. Think about it. After Thanksgiving, someone could open the refrigerator in almost any one of our homes and get a pretty good idea of what the meal had been like. Leftovers remind us of something. And leftovers are usually good things. Many of us PLAN to have leftovers. Sometimes we like the leftovers better than the original meal. So, you might say, leftovers are a creative way to use what we have had in the past to nourish us in the present moment for the future.

In our life basket, we hold the things we have lived through, the experiences we have had, the pain we have suffered. We hold our memories, a basket of life's leftovers. And just like using leftover food is a way of using something from the past to help in the present, we can learn to use our experiences of the past to help in the present. Bob and Ada Lower, in the video clip you just saw, spoke of doing just that – of using their experiences as missionaries in very difficult circumstances to help them through their latest challenge. We can use our experiences of loneliness to help understand a lonely person today. We can use our experiences of being gossiped about, and feeling that pain, to perhaps act differently and not do that to another. Or to challenge it when it is being done. We can use our experiences of illness or grief to bring comfort to another. We can remember what it was like to be a child and feel left out or not good enough - and then use that understanding to help a child through the process of growing up.

Many years ago, when I was in the hospital with a ruptured appendix, I remember learning very quickly which nurses had been through something similar to what I was going through and which saw me just as a medical problem. The ones who could relate at some level were the ones who helped me heal - the others just scared me to death. Do we scare people? Or do we help them heal? Every one of us here has been given a basket of life experiences. Depending on our age, that basket may be full or half-full but it is ours. And, whatever it is, we can use what we have experienced in life to be judgmental or bitter (to scare people) or we can use our lives to better understand and be sensitive to the human condition. How we use our leftovers is up to us, just as how the apostles used the leftover baskets of food was up to them. The point is people need what we have. They are hungry. We are hungry.

And the good news in all of this is that we don’t have to have it all figured out. We don’t need to have all of our “issues” resolved to share our basket of bread and fish. We simply need to take what we’ve been given and offer it first to Jesus, just like those disciples, and the miracle will follow. This happens all the time. It happens every time I preach. I can’t tell you how often I have agonized over a sermon and then stood at this pulpit and looked out at you and wondered if what I had to say would make any sense - or, even more, whether it would feed the hunger I see. And then, someone will come up to me and say - how did you know I was dealing with X or Y or Z? Did my therapist call you? How did you know what just happened in my life? You were talking to me. And more often than not, what people hear is not even what I thought I said. You see, miracles are worked every day not by us but by God working in us. I do my work on a sermon, but in the end what happens is God’s work. We all bring our leftover loaves and fishes here to this table and miracles happen.

As we break bread together today, may we who have so much, pledge ourselves to help satisfy the hungers that surround us - for love, for friendship, for understanding, for healing, for help - as well as for food. And, as we share what we have, God will see to it that there is – indeed - enough.

[1] http://youtu.be/dJKhbR-MEtU