The Gift of a Child

Scripture (John 6:1-14) can be found here

People are always asking me what it was like, that day. I always start by saying, it was just a normal day… if by normal you mean, a day when the Teacher was around. Meaning, it was a day of everyone dropping their tasks—leaving the bread to rise and overflow the bowl, and the nets to be repaired later, and the seeds to be planted later, too. All this we left, so that we could rush to wherever he was, and listen as he taught, and watch as he healed people. Maybe offer ourselves for some kind of healing. It was that kind of normal day.

 

It was always exciting when the Teacher came around. For one thing, it meant we would get to see Simon Peter and Andrew and Philip again, our local men who had dropped their nets for good and followed after him. They would stop into their waiting homes to see their wives, and pick up and hug their children. One time Andrew got home just in time to be congratulated on the birth of his youngest, Benjamin. Their families were fine, in case you’re wondering. Once we all understood about the Teacher, no one begrudged their going, and the community simply opened its arms to those families and made sure that they never wanted. That’s not to say the men weren’t missed. They were missed every day. But they were doing God’s work. Anyone could see that.

 

I said, it was a normal day. I’d decided to pull my son from the field, and Andrew’s older son, Jacob, who was staying with us. I took them, along with my baby daughter, tethered close to me in a sling. The boys brought the basket of provisions they’d taken with them for their afternoon meal, just some bread and dried fish. All we had to do was follow the crowd, which always found its way to the Teacher with little trouble. We found ourselves climbing, as the crowd covered a gentle hill, an expanse of green now covered with a blanket of people.

 

The crowd was immense—the largest I had ever seen, except in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, which was still a few weeks away. Families and travelers, groups of three and groups of ten, beloved faces and vaguely familiar faces from the next towns over. Strangers, often alone, some with exotic clothing, not like we wore. Here and there a Roman soldier, because soldiers especially need teaching and healing.

 

On this occasion, though, the Teacher, whose name was Jesus, did not begin with teaching. He spoke to his disciples. At that moment Andrew appeared next to us, and Jacob threw himself against his father, who bent down to kiss the boy. The crowd quieted, so we could all hear Jesus, his voice calm but always resonant, as if the breeze delighted to carry his words. Everyone turned their faces to him. He was speaking to Philip, always recognizable because of his height. Jesus was asking a question.

 

“Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” he asked. Jacob instinctively held up the basket of food to his father, without really giving it any thought. Andrew, nodded, took Jacob by the hand, and the two of them headed over to Jesus and Philip. Philip was speaking now.

 

“Two hundred denarii,” he was saying. Six months’ pay for a day-laborer, that’s what it would take to feed them… us. Where would they get that kind of money? But then Andrew appeared, and gently pushed the boy forward.

 

“The boy has five loaves of barley bread, and two fine dried fish,” he said. But then, looking around, he said, a little more quietly, “There are a lot of people.” Then, Jesus said something even more quietly, that I couldn’t catch. Within a few seconds, the part of the crowd near him started to settled down, sitting on the grass in groups, strangers and friends together, families joining with solo travelers, exotic headwrapping next to everyday working robes, little ones tended to by grandparents and older children, as if by some common, unspoken agreement. I watched the wave of people sitting, and soon we were sitting too.

 

Then, Jesus took Jacob’s loaves, and he lifted them and gazed up toward heaven, and said the blessing. Baruch Adonai Eloheinu, Melech ha-Olam… Blessed are you, Lord, God, King of the universe, through your goodness we have this bread to eat… And then, he handed the broken loaves to the people nearest him, who began to pass them through the crowd. And then, again, he blessed the fish, and, handed them over to be shared.

 

The crowd was silent for a moment. I assumed a long wait, as people brought more food forward to be shared. But that’s not what happened. The food simply kept coming. People took the loaves, the fish into their hands, and took what they wanted, and what passed on seemed… undiminished. The crowd began to stir as people understood what was happening. I heard a voice … “It’s like Elijah, and the jar of flour that never ran out.” “Yes,” said another, “the jug of oil that never ran dry.” And still another voice, “It’s manna. Bread from heaven.” And finally, the words were on everyone’s lips. “It’s a sign. It’s a miracle.”

 

I lifted my head, then, and looked for Jesus. He was never hard to spot, because he moved through the crowd with such assurance, and wherever he was, stillness fell. He was stopping to speak, to place a hand on the head of a child, to listen to whatever someone needed to say.

 

We’d known he was a healer. And we’d known he was the Teacher. But this was something else. Happening here, to this large and varied gathering, this miracle—how could it be anything else?—felt like it preached a sermon all its own. A sermon that said, “Though you are many, you are one. Though you are diverse, you are united. Though God spoke through the prophets, generation upon generation ago, mind you, God is still speaking. God is still active. God sees you. God is here.”

 

I looked back at my small group, which had been joined again, without fanfare, by Andrew and his boy Jacob. The murmur continued to move through the crowd. A miracle, made possible by the gift of a child. A miracle, because he did not hold back—not even for a second—what he had to offer. A miracle, because when Jesus looked at a hungry crowd, he trusted, he knew that God would provide, because God had seen the need even before he did.

 

It was a normal day, in the life of those who became followers of Jesus’ Way. A day of preaching, though without words. A day of healing, and I am still learning, week by week, what was and is healed when we share that meal. And of course, a day of feeding—hungry bodies and hungry hearts. And now, if you will excuse me, I must take the bread from the hearth. Today the gathering will be at my house. And we will share the meal again.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.