Enough and Some to Spare
Matthew 14:13-21

Once Clifford and I attended a church potluck where every single person brought some form of beans. Admittedly, it was a small group.  If I remember correctly, we had three-bean salad, pork and beans, bean burritos, more pork and beans, and hot dogs and beans.  There was no dessert.  There was no bread unless you considered the tortillas in the burritos bread.  I can tell you with great certainty that in North Dakota, tortillas are not considered bread.  Yet there was enough and the unusual menu brought forth lots of shared laughter and fellowship. Perhaps it wasn’t a menu that any of us would consciously choose, but there was enough and some to spare.

Today’s gospel — the story of the loaves and fishes — the story of Jesus feeding five thousand people is one of my favorites.  It is the only miracle story that appears in all four gospels.  Mark and Matthew each tell it twice.  As I prepared this sermon, I read all six accounts. The accounts differ in some of the details.  Sometimes there are five loaves, sometimes seven.  Sometimes the bread and fish come from a young boy, sometimes it is the food the disciples were carrying for themselves and Jesus.  Sometimes there are twelve baskets of leftovers; sometimes seven. Sometimes the crowd numbers 4000 and at other times 5000.  Sometimes the men that were fed number 5000, not counting the women and children.  In spite of these seeming discrepancies, the story is compelling. The menu was simple; the seemingly inadequate food was abundant; the miracle was amazing.  In fact, there was more than enough and some to spare.

When those North Dakota mid-week Eucharists and potlucks first began, there were often times when there was an abundance of one type of food and a total lack of the other food groups.  But after gathering for a while, folks began to be more predictable in what they usually shared.  Our bachelor rector always stopped at the grocery store deli.  One week he would bring potato salad and the next week pasta salad. He loved the potlucks. I think it was often the only meal all week that he ate with other people.  One couple always brought what they called “baked beans”.  It was two cans of pork and beans in a pot with a generous addition of brown sugar and a big glob of ketchup. My contribution settled into freshly baked bread.  Now it wasn’t the wonderful bread that John Burton or David Miller or Larry and Christie Wagner make.  It was bread machine bread.  I would stop by the church very early on Wednesday morning on my way to work at the library to prepare the ingredients so that when we gathered at 5:30 p.m. the wonderful smell of homemade bread, even bread machine bread, would float up to the nave as we gathered at the table.

My special recipe was Irish Soda Bread. It was full of plump raisins and tasty caraway seeds. That’s what I planned to make on that 20 below zero Wednesday when I was running late.  I had a meeting at the library at 8 and had trouble getting the key to work in the frozen lock on the church door.  I finally got in the church and threw the ingredients in the bread machine.  I just made it to my meeting. That whole day was a rat race.  I was so looking forward to the Eucharist and potluck at the end of the day.

I walked into the church at about 5:20 and stopped dead in my tracks.  There was no wonderful smell of Irish soda bread. I ran down to the kitchen to investigate.  There was the bread maker full of uncooked ingredients.  I hadn’t turned it on. 

I would like to tell you that a stranger came that evening bearing the most wonderful bread we had ever eaten — like manna from heaven.  But unfortunately that wasn’t what happened. No one else brought bread — not even tortillas. I was embarrassed by my carelessness and irritated at myself.  But there was more than enough food without that bread.  Even the “baked beans” tasted especially good that evening. No one was critical of my mistake. Many shared stories of their own little cooking disasters. I realized that I was no longer embarrassed or irritated.  I had been fed at two tables that evening.  There had been enough for everyone and more.

It humbled me to realize that it wasn’t up to just me to feed the hungry.  That was something we need to do together.  If some of us don’t have any bread, often others come bearing the fish. Another time we may have bread to share and our brother or sister may not. There will always be more than enough for the whole world if we only learn to share.

Perhaps the only miracle that day by the sea wasn’t Jesus multiplying the food.  Perhaps another equally wonderful miracle that day was people seeing, trusting, risking , hoping and sharing with one another.  Perhaps the miracle was like the stone soup miracle where the hungry were fed by everyone digging deeper to share what they had.  Perhaps both kinds of miracles happened that day by the sea — gifts from God and gifts from God that were shared and not horded. 

I recently read something by Barbara Crafton that really spoke to me about trusting that we will have enough and some to spare.

“Knowing that the Lord will provide is not the
same thing as knowing in advance what will
happen.  ‘All will be well’ doesn’t mean ‘All
will be as I planned.’  We don’t necessarily
receive our own desired solutions to things.
What we sometimes get instead is the ability
to manage beautifully with something else altogether.”

Sometimes God’s abundance is evidenced in an all-bean meal or a meal without bread. It is not what we had planned, but we are fed and we have enough to share. Sometimes it is up to us to bring more than our share.  Sometimes it is our turn to be fed by others. There is enough and some to spare.

In a world starved, not only for bread and fish, but also for justice, peace, clean water, a safe place to sleep, freedom from violence and war, it appears that only a great miracle could right things.  Only a great miracle could feed all those hungry people.  Only a very major miracle would be enough in this troubled world.

But perhaps God is waiting for us to offer what we have — what each of us has — not only our bread and our fish, but also our unique gifts.  Perhaps he is saying to each of us.  “What you have to offer is enough.  It is more than enough.”  “If you offer what you have, there will be abundant leftovers — more than enough for everyone.”

And he will lift those gifts, bless them, break them and give them to a world that needs them so much.  And all those small miracles will combine to feed the hungry.

And there will be enough.  And there will be abundant leftovers.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

The Rev. Betsy Porter
St. James’ Episcopal Church
August 3, 2008

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