Sermon Sneak peek for July 26th

"All You Can Eat"

John 6:1-21

The feeding of the five thousand.  It’s a familiar story that we know quite well.  Jesus is surrounded by a large crowd.  It is getting late in the day and people start to get hungry.  Everyone looks around confused and unsure of what to do.  Jesus decides he wants to feed the people but the disciples say that it will cost too much.  Soon enough, it is discovered that one young boy has tucked away in his knapsack, presumably hidden from these hungry mob, 5 loaves of bread and two fish.  Which seems like a lot for just one boy to be carrying but the story goes on anyways.  This meager amount of food seems like a waste of time if you ask the disciples.  It will never be enough……..  It’s a nice and familiar story.

……..when Jesus is at the wedding at Cana and all the wine runs out and so Jesus magically turns water into wine so that the party doesn’t need to stop.  Sometimes, I wonder if he didn’t just dilute the wine that was there with water…..

….did the fish and the bread simply grow back any time someone took a bite out of it, or did Jesus multiply them at the beginning into hundreds of loaves and fishes, dividing them among the people? 

Sometimes, the point of the story isn’t to worry about whether it happened or not, but what the story itself is trying to say.

So here we are today, we have a story about a man named Jesus.  A man whom we claim to be the revelation of God for us.  And he feeds five thousand hungry people with a meager five loaves and two fish. 

But what I can’t figure out is why Jesus used these five loaves of bread and two fish to feed everyone.  I mean, he’s Jesus.  Why didn’t he just make bread and fish appear out of thin air?  But no.  Jesus took this small offering of food, which really amounts to almost nothing…

Sometimes I hear people talk about the way things used to be for our churches.  Back when the church was packed and the offering plates full.  Back when parents didn’t have to make their kids go to church….

….when it seems like there are 5,000 mouths to feed and only 5 loaves of bread and a couple of fish…

.  It’s like God is asking us, “What do you have to offer me?”  And all we can say is “Nothing.”