Ninth Sunday after Trinity 2024
Preacher: The Very Rev'd Dr Paul Shackerley
Date: 9th Sunday after Trinity 2024
Service: Cathedral Eucharist
Text: John 6. 1-21
Economists are taught to look at the world through the lens of scarcity…
Economists are taught to look at the world through the lens of scarcity. There isn’t enough to go around, in other words – of money, or of time, or of land, or of any other resource. And economics is devoted to studying how these scarce resources are distributed. That’s why economics is sometimes called “the dismal science.” Dismal science is a term coined by Scottish essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle to describe the discipline of economics. gloomy prediction that population would always grow faster than food, dooming mankind to unending poverty and hardship. Carlyle was attacking another economist John Stuart Mill, who believed in the emancipation of slaves, who believed ‘black lives matter’ in 1854. Carlyle was in effect against the emancipation of black West Indians and used the scarce resources as the reason why.
Because it is based on this view of the world that there is not enough; there is never enough. It’s a common way to look at the world. In fact, I would say that it is how the disciples are looking at the world in today’s gospel reading. They see a hungry crowd, very scarce resources, and have no idea what to do. Which is why Jesus sees this as a teachable moment, an opportunity to help the disciples look at the world in a very different way, and not as early economists of the 19th Century saw the world through the dismal science of scarcity.
But, it doesn’t take an economist to figure out that they don’t have enough to feed this crowd. But the problem is that these disciples are looking at this situation as economists, a ‘dismal’ situation of scarcity, not as followers of Jesus. They are convinced that they don’t have enough, because they are focused on what they don’t have. And they are forgetting what they do have. What they do have is Jesus, who is the Bread of Life. But Jesus is not a scarce resource! With Jesus, there is always enough! Jesus doesn’t play by the rules of economics. And so, in this great story, Jesus teaches us a different way of looking at the world, His way. Through the lens of abundance, not of scarcity. And looking at the world this way changes how you live in the world, and how we treat those who live with scarcity. When we see the world through the lens of abundance, not scarcity, amazing things can happen, and lives be transformed. We see this value of abundance through today’s story.
The feeding of the five thousand is one of the most famous of Jesus’s many miracles. In fact, it is the only one recorded in all four gospels. It sets off a fascinating exchange between Jesus and the crowd on what it means that Jesus is the bread of life and came to give life in abundance. One of the first things that we learn in this story is that Jesus is going to feed this crowd even though they are following him for the wrong reasons. This chapter begins with a large crowd following Jesus, “because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.” Not because they want to learn from Jesus, or because they have come to believe that he is God’s promised Messiah, but simply because they want to see more miracles. His popularity was growing to celebrity status. But Jesus doesn’t seem to mind why they are there. He sees an opportunity to care for them anyway, and then to teach them about the coming kingdom. And he also sees an opportunity to teach his twelve apostles an economics lesson, too. The simple but radical lesson, that with Jesus, there is always enough. And of course, providing we share our resources to feed the hungry.
He begins by asking one of the twelve, Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” The disciples hear this question through the lens of scarcity rather than abundance and are quite sure they cannot do anything about this problem. It would take six months wages to buy enough bread for five thousand people, and even if they had the money, who has that much bread to sell? The dismal science of economic scarcity. One of the twelve chimes in, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Not enough. Not nearly enough. Five loaves of bread and two fish are not going to feed the thousands of people that are there with Jesus.
Now, of course there are also many people in our country, and in our world that are hungry, that are homeless, and that clearly do not have enough. Look at refugees landing on our shores, some say ‘we don’t have enough housing, health and education resources for them’. Not enough employment for them. Scarcity, rather than looking at what we have in abundance. Welcome, compassion, care for our neighbours, the lost and poorest. What can’t be measured economically. To look at the world through the lens of abundance, what we have to share, like the little boy in the story. Everything around us teaches us that it’s not true. Even when we have enough, we are taught, in many and various ways, that we need more. We have enough food to eat, enough clothes, shelter. But very few of us, if we are being honest, really feel as though we have enough. And that is true for many people in our society. And this can create a restlessness, and a feeling of discontent, that can be hard to shake.
As long as we look at the world through the lens of scarcity, we will never have enough. And as long as we seek to feed our spiritual hunger with the things of this world, we will never find that hunger fulfilled. Today’s gospel reading, and the ones that follow, are intended to teach us both of these fundamental truths. That with Jesus, the Bread of Life, there is always enough; and without him there is never enough. There is always enough. Enough love. Enough hope. Enough grace. Enough faith. And enough time, talent, and treasure, too. Enough of all that matters, and all that our world hungers for.
And finally, notice that in the gospel reading, the first thing that Jesus does with the five loaves of bread is to give thanks? Gratitude. He is not worried about what he doesn’t have. He is thankful for what he does. And after giving thanks, he distributed the bread to the gathered crowd, as much as they needed. They all ate their fill. And then, he began to teach them what it all means to share the little we have as that little boy did as an example to the disciples and crowd. Jesus takes the smallest gift from the smallest child, as small as it was. The crowd wanted to seize him and make him king, but Jesus is more satisfied with feeding the hunger of the crowd, rather than their hunger for power. So, we give thanks for the abundance we have, even if a little and not to keep it all to ourselves. As we say in this communion ‘We break this bread to share in the body of Christ: Though we are many, we are one body for we all share in one bread’.