Scripture Lesson Luke 9:10-17
When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, 11 but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
12 Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.”
13 He replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” 14 (About five thousand men were there.)
But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 The disciples did so, and everyone sat down. 16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. 17 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.”
MESSAGE: A man goes to a diner every day for lunch. He always orders the soup du jour. One day the manager asks him how he liked his meal. The man replied, “It was good, but you could give a little more bread.”
So, the next day the manager tells the waitress to give him four slices of bread. “How was your meal, sir?” the manager asks. “It was good, but you could give a little more bread,” comes the reply.
So, the next day the manager tells the waitress to give him eight slices of bread. “How was your meal today, sir?” the manager asks. “Good, but you could give a little more bread,” comes the reply.
The manager is now obsessed with seeing this customer say that he is satisfied with his meal, so he goes to the bakery and orders a huge loaf of bread. When the man comes in as usual the next day, the waitress and the manager cut the loaf in half, buttered the entire length of each half, and lay it out along the counter, right next to his bowl of soup.
The man sits down and devours both his bowl of soup and both halves of the huge loaf of bread. The manager now thinks he will get the answer he is looking for, so when the man comes up to pay for his meal, the manager asks in the usual way: “How was your meal TODAY, sir?”
The man replies: “It was good as usual, but I see you are back to giving only two slices of bread!”
Is there anything more ordinary than bread? Everywhere you go in the world, there is some version of bread.
The French have baguettes and croissants; Latin countries have tortillas; Indians have naan; Chinese cultures have doughy buns. And Americans have sliced white bread.
It is the building block of a meal, a staple in every diet. It was this way also in the days of the early church. Bread was a common, ordinary meal.
It is the very commonness of bread that makes it the perfect metaphor for our lives. If we’re honest, most of what we do is ordinary.
We get up, go to work – paid or unpaid – tinker at our hobbies, and try to do our best. We shuttle kids around, mow the lawn, and shop for groceries. For the most part, nothing about our daily lives sets us apart from the people around us. It’s just life, which like bread, is ordinary.
I saw a woman coming out of a store this week with a t-shirt that said, “I’LL LOVE YOU WHEN YOU ARE MORE LIKE ME”.
That’s often how we relate to people, isn’t it? We get to know them, then we will decide to love them or not. But that is NOT God’s process. He loves them first, and then calls them into His family.
But maybe that’s how you see yourself. Maybe you’ve settled for a life that may not matter that much; or you’re grasping and grabbing for something that always feels just out of reach.
Maybe you’re wrestling with an unkind voice – the one that says that you just don’t matter, that you’re “less than” and “never enough.”
If that is the case, I have good news for you. There is much more to this life than perhaps what you see.
Throughout Scripture, we discover that nothing is as common as it seems, not even bread. For example, bread fell from heaven as a sign of God’s provision; bread became a metaphor for the law of the Lord. Jesus fed the multitudes with loaves of bread, and He even referred to himself as “the bread of life.”
Then, on the night that He was handed over to suffer and die, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to His disciples as a picture of His body being given for the life of the world.
Luke records three stories in his gospel about Jesus taking bread in His hands, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it. I want us to look at the first of those stories today, which is verses 10-12 in our Gospel reading.
In that reading, we observe a couple of things. First, the needs of the people are overwhelming. And secondly, resources are in short supply.
The disciples’ solution to send the people away is not entirely uncompassionate; in fact, it appeared to be very practical.
If we’re honest, this is also how we often feel when we see the needs of our neighbors. Turn on the news, and we’re bombarded by more tragedies and hardships, such as Hurricane Dorian this past week and the devastation it caused in the Bahamas and the East coast.
Scroll through Facebook, and you will see a difficult doctor’s diagnoses, or unexpected losses that people you know are dealing with. And a simple ‘sad face’ emoji won’t cut it.
You may reply and say you’re praying for them, but what can you really do? It’s just too much. And on top of that, you’ve got your own stuff to deal with. Your own life is no walk in the park.
And so, your impulse is to think … “Send them away, Jesus” … “Shield us Jesus”. But Jesus didn’t let the disciples off the hook, and He won’t let us off the hook today either.
In our Gospel lesson verses 13-17, Jesus Blessed the bread, Broke the bread, and Gave the bread. Those three actions changed the whole story.
A “desolate place” became a place of abundance.
A desert became a banquet.
A story that began with “not enough” … ended with there being more than enough for everyone.
This is what happens when Jesus takes something that we think is just ordinary – like bread – and blesses it, breaks it, and gives it.
I think those three words can change the life story of you and I today as well.
Bread in the hands of Jesus is blessed, broken, and given. And the same is true for you. Your life, as common and ordinary as bread, in Jesus’s hands becomes something more … just like bread.
In the hands of Jesus, your life becomes…
Blessed.
This blessedness is not about accumulating things or achieving more. Blessedness is about having your identity and your true calling revealed as a child of God.
You are even given a new name. Once you were a sinner … NOW you are a saint. Once you were far off; now you are a cherished family member of God’s family.
A theologian once said, “God blesses everything He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that God makes all creation the sign and the means of His presence …” (Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World)
So, in the hands of Jesus, your life becomes blessed. Bot not only blessed, because in the hands of Jesus, your life also becomes…
broken.
But in a NEW way. There are several different kinds of brokenness … and we will talk more about that in Week 3 of this series.
There is a brokenness that comes from our frailty, our finiteness, or our limitations.
There is a brokenness that comes from our sin, our participation in the spread of wickedness in this world.
And, there is a brokenness that stems from the pain and suffering of living in a fallen world.
But the key is that all these kinds of brokenness can be placed in Jesus’s hands.
When you place the brokenness of your failure, frailty, and suffering in Jesus’s hands, then you become completely open to the GRACE of God.
This brokenness is not about wallowing in your sin, or fixating on how miserable you are. To be broken is to allow the grace of God to humble you, to lead you into relationships with others, and to simply transform your life into becoming a child of God.
Brokenness becomes openness in the hands of Jesus.
After all, bread that is not broken cannot be shared.
So, your life becomes not only blessed in Jesus, but your life also becomes broken in Jesus. Finally, your life also becomes…
Given in Jesus.
You realize you are not here just for yourself. Life with Jesus is deeply personal, but NEVER private. The openness that comes from being broken is meant to lead you OUTWARD.
There is a hunger in the world around us. When your life becomes blessed and broken in Jesus’s hands, He gives you OUT for others in the world.
You become the way others find the Bread of Life.
But to be that way, you must first experience the blessing and embrace the brokenness … only then will you be consecrated to bring change in powerful ways.
In verse 16 of our Gospel we are told that Jesus took the fish and loaves. Then, He blessed them, broke them, and gave them.
One of the remarkable things about this story is that Jesus gives the bread back to the disciples. If He did the miracle of multiplication, He could certainly have done the miracle of distribution? So, why involve the disciples at all? Why involve the disciples?
Because that’s what God DOES. God made human beings in His image to reflect His dominion over the world. From the beginning, God chose to involve humans as His collaborators … as His helpers.
Jesus had told the disciples to give the people something to eat in verse 13. They wanted to send the people away. The disciples saw the crowd as the problem, but Jesus saw the crowd as the disciples’ responsibility.
And now, because of Jesus’s miraculous blessing, what was not enough has become more than enough.
And weary disciples who were willing to be the bearers of bad news to hungry people, now become the carriers of good news to those same people.
That’s what Jesus does … He blesses us, and then takes our brokenness and turns it into something good for someone else. Purpose is restored. Our calling as His helpers is back on track.
Think about what I have been saying … blessedness and brokenness are for the sake of givenness.
However, one thing that we must not miss in this whole text is who the hero of the story really is.
Ultimately, this story is not about a boy who gave up his lunch. Nor is it about the disciples who learned a valuable lesson. This story is clearly is about Jesus … always a generous host.
Look back at verse 11, and you see that Jesus is the…
Host.
Jesus welcomed the people.
Jesus taught the people.
Jesus healed the people.
Jesus fed the people.
Jesus prepares the Feast.
Not only is Jesus the one who welcomes the people, Jesus feeds them. With Jesus, there is always an abundance. Grace is always MORE.
Verse 17 says, ‘Everyone ate until they were full, and the disciples filled twelve baskets with the leftovers.’
Jesus turned a desolate place into a place of abundance. That’s what Jesus does. And so, the question is, “Do we see it?”
Do we see the world as Jesus sees it? You have to wonder, if Jesus really saw their location as a remote and deserted place. Or, did He did He see it as a place of blessing through the fullness and glory of God?
The bottom line is that this is all Jesus’s work!
And that’s really good news. You and I do not have to be, or have to do anything spectacular. We can simply be bread.
Just as bread seems common and ordinary, but is actually crammed full of glory, so your life is actually miraculous and holy because that’s what happens when Jesus takes us into His hands.
The key is we need our eyes opened to see God at work.
The whole earth is full of God’s glory … His glory is filling not only the heavens, but also the earth!
Think about that for a minute. God is holy, and His glory fills the earth. God is not only above and beyond His creation; He is also somehow within it. God is holy, and He is filling the common with glory.
In moments of weakness, we may find ourselves stretching the truth or manipulating an outcome because who knows if there really is a God or not? Even if there is one, He’s too far away or too preoccupied to notice. If there is a heaven, it’s way out there somewhere.
But then we glimpse something. It may just be a spark, a surge of joy, or a flash of awe.
And we see it … God is here. And He has been here the whole time. The heavens are open. The whole earth is full of His glory.
That’s not just the sun signaling the start of a new day; it’s the witness of the steadfast love of God that will always break the darkness of night.
That’s not just a dinner with friends; it’s the music of laughter reminding us we are never alone.
That’s not just the sound of a baby crying in the night and robbing us of sleep; that is the evidence that your child is a miracle, that he or she believes you will care for her.
These are all gifts from God … ordinary … yet very extraordinary, earthy and filled with glory.
Sure, life can be reduced to technical descriptions and itemized particles. But life is more than a sum of its events. In each moment, in each breath and thought and act, something more is going on. It is not merely ordinary.
Surely the Lord is in this place … the place where we are right now … and we may not know it.
But it is true … the whole earth is full of His glory.
Place your life in Jesus’s hands. Know that your ordinary can be crammed full of glory.
Your “not-enough-ness” can become “more than enough”. Your everyday can become full of purpose through blessing, breaking, and giving. And I pray so for every one of you. Amen