Scraps into abundance

by    18th November 2009    0 responses

marathon

Image: Martineric @ Flickr

Mark 8:1-13   Expand passage

1During those days another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, 2"I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. 3If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance."

4His disciples answered, "But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?"

5"How many loaves do you have?" Jesus asked.

"Seven," they replied.

6He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they did so. 7They had a few small fish as well; he gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. 8The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 9About four thousand men were present. And having sent them away, 10he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

11The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. 12He sighed deeply and said, "Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it." 13Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side.

Collapse passage

Mark gives us here another familiar scene: Jesus on the banks of the lake, hordes gathered around him, eager to get see this wonderful man who some were whispering was the Son of God, keen to hear his teaching, longing to be healed. Perhaps they had been told how difficult it was to get near the great man so had planned ahead and brought provisions. Whatever their preparations had been, on the third day of this impromptu conference, food was scarce. Who would have thought they would have been here for so long? Perhaps asking their neighbours if they have any bread they could share. Jesus recognises their hunger with typical compassion and empathy. He has been busy feeding the crowd with spiritual food for the past three days to build up and strengthen their faith for times ahead and now the time has come to do the same with their bodies.

So he calls the disciples to him and puts this puzzle to them. Maybe he hopes after performing a similar miracle some weeks or months ago, the memory might stir something within them. Instead, one can imagine them looking at Jesus slightly desperately thinking ‘Where on earth will we get this bread? Jesus clearly expects us to come up with some sort of plan. What are we to do?’. It’s easy at this point to think of the disciples as stupid and lacking in either faith or memory! We’ve read of the miracle of feeding the five thousand: of the transformation of five loaves and two fish into enough to feed a multitude; of the abundance gathered up by the disciples. Whether one believes like Barclay that the miracle was the prompting of those in the crowd to share their food, or a literal multiplying of these loaves and fish, it’s an astonishing thing. The disciples have watched Jesus healing, teaching and casting out demons for some considerable time. They have seen him walk on water and calm storms. Surely it isn’t too much of a stretch to trust him to provide some food for those who have surrounded Him for the last three days? And yet, they still don’t seem to have that trust. After all they have seen and experienced, have they learnt nothing? Do they not even now realise of Jesus’ gift to turn a seeming lack into an abundance?

People tend to have fairly poor memories where God is concerned. We don’t appear to advance in the same way as in school moving to higher levels of understanding all the time. Often we go back several levels to relearn a lesson which we haven’t really absorbed. This passage appears to be an example of that. Jesus knows they haven’t really got to grips with the compassion and love that he is providing as an example, with the idea that with God all things are possible. Looking intently, we can see a difference in disciples’ responses between the feeding of the five thousand in Mark 6 and Mark 8; it seems that they have learned something. In the earlier passage, their first instinct is to shoo the crowd away and let them forage for themselves. It isn’t up to the disciples to look out for them or provide food. In this passage, they have the general idea – that they must do something for these people…They’re just not too sure how to go about it and don’t even think of asking Jesus to repeat his miracle. Perhaps it was long ago and they have forgotten. Perhaps he’s warned them all so many times about not telling others about miracles and as such they don’t ask. However, when Jesus provides the nudge, they follow it. When he asks them to set out the bread and fish again, they do so. They have seen enough to trust that something will happen.

Trust in God is an interesting concept. When do we trust Him? How much do we trust Him to provide for us? Having provided once, will we trust Him to do so again?

Before leaving the UK to travel, I thought I trusted God quite a lot. Perhaps not with the nitty gritty of everyday life but certainly He could handle the big picture. Landing in New Zealand with enough money to keep me going for a year and distant relations to ring if it all went horribly wrong, life seemed pretty good. However, 8 months into this exciting adventure, I ran out of money. Suddenly the girl who had always had plenty was in a strange city, in the middle of winter, cashing traveller’s cheques to eat, scraping up dollars for a hostel bed as too cold to sleep in the car. Not an entirely comfortable experience! Still it was a useful way to discover that actually God did care about the detail and trusting him was the best idea ever. I spent two months in Wellington with a well paid job, a church, sharing a house with people who became good friends.

Now I’d love to tell you that since then my life has been immeasurably different. That I trust God implicitly. That when he says jump I say how high. But you’ll be unsurprised to know that this is not the case. I am more inclined to ask him for help than previously, though usually after other avenues have been exhausted. But there are some lessons which need to be relearned, like the disciples, learning to trust God’s power in all situations no matter how hopeless, learning that we can serve him best by following his guidance, learning that Jesus can take whatever tiny scrap we offer and turn it into an abundance.

Leave a Reply

Allowed tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> <span style="">

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.

by

What's On Crossring

Crossring is a community of Christians who meet together online in fellowship around the Christian faith and the Bible.

As part of our active lifestyle of prayer and Bible reading, we are currently reading a small section of the Bible together each day and sharing our responses to it with each other. We also publish a short devotional thought on a key verse or two from each day's passage to prompt prayer or reflection.

Introducing Daily Readings

Introducing Crossring Forums