There is an old story about Albert Einstein. He was going around the country from university to university on the lecture circuit, giving lectures on his Theory of Relativity. He traveled by chauffeur-driven limousine.
One day after they had been on the road for awhile, Einstein’s chauffeur said to him, “Dr. Einstein, I’ve heard you deliver that lecture on relativity so many times that I’ll bet that I could deliver it myself.” “Very well,” the good Doctor responded, “I’ll give you that opportunity tonight. The people at the university, where I am to lecture have never seen me. Then you can give the lecture.”
For a while that evening, everything went according to plan. The chauffeur delivered the lecture flawlessly. But as the lecture concluded, a professor in the audience rose and asked a complex question involving mathematical equations and formulas. The quick-thinking chauffeur replied, “Sir, the solution to that problem is so simple, I’m really surprised you’ve asked me to give it to you. Indeed, to prove to you just how simple it is, I’m going to ask my chauffeur to step forward, and answer your question.”
Today I am not going to talk about relativity. In fact, I really do not know much about it either. Rather, let me share with you the story of the feeding of the multitude. Like the theory of relativity, I cannot explain to you what happened, but I can share with you what I learned from this story. In fact, this story is more difficult to explain than relativity because it has something to do with faith.
We all know the story of the feeding of the multitude with five loaves and two fishes. At least we’ve heard it, if we’ve been to church or to Sunday School. It is the only miracle Jesus performed that is found in all four gospels. Every Gospel felt that this particular story needed to be told.
However, Mark records two miracles of feeding the multitude – the one which we just read where 5,000 were fed with five loaves and two fishes. And after they had eaten, 12 basketsfull of broken pieces of bread and of the fish were gathered.
The other story is in Chapter 8 where 4,000 had been fed with seven loaves. After all had been fed and were satisfied, seven basketsfull remained.
The interesting thing about the story in Chapter 8 of Mark is that not long after He had fed the 4,000, Jesus and his disciples got into the boat, and started to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Then in the middle of the lake, everyone became hungry again. They forgot to bring some of those extra bread except for one loaf.
Now this is hard to believe, but this is what Mark tells us. The disciples began to talk about the fact they had only one loaf of bread, and that it was not enough for all of them.
Jesus confronted them: “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Don’t you yet understand? Are your hearts hardened? What are you doing with your eyes? Can’t you see? What are you doing with your ears? Can’t you hear?”
And then He asked the question that must have caused their faces to grow red with embarrassment: “And do you not remember when I broke the loaves for the 5,000? How many baskets of broken pieces did you take up?:
They remembered. And his understated response: “Do you not yet understand?”
The question that Jesus is constantly asking us, “Do you not yet understand? After all that you’ve experienced, after everything that I’ve done for you, can you not remember? Don’t you see? Don’t you hear?”
This happens to so many of life’s situations, at every level of life. I remember when I was an intern somewhere in Southern Leyte in a very small church. My salary was only P40 a month. At that time, I felt it was not enough. I had to write to my father to send me some money. And when I graduated, I was assigned to a church where the salary was P212 a month, just like the salary of many of the public school teachers back then. For some pastors, they say I was fortunate. But I felt it was not enough. I had to write (again) to my sister who was working that I needed some money since I was a lowly-paid pastor.
I believe this happens to many of us. In many of life’s situations, what we have is not enough. The house is not big enough; the salary is not enough; the toys we have are not enough.
As a pastor of Silliman Church, I meet people who would come to the office asking for help. I usually tell them the church could not pay the full amount of their medicine because our budget is not enough. Other times, some small churches would come asking that we help them renovate their church building. My answer to them is that our budget is not even programs we envision.
Many times sitting in the office, I often ask myself, “What have I to offer to these yearning, hurting, weary, frustrated people who need help? What can our church do when we do not have enough?” In frustration, I ask, “What can I do when our resources are not enough to share with someone whose child could not be discharged from the hospital because they do not have enough money to pay their bills? Or with someone who lost his job; or with parents whose son is into drugs; or with children whose parents just left them to fend for themselves; or with the veiled suggestion of suicide that I’ve picked up from a student who is struggling from his schooling.
The sudden death of a loved one or a child who runs away from home sends me desperately looking for strength as I listen to them. In weariness and frustration, I feel that I just do not have the resources to cope even with my training and experience.
I know that young people experience it, too. Peer pressure — breaking up with a girlfriend/boyfriend, not making it to the team, not getting the choice sorority or fraternity bid, a paper that happy to get a barely passing grade, but you’re likely to end up with an “F”… the catalogue is endless. In so many of life’s situations, what we have is not enough.
However, there is another truth from our scripture lesson. Jesus can meet our inadequacies, and multiplies what we offer to him, believing he can do the impossible. Jesus multiplies our resources if we offer them to him.
Note the two responses to people’s need in our story. In verses 35-37: And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place, and the hour is now late; send them away to go into the country and villages around to buy them something to eat.”
In effect, the disciples were saying: “These people are tired and hungry. Get rid of them, and let someone else worry about them.”
On the other hand, Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.”
Having worked in a church for more than 40 years, I have seen this confirmed over and over again. Jesus can meet our inadequacies and multiplies what we offer to him.
Every time we present the budget of the church, it would seem that we cannot support all the ministries that we have. But we have for the years past. And I believe that we, too, can support the ministries that we are doing now, believing that God multiplies our resources, using people like you and me.
When Jesus asked, “How many loaves do you have?” he knew the people had not brought food with them. They had been so excited, they didn’t know the day was going on that long; they didn’t plan ahead. Jesus was underscoring their inadequacies because he wanted them to get the lesson clearly: When we offer to Jesus what we have, we do it believing that Jesus will multiply what we offer.
When a friend of mine resigned from his pastorate, he told the congregation, “I can no longer meet all the needs of this parish, so I decided to look for another kind of job.” This made me reflect, “Who told him he could meet all the needs of his congregation?”
The apostles — even after their newfound success as teachers, preachers, and healers — knew better.
When we, individually and as a church, claim God’s blessing, it comes in miraculous ways. So let us learn to claim the blessing that God has given you and me. Let us offer what we have, believing that what we offer can be multiplied beyond our wildest imaginings.
