2. Physically & Spiritually Nourished: II Kings 4: 38-44; Matt 15: 32-39
To help finance my retirement, I have decided that one day, many years down the road, I will write a book about my time in Macon. One entire chapter is going to be devoted to food. I can tell of some of the best barbecue, fried chicken, and pimento cheese I’ve ever had, excluding my mother’s. But there will also be a few things that stretched the imagination and my food palate. For instance, there was no way I was eating the vegetables in tomato aspic at S & S. And I was absolutely dumbfounded when I saw pear salad. I could not believe the existence of this concoction of a half a canned pear with blob of Miracle Whip, cheddar cheese, and a cherry on top for good measure. I know the Hebrew people complained about so much manna in the wilderness, but I see their manna and raise them a cheesy, miracle whip splattered half-pear.
The Bible talks a lot about food and being fed and nourished. Famines and feasts are used literally in the historical aspects as well as figuratively to make a point about God’s nourishing abilities to our soul and spirit. We often hear Jesus described as the Bread of Life. Communion, a simple meal, is at the heart of faith. And both of the scriptures for today talk about hunger and food.
There’s a very literal description of how Elisha finds a famine in Gilgal. He sends the people out to gather food for a large stew, but it’s poisoned by the wild gourds. Miraculously a little flour cures the poison. Then Elisha miraculously takes a sack of grain and some fresh bread and feeds a multitude to the astonishment of his servant and everyone else.
Jesus likewise performs a similar miracle. The feeding of the multitude is in every single Gospel in the Bible in some form or another. Here Jesus had been teaching in the wilderness for 3 days, and the people had run out of food. I am sure they were irritable. I would be irritable if I was hungry and sitting through a sermon going on three days. There’s only a smattering of food left, but miraculously Jesus takes only a tiny amount and feeds thousands upon thousands of people.
Some say the miracle was truly supernatural, and Jesus produced more food over and over. Others say the miracle was Jesus’s inspiration to take very little and encourage the people to share. I fear the point is lost in this theological battle. It’s both. There was literal sharing by the gathering of the food, the sharing of grain and bread, and sharing of the small number of fish and loaves. But there’s something magical and unexplainable about the way God takes so very little and provides and overwhelming abundance.
The biggest provision was faith. Not only was food scarce, but there was a faith famine as well. The same is often true for us. Just as our souls are tired, they are also malnourished. When was the last time you fed your soul and spirit with things that are holy. How many of you have no idea how to feed your soul at all? I’ll give you an example. About a year ago, I started going to spiritual direction. It’s like therapy, but it helps you discipline yourself to find God and center God’s presence in life’s struggles. Sam, my director, and I meet every 4-6 weeks, and I’m grateful for these sessions which nourish my spiritual and mental wellbeing.
The people with Elisha and Jesus, even their closest followers, lacked the faith to believe that God would provide in a miraculous way. A lack of faith will starve us of all hope in God. Neither Jesus nor Elisha accepted an answer of too little faith or too few resources. There was more than enough to feed and inspire each person and more than enough to go around for entire cities and thousands of people. “There’s not enough,” is not an acceptable answer to God, whether it’s faith or resources. God always provides.
To truly hit the point home, both Elisha and Jesus invited the people to participate in the miracle that was about to happen. Elisha sent the people out to forage up enough food for a stew. That’s not the miracle. Elisha simply encouraged enough faith for the people to find nourishment for themselves and the whole community. The miracle was making sure that when everybody came to the table to eat it wasn’t a toxic mix that was served.
Certainly, God can simply make the miraculous happen, but God is not a genie or fairy god mother. We are expected to have the faith to take part in the miracles which are happening. As Jesus makes food appear out of nowhere, or maybe some hidden away last bits, he makes sure everyone passes it around until all are fed. Everyone had a hand in nourishing one another physically and spiritually.
That is what the work faith is about—finding ways to feed the hungry and nourish the spiritually starving. We say to folks, and to one another, here’s a meal, go and eat tonight. But we also hear the words, “Take and eat, this is my body broken for you. Take and drink, this is the cup of salvation poured out for you.” If you feel this overwhelming sense of spiritual and physical fatigue, perhaps you’re tiredness comes from being spiritually hungry and in need of the Bread of Life. What is your best spiritual nourishment—conversation, prayer, music, reading, being active in doing God’s work? When was the last time you did such things to nourish yourself?
Christ invites us to have the faith to believe that even in saving us from the sinfulness of the world, we are also saved from spiritual starvation as the trials and troubles of this world attack us. Christ also invites us to be a part of the miraculous. Whether it’s communion, service, love and care for others, or changing hearts and minds to find love in a broken world, if we take the first step of faith, God can work the miraculous through us.
We come each week to Christ’s table where we remember over and over the saving grace which Christ gives us when we have the faith to believe. But faith is active and calls us to be nourished in our own souls as well as to help feed others the bread of life. I’m grateful that we have this simple meal. It would be a struggle to come to a Communion table with vegetables frozen midair in gelatinous goo or pears topped with Miracle Whip. Instead, at this table, we find the call to be physically and spiritually nourished by God’s own grace, and to share that nourishing hope with the world. It’s a reminder of the words of our hymn, “God is so good to me.” And so God is. And so God will be.
Worship Video: https://www.facebook.com/fccmacon/videos/530228255607776