Loaves and Fishes, Scarcity and Abundance

Embed from Getty Images

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom
Frances Perkins, May 13, 2020

May God's word be spoken, May God's Word be heard, and May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today's Gospel tells the story of the feeding of the five thousand. One of Jesus' many miracles in the New Testament story. It is a seemingly fantastic story – a story of how five loaves and two fish managed to feed more than five thousand. To our modern ears this may sound like a tall tale. We might try to explain it away by saying that there couldn't possibly have been that many people or assuming the author was just exaggerating for effect. Or we might say that everyone only got a crumb. We could come up with any number of ways to “explain” this story. But if we do that, we are missing out on the miracle and the message in the story. The miracle in the story is not about how many pieces of bread there were. The miracle is that everyone was fed. The miracle is that God created abundance in the midst of scarcity.

Jesus blessed the bread and the fishes. He invited God's blessing in and he invited all those present to share with another. Those actions transformed a time of scarcity into one of abundance.

That is a message that resonates in these days. An appropriate lesson as we honor Frances Perkins, FDR’s long serving Secretary of Labor, who helped implement so many programs like Social Security that help to ensure that no one is without a safety net. That endeavor to ensure that everyone in our society has the resources to meet their basic needs.

Most of us are fortunate enough that we probably cannot relate to the scarcity of food that the Gospel lesson describes. We have not looked into our kitchen cupboards or our refrigerators to find them empty. And even if we did, even in the midst of a pandemic, we are still able to get plenty of food. While we may not know material scarcity, that does not mean we don't understand the reality of scarcity. In fact our material prosperity can sometimes form a stark contrast with the scarcity that does exist in our lives.

Let me tell you the story of a woman I know. We'll call her Jane. Jane has every material and economic advantage. She lives in a big beautiful house. She has servants to cook and clean. Someone to drive her around. A nanny to watch over her children. She is a brilliant woman, well educated and intellectually curious. She does not need to work, and in her community it is expected that a woman of her social standing would not work. Rather she is expected to be a hostess, have hobbies and volunteer. To many it would seem that Jane had the perfect life. Where would we find scarcity in such a life? The scarcity is not in material comforts, it is a scarcity of depth and meaning. Jane wants more from life, a sense that she has made a meaningful contribution to the world. There is a hole in Jane's life, in Jane's heart, that she did not know how to fill. The pain is overwhelming, and so she does what many do. She finds ways to dull the pain. She finds it in alcohol and pain medication. But this temporary remedy only causes more scarcity as it causes Jane to withdraw from society, from her friends and even from her family. Thankfully that is not the end of the story. With the help of those who care about her, Jane gets into recovery. She stops drinking, and she stops taking medication. She transforms her life and her relationships. With help, scarcity turned into abundance.

Jane discovers that by being willing to turn over her problems, to give her scarcity up to God, she is able to invite God's blessing in and to allow healing to begin. The spiritual journey of recovery fills that hole in Jane's heart in a way that alcohol never could. Jane finds love and meaning. She finds that as she opens up to allow others to help her, not only is she strengthened by their care and support, she in turn is strengthened by the opportunity to care for others. She feels great pride in being able to help others on the journey of recovery – to share how God can turn scarcity into abundance. Jane's joy and pride does not only come from being able to help others discover the deep joy and satisfaction she now knew, it also comes from her relationship with her family. The gift of recovery means that she is now able to be fully present and engaged. Her relationships are deepened. Love abounds.

Although our own stories may be very different from Jane's, there is perhaps a universal element in the experience of scarcity and the desire to escape from it. Given the choice, we would all choose abundance over scarcity. We would choose the blessings of love and meaning, of material comfort and opportunities for education. And so when any of those things are lacking, when there are holes in our lives, we seek to fill them. We seek to escape from the reality of scarcity. Yet so often, like Jane, we seek a temporary or easy “solution” to our scarcity. We try to find a band-aid, a way to dull the pain. Maybe we fall victim to addiction as she did. Maybe we just ignore the problem, hoping it will go away. Maybe we throw ourselves into our work hoping that will provide the sense of joy that is missing in our lives. Maybe we buy more things. Maybe we do any number of unhelpful behaviors. But hopefully we have the strength and the courage to acknowledge wherever there is a spiritual scarcity in our lives, and to open ourselves up to the possibility that there might be another way forward. Like Christ did with the loaves and the fishes, we can hold our scarcity up to heaven and ask God's blessing upon it. We can ask that with grace and love, our scarcity may be transformed into abundance.


AMEN.