Turning too little into more than enough

Matthew 15:29-39

One of the earliest stories we learn about Jesus is his feeding of the multitudes. We have heard and read the story many times, but have you ever tried to visualize the scene?

Jesus is on a mountainside, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. Great crowds come to him, bringing people who need to be healed. Lame, blind, crippled, mute and he healed them. Miracle after miracle. The people were amazed and they praised God.

How long did this take? It was not one evening. It was not like today when you sit at home, have a meal and then drive to some meeting place where a faith healer is having a service. People had to set out on foot, or a donkey if they could afford it and walk to where Jesus was. It may have taken a day just to get to where Jesus was.

Let’s begin with a family. Mother and father, three teenagers, a couple children and a baby. One of the teenagers has been unable to walk since he was born and they heard stories about Jesus healing people and want him to help their son. So they wake up early, pack some food and water for the journey and set off.  They have to carry some blankets because they will not be returning the same day they leave. If it is a day’s journey to get where Jesus is, they will be gone two days plus the time they spend with Jesus. So they set off. If they can afford a donkey, the donkey carries their son and blankets and food and water. Maybe they have a wooden cart they pull.

As they walk along, they are not the only ones on the road. There are people coming and going to the markets, to buy and sell. There is the normal traffic on the roads, but there are also others who are setting off to find Jesus. Others had heard Jesus was in the area and they wanted to see him as well.

As they come to a fork in the road and have to turn left toward the Sea of Galilee, they find more people like them, seeking Jesus. They greet new people they meet and exchange information. “My cousin reported that Jesus was not far from here two days ago and should still be on the south side of the sea.”

They talk about what they have heard of Jesus. One person says he has an uncle whose wife was healed by Jesus. Other stories are told.

As they walk along, they become a small group of people. Each time they come to another crossing, there are more people who join them. They were ten and then twenty and soon there are fifty people making their way to Jesus. Among them there are many who are in need of healing. Blind people are walking along, holding on to the arm of a friend or relative. Lame people are being carried, people with shriveled limbs and confused minds are part of the group.

And everywhere there is hope. Hope that Jesus will be able to do for my son, my daughter, my friend what Jesus had done for others.

As they get closer, their group of fifty meets other groups of twenty and forty and soon they can see the larger crowd around Jesus in the distance.

As they climb the mountain side they pass by someone running around in circles, dancing, praising God because he is walking now for the first time in his life. Another person is on her knees, looking at a blade of grass, a flower. She cannot control herself and the look on her face is of wonder for she is seeing for the first time in her life. Another person is running around, shaking hands with everyone he meets. His shriveled arm is now whole.

The disciples are in a circle around Jesus, talking to people and trying to control the crowd pressing in on Jesus.

This is the scene around Jesus that we read about in the first verses of the text for today.

In such an atmosphere, one does not think of practical things. There is so much excitement that people forget how long it took them to get there and how much time is needed to return home. People forget that they used up their food in the journey to get to Jesus and don’t have anything to eat to sustain them on their way home. People forget how long they have been with Jesus because in this atmosphere it does not seem that time exists.

But when we get to the feeding of the four thousand, we discover that the crowd has been with Jesus for three days. Three days of hope raised, hope fulfilled, excitement, astonishment, praise. But three days. How long can anything be sustained for three days.

And so as the third day came to a close,
Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

Do you think God does not care about your physical condition? Do you think God cares only for your soul, your eternal life? Take encouragement from this part of the story. Your needs are never far away from God’s concern.

His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

This is the universal answer isn’t it? We become aware of a need and when we take a look at the resources we have available to meet the need, we come up short. Just within our own congregation the needs we have are enormous. Many of us are in pressure situations and we despair because our resources are limited and we cannot help all those who need help. We don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough money. We don’t have enough strength. We don’t have enough creative ideas. We come up short and get caught in despair and then we hear Jesus asking us:

34 “How many loaves do you have?”

How many loaves do you have? We don’t have enough but we do have something. It may not be a lot but it is something and Jesus wants to know what it is we have. He wants us to be aware of what we do have, not just what we don’t have.

“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

Then, as you know, Jesus blessed the bread and fish, the disciples passed it out and after everyone had eaten all they could, there was more food left over than there had been to start with.

This story of Jesus illustrates a principle of our Christian life. When we walk with Jesus, he takes too little and turns it into more than enough. He takes the little we have and transforms it into what it takes to do what he has called us to do.

In the book and movie The Princess Bride, the hero, Westley, has just been brought back from the dead via a magic chocolate pill. He lies behind a stone wall with his companions, Fezzik and Inigo as they consider how they will break into the castle and rescue Buttercup. Westley does what we all must do when faced with an obstacle, a problem, a difficulty. He assess the situation. He asks Inigo, “What are our liabilities?”
“There is but one working castle gate and it is guarded by perhaps a hundred men.”
“What are our assets?”
“Your brains, Fezzik’s strength, my steel.”
“That’s all? That’s it? Everything? The grand total?”

That’s how it was with the disciples and how it is with us. Jesus asked the disciples “How many loaves do you have?” They had already checked and were not encouraged by what they had discovered. As they went around through the crowd, asking what food they had, they had discovered only seven loaves of bread and a few fish.

“That’s all? That’s it? Everything? The grand total?”

When it comes time to pay the rent and pay for the electric and water bill and buy groceries and we ask those in our household, what are our assets? After everyone has counted all the money they have the grand total is 137 dirhams and 15 centimes.

“That’s all? That’s it? Everything? The grand total?

Whether it is our intelligence or time or skill or money, when we face an overwhelming responsibility and count up our assets, we come up short and despair of being able to make it.

It may be that we don’t have enough confidence in ourselves to do what God wants us to do.

Jeremiah was called by God to be his prophet to the nations. He heard God’s call, made an assessment and came up short. “Ah, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.”

God called Moses in the desert to go to Egypt and bring the Israelites out of captivity in that land. Moses did an assessment of his resources and came up short. He made a series of objections to God in which God is remarkably patient. Listen to Moses’ objections:

“Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

“What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?”

And then after God gives Moses two signs: a staff that turns into a snake and a hand that become leprous and then clean again, Moses still objects.
“O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
11 The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?  12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”
13 But Moses said, “O Lord, please send someone else to do it.”

Do you get the idea that Moses counted up his assets and found them lacking?

But Jeremiah and Moses walked with God and God worked powerfully through them. He sustained Jeremiah through persistent and sometimes violent opposition to his message. God led Israel through Moses through the wilderness, teaching and training Israel for the relationship he wanted with them.

Do you have any doubt that God took the little that Jeremiah and Moses had and transformed it into more than enough?

In Luke 1
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,  27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  28 The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

Mary was understandably disturbed at this greeting but the angel said to her,
“Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.  31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.  32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,  33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

This is certainly an overwhelming situation and Mary considered her assets. She knew what it took to have a child, she was engaged to be married to Joseph. Other women had explained to her how it is that babies are born. So she considered her assets: not yet married, no relation with a man that would allow a baby to be born and she came up short. And so she asked the angel
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.  36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.  37 For nothing is impossible with God.”

Mary was just a teenager when Gabriel appeared to her. How could she bear a child when she was a virgin and would be so until her marriage with Joseph was consummated. But God took her with her limitations and transformed her into the mother of Jesus.

We are all people with limitations. None of us have enough talent, enough intelligence, enough time, enough money, enough energy to do all that needs to be done.

In I Kings 17 there is a story about the prophet Elijah. He had told King Ahab that there would be no rain for several years and now he suffered from that prophecy because he had no food to eat.

Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.  8 Then the word of the LORD came to him:  9 “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.”

He came to Zarephath and at the town gate a widow was gathering sticks. He asked her for some water and bread. She was presented with a responsibility. This man was a prophet and should be treated with honor. But what were her assets?

12 “As surely as the LORD your God lives,” she replied, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”

She was overwhelmed with the lack of her resources and had given up hope. But God was about to take too little and turn it into more than enough.

13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.  14 For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD gives rain on the land.’”
15 She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.  16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah.

I work with the Village of Hope at Ain Leuh. God has given us a tremendous vision. We believe God has called us to build homes for 100 children plus a school, dining hall and kitchen, vocational training and agricultural training centers, a medical facility and we have no organization supporting us, raising funds for us. We will need twelve parents to take in children plus administrators, teachers, maintenance people. It is a huge undertaking and so it is easy to feel overwhelmed.

What are our resources? What we have is not enough money, not enough time and not enough energy. Yet, when the board meets every two months to make plans, we are encouraged to move ahead because we believe that God who has given us this vision will take our too little and turn it into more than enough.

What situation are you facing this morning? In what way are you facing limits? What is it you lack?

The question Jesus asked helps us to focus on what we have, not on what we lack and when we focus on what we have, armed with the faith that God can take too little and turn it into more than enough, we can have hope rather than despair.

Did you know that God wants you to feel inadequate for the challenge, the task he sets before you? God wants you to be aware of your limitations.

What if the disciples had responded to Jesus when he asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” with this response: “We’ve done an assessment and realize we need some food so already there are teams organized to get some fish from the sea, another team is going to the closest town to get some bread and another team is making a stew of some greens and mushrooms they found on the mountain. Just sit back and relax. It may take until tomorrow, but we will get some food. We’re taking care of everything.”

The proper response is not to hold an inflated view of your assets. I’m smart enough, powerful enough that I can do whatever I want. I can do what needs to be done without God’s help.

In the book of Judges we read the story of Gideon who set out in a battle with the Midianites. He began with an army of 32,000 men and then God went to work.

The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her,  3 announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

That was still too many and the army was reduced to just 300 by means of a test God designed. Now at this point, Gideon could consider his resources and despair. Just 300 men against a whole camp of Midianites.

But this is how God wants it to be. He does not want us to boast of our power and might. He wants us to depend on him.
Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty. (Zechariah 4)

It is so hard to trust. It is so hard not to despair when your resources seem so limited. It is so hard to hope. But we believe in a God who multiplied seven loaves of bread and a few fish into a meal for 4,000 men plus women and children and had enough left over to fill seven baskets.

You doubt that you can learn a new language. You doubt that you can teach a class or prepare a lesson because you do not have the skills others seem to have. You doubt that you can start up a business. God has given you intelligence and he can turn what you think it too little into more than enough.

Throughout history, God has chosen those the world considers weak to teach the wise.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.  27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.  28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,  29 so that no one may boast before him.

Your creator made you with what it takes to do what he wants you to do. If God has called you to something, he will take the too little you have and transform it into more than enough.

Be filled with hope. Be encouraged. Go forward in dependence on the one who still feeds the multitudes.