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The Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Today’s gospel reading is perhaps one of the best known stories in the gospels—I mean, who hasn’t heard the story of Jesus and the feeding of the 5000? The importance of this story is attested by the fact that the feeding of the 5000 is only story of Jesus’ Galilean ministry that occurs in all four canonical gospels. And it is a great story: here are Jesus and his disciples, all weary and drained from their traveling ministry, attempting to find a quiet place to rest and debrief. But Jesus’ preaching and teaching has been so compelling that the crowds won’t leave him.—even when he withdraws to a deserted place with his disciples, they flock to him. And Jesus, being Jesus, has compassion for their hunger—their spiritual hunger which he feeds with his teaching, and then as the time grows late, their physical hunger which he feeds with the five loaves and two fish. A great deal of ink has been spilled trying to explain this miracle, debating what happened when Jesus fed the crowds. Was the food miraculously multiplied? Was there actually more than Jesus knew? Were people moved to share what they had brought when they saw others begin to share, like in the story of the stone soup? I don’t know, and you know, it’s not terribly important to me HOW this miracle took place. I am far more interested in WHAT Jesus did here. Jesus cared so much for the crowds that flocked to him that he set aside his own need to withdraw for a bit to rest and instead attended to the needs of those before him. He concerned himself with not only their spiritual needs but also their physical needs. What’s more, in feeding the crowds with the loaves and fish, Jesus epitomized a theology of abundance. While the disciples worried and fretted that there wouldn’t be enough, that there was no possible way that they could feed so many, Jesus acted as if there would be plenty for everyone, and however it happened there was—everyone was fed, and there were 12 baskets of leftovers besides. In this story Jesus provides for us a lens through which we can see the world, a lens that can shape how we use the resources the earth provides for us. Jesus embodied what I refer to as a theology of abundance—the notion that in the world God gives us all that we require to meet not only our own needs, but also the needs of others. Think about it---this is really a radical theology, and one that I think we find threatening at times, because to truly live out this theology would require us to place giving to others on the same level as taking care of ourselves. More often than not we operate not from this position of abundance but rather from one of scarcity. Like the disciples, we worry that what we have is barely adequate to meet our own needs, and we have to hold onto it tightly so that we will not come up short. We give to others because caring for the other is part of our call as Christians, but in our giving we still tend to view the world through the lens of scarcity, rather than through the lens of abundance, and all too often our giving takes place only after all of our own needs are met. In some ways this is understandable. We look around and we see so much need around us—in the face of all the poverty, the hunger, the homelessness, the desperation we see around us, how can we believe that there really is enough for everyone? And our instinct for self-preservation kicks in and we hold onto our resources even more tightly because we see and feel our own vulnerability. But the message of today’s gospel is that we need not worry so much, that we in fact have enough—enough for ourselves, enough for others. Jesus didn’t worry about whether the 5 loaves and two fish would be enough--he KNEW it would be, because he knew that God provides all that we need. He trusted that and he acted on that, and he calls for us to do the same. Of course this is easier said than done. One of the challenges for us in embracing this theology of abundance is reconciling all the need, all the suffering we see in the world around us. Consider the following facts: 852 million people across the world are hungry, and the numbers are increasing. Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds. Malnutrition affects every fourth child worldwide—yes one in every four children. Poverty is the principal cause of hunger and hunger in turn causes poverty People ore poor because they lack resources, because resources are unequally distributed in the world, and often because they live in areas torn by conflict that interrupts the flow of daily life. How can we believe in a theology of abundance when this is the world we live in? How can a God who provides all that we need allow so many to live this way, with their basic needs unmet? The answer is one that many of us don’t want to hear, and that is this: It is not God’s failing, it is ours. In our human weakness we fail to fully embrace the theology of abundance that Jesus embodied for us in today’s gospel. We put our own needs first and we are unwilling or unable to see and do those things that would allow the needs of others to be met. I just cited some grim facts about world hunger, but in reality the world produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17 percent more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago, despite a 70 percent population increase. This is enough to provide everyone in the world with at least 2,720 kilocalories (kcal) per person per day. The principal problem is that many people in the world do not have sufficient land to grow, or income to purchase, enough food, but this is not an insurmountable problem. Hunger in the world is not inevitable, and God does provide enough resources for all of us. So what are we to do? One of the many things that our General Convention did this year was to take action towards implementing the UN Millennium Development Goals. The aim of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to decrease poverty and suffering world wide by eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women, reducing child mortality, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. The set of eight goals was adopted by 189 nations including the United States in September of 2000. Achieving these goals will require the concerted effort and will of people around the world. As part of that effort TEC has resolved to make working towards these goals a mission priority for the coming triennium. To that end, a line item of no less than 0.7% of the revenue of the church has been committed to work that supports those goals. Additionally every diocese, congregation, and individual parishioner is urged to commit 0.7% giving towards these goals as well. Why 0.7%? Because it has been estimated that if the wealthy nations of the world each contributed 0.7% of their GNI, the MDGs could be met by 2015, the target year. For a number of reasons we are living in an era of strained budgets. Nonetheless, a number of dioceses, including the Diocese of Massachusetts have already committed to 0.7% giving. Doing so, it seems to me, is one way to live out a theology of abundance, to share the resources that God provides for us with those who currently lack them, trusting that there are resources enough for all. In the same resolution, General Convention also endorsed the ONE Campaign. Some of you may have notice the white wrist band that I wear—it is a ONE wrist band, and I, along with thousands of others, wear it to remind myself of my responsibility to act to end hunger and poverty in the world. The ONE Campaign is an effort to rally Americans to fight global poverty, but it is not asking for your money; instead it is asking for your voice. The ONE Campaign wants your voice to urge our government to allocate an additional 1% of its budget to combat global poverty and to fight HIV/AIDS. One percent—just one cent on the dollar-would demonstrate the commitment of the US to achieving the MDGs by 2015, and with all that we have, it is so little to ask. Giving 0.7% and supporting the ONE Campaign—these things represent both small sacrifices on our part, and huge commitments to the poor and suffering in the world. Yet they are things that we may hesitate to undertake. We hesitate, I think, because we, like Jesus’ disciples, operate from a mindset of scarcity. Let us take care of our own needs, we think, and then if there is anything left over, of course we’ll share. But the challenge from today’s gospel is instead to embrace a theology of abundance, to trust that God provides enough for all of us, and to share what God has provided. I hope that in the days to come we will all prayerfully consider how we might take up that challenge. AMEN.
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