John 6:1-13

Let me introduce myself. My name is Deborah. I live in a little village near the Sea of Galilee. Not a big enough one to make it onto your Bible maps, but it’s a nice little community, maybe 500 people. Like most of my neighbors, I live in town and go out to farm my family’s fields.

Now I ask you, if you saw somebody come to your village, and this person was healing people you knew, people that you knew were sick, people that you knew had been injured in an accident, people that you knew had been blind or deaf or whatever from birth, wouldn’t you follow him to see what he would do next? So when Jesus left our area, we went out to find him. 

Not an easy task, because he didn’t leave an note where he was going. They (Jesus and the folks who regularly traveled with him) left our village early in the morning, before the rest of us were through with our morning chores. 

When we took off to follow him, we saw that he had gone on to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. (If you have your Bibles with you, look at the maps in the back. You’ll see that on our side of the Jordan was the territory we call Galilee. Throughout history it was in and out of the nation of Israel. Originally, it was part of the territory Joshua claimed for the tribes. But sometimes it was under Canaanite rule, sometimes under Assyrian rule. It hadn’t always been a part of Israel. That’s why folks in Jerusalem looked down their noses at us. But we were still considered Jews, not like the Samaritans, who had been contaminated by invading armies.)

But on the other side of the Sea of Galilee were Gentiles! They had never claimed to be Israelites. They had no connection to Judaism. They were pagans, heathens. The people were of mixed races, mixed religions, and, on that side, NOT Jews! People we didn’t associate with.

Anyway, we tracked Jesus to this pagan territory. There he was, sitting on a hillside with his followers and with a lot of those people from this Gentile area. Not that you could tell just by looking at them who was from where. There was a pretty good-sized crowd even before we arrived.

Now I don’t see well, so I moved up to the front of the crowd, down pretty close to Jesus and his group. And I could hear what Jesus was saying to his followers.

And do you know what Jesus was worried about? He was worried about feeding us! Can you imagine? Here we were, some 5,000 people, from all over the region, who came to see what this man might do, to hear what he might say, to watch him heal people, and he’s worried about us being hungry!

While I’m thinking about all of this, one of the disciples comes up to Jesus with a boy. Not a boy that I knew, but a nice-looking boy. A little tattered, like the rest of us. Not real clean, like the rest of us. Looking kind of tired, like the rest of us.

And the disciple said to Jesus, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish.” He shrugged. “But how far will they go among so many?”

Jesus told him to have the people all sit down. So we started passing the word to those behind us to settle down and sit down. I could feel a knot starting in my stomach. I looked around me, and there was nobody that I knew. All my friends were farther back. Unless I gave up my place up here, close to Jesus, where I could see and hear, I was going to be sitting here eating among strangers! 

Now we Jews are pretty particular about who we eat with. We have some pretty strict laws as to what we can eat, but even stricter are the laws about who we can eat with! We can’t eat with Gentiles. We can’t eat with Samaritans. We can’t eat with anyone who is ritually unclean. We can’t eat with anyone who has eaten food that we don’t eat, because that makes them unclean. And a lot of these people eat pork, completely forbidden to us!

Besides all that stuff about the law, there is another problem. A problem for all of us, both Jews and Gentiles. When you eat with someone, it’s a sign of creating a relationship. You can’t be enemies any more. It’s a lot like countries signing a treaty, but on a personal level. 

I don’t know how far back those loaves and fishes are going to go. And I don’t know who brought them! Was he a Jew? Was the woman who baked the bread ritually clean? Were the fish prepared properly? Had the boy washed before he brought the bread and fish to Jesus? Was Jesus going to wash before he offered us the bread and fish?

I have a piece of bread in my bag. It’s not very big, just enough for me. I brought it to eat on the way back. Do I take it out and share it with these strangers? And what if some of them brought food along, too? Would they be willing to share it? And if they did, should I eat it? I couldn’t exactly go around the group asking who was Jewish and who was clean, so I could eat with them! Besides, women don’t eat with men! Women wait until the men are through before we eat. If I offer my bread, and some man eats it, what will I eat?

Then Jesus interrupted my thoughts. He was holding up a piece of bread, and he prayed aloud. Everyone got quiet, and you could hear his voice a long ways back. When he blessed the food for all of us, I got the feeling that he didn’t care about Jew or Gentile, about clean or unclean. But I did. I was still very uncomfortable about this. Keeping the law is very important. There is an understanding that if everyone could keep the whole law just for one full day, God would redeem Israel. God would return the nation of Israel to her independence, to her freedom, to her glory, as in the days of David. And here we were, a whole bunch of us, about to break a major law, a law as important as the law of the Sabbath!

I looked around me, at my group, and realized that everyone else was uncomfortable, too. And I realized that all of us knew what eating together meant, and that we weren’t really sure about this. They didn’t know who I was, either, or the people around them. A few were couples and families, and they, of course, knew each other. But they didn’t know all the others. Some looked like wealthy people, well-dressed. Leaders of their communities. The rest of us were peasants. Poor folk. People ignored by the leaders. Were the rich and the poor supposed to eat together? And were the women supposed to eat at the same time as the men?

There we sat, looking at each other. One of Jesus’ followers, not the one who found the boy with the bread, brought us a basket of bread and fish. I did a quick count, still five breads and two fish, even though the basket had already passed through other groups. I brought out my piece of bread and took a small piece of fish from the basket. Some people in my group had done as I had, bringing something to eat. Others hadn’t. A few had even brought extra. When the basket left us, there were two breads and one fish in it.

There we sat, with the food in our hands, looking at each other. We had come this far. We had pulled out our food or taken what the basket or what someone else had offered. I had my piece of bread and a piece of fish that someone else had brought. I had no idea who brought the fish. Was it prepared right? Was it clean? Should I eat it?

The oldest man in our group smiled and began to eat his bread. An older woman, who must have been his wife, took a piece of fish and began to eat at the same time. Slowly, one at a time, others followed suit. And finally, everyone was eating, including me. And again, slowly at first, people began to visit with their neighbors. We began to find out about each other. The woman on my left had three children with her. Her husband had stayed home to work the fields. The man on my right had come with his wife and daughter. I shared that I was a widow, with three sons and two daughters. And as we continued to chat, we relaxed and became more comfortable with each other. And soon, we were visiting and laughing and joking as though we were all good friends. It was wonderful! And finally I realized that I didn’t care that the families I sat between were Gentiles. They were good people, people who had the same kind of problems I did, who struggled to put food on the table, who worked hard to raise their crops, who loved their families and their friends. And we had all come to see Jesus.

And Jesus had supplied food for all of us. More than enough! Even those of us who had brought food hadn’t brought that much. Yet there were twelve baskets left over! Jesus had multiplied what we had brought and there had been much more than enough! 

And I wondered. Why hadn’t Jesus separated us into appropriate groups? Why hadn’t Jesus put the Jews on one side and the Gentiles on the other? The Samaritans somewhere else? Why hadn’t Jesus separated men and women, or at least had the women wait until the men had eaten? Why hadn’t Jesus asked who was not ritually clean, so we would know not to eat with them? Why didn’t Jesus do that?

For consideration:

General Questions

1) How does this story follow its Scripture?

2) How does this story expand its Scripture for you?

3) What is the message of this story?

4) How does the message apply to us today?

Specific Questions

5) Have you ever sat with a group of strangers you were uncomfortable with? Why were you uncomfortable with them?

6) The Jews considered themselves to be God’s chosen people. What did that make everyone else?

7) Deborah was uncomfortable eating at the same time as men. Would you be uncomfortable with women eating after men, which was the custom in those days?

8) By having all those strangers eat together, what had Jesus given them besides food to eat?