From the Rector…
“Fishes and loaves” is one of my favorite expressions. It reminds me to stay focused on abundance and to release my worries that there might not be enough. And it works. As a youth minister, there were occasions when I thought we might not have enough food for everyone, yet, amazingly, there was plenty—“fishes and loaves.” As a priest, I have found myself worrying about stewardship or monthly giving, knowing how much we had and how much we needed to make payroll and pay the church’s bills. Somehow, the money always shows up—“fishes and loaves.” Even in my personal life, when I am stressed about not having enough time, money, opportunity, or whatever else, things always seem to work out—“fishes and loaves.”
Too often, I allow myself to become rooted in the material world—the one in which fear, scarcity, and anxiety manipulate my choices—instead of being rooted in the divine, where possibility, abundance, and peace inspire my beliefs and decisions. That was the experience of the disciples on the hillside when Jesus fed more than five thousand people with plenty left over. Motivated by fear, they urged Jesus to send the crowds away because there would not be enough to eat. Their assumptions about the world outweighed the possibility that there just might be enough for everyone. Jesus responds by opening the door to possibility, inviting them to trust that there could be something more.
The narrative of the world today is that there is never enough and that this is as good as it gets. But the truth is that when we are concerned only for ourselves as individuals, there will never be enough. And when we live only for ourselves, the world is as good as it gets. Yet when we discover the strength of our relationships and the value of our communities, we discover there is actually more than enough, and the world keeps getting better. To limit the world of our concern to ourselves and our families is to live in a limited world.
Jesus reveals the abundance of God’s kingdom, where grace is found in both receiving and giving. He takes the paltry offering of five loaves and two fish, blesses the food, breaks it, and gives it to the people until everyone has eaten their fill, with twelve baskets of leftovers gathered afterward. These are the actions of the Eucharist that we participate in every Sunday: take, bless, break, and give. How different they are from the actions of the world, which so often become: take, bless, break, and keep.
“Fishes and loaves” is more than a simple saying of trust. It is a reminder of the power of relationships when our concern extends beyond ourselves. It reminds us that all we have received is a gift from God. To receive those gifts and then give them away is one of the truest expressions of our free will and is essential to our life of faith. It is to be rooted in the divine, trusting not in scarcity, but in possibility, abundance, and peace.
Light and Life,
Candice+