God, make us ready for anything! Amen.
My
name is Zebidiah. It’s a good Jewish
name and I was a good Jewish boy. I was
a small kid, tiny almost so my mother called me Zebbie until I was almost
grown. I’m a father, yea, even
grandfather, now, but I want to tell you about the time that changed my
life.
There
was this man, you see, his name was Jesus; and, everyone wanted to hear him
speak. It was a chore to get to him; he
always seemed to be out in the hills or by one of the lakes, but that didn’t
deter anyone. One morning, my mother,
brother, sister and I went out to the hills across the Sea of Galilee. He hadn’t even started speaking and the crowd
was growing restless. Now my mother knew
that children get hungry so she had packed a 2 fish and 5 barley loaves her
children. Although we couldn’t see Jesus
at first, we were close enough to be able to tell what was going on around
him. Apparently, he and his disciples
were discussing lunch and what to do with all the hungry people. Suddenly, Andrew, one of the disciples was
standing next to me. He asked me what
was in the basket I was carrying. I told
him. He turned to my mother and asked if
we would be willing to share what we had.
She gave him that look that I knew was her “are you crazy?” look (I
should know, she looked at me like that all the time); but, my mother was a
kind and wonderful woman so she said, “Of course”. I followed Andrew back to where Jesus was
standing. I guess I had expected a
giant; and, I had a hard time realizing that this rather common-looking man was
Jesus. He had a kind face, though he
wore the concern of a shepherd who was concerned but not worried about feeding his
sheep.
Andrew
told Jesus, “I found a boy who has a basket with 5 barley loaves and 2 fish,
but that’s hardly a drop in the bucket when compared to what we need”. I saw
some of the disciples snicker; but, Jesus silenced them with a look not unlike
another of my mother’s looks. Jesus
said, “Have the people sit down”.
Everyone sat down. We were on a
beautiful hillside and the grass was lush. I heard Jesus say a prayer of thanks for the
bread. He thanked God for giving us the
seed, for the farmer who sowed the seed and then ground it into grain and for
my mother who had baked the bread. They
began passing that bread and suddenly people were passing bread from all
over—it came from the back and all sides.
The bread just kept coming as people uncovered their lunches and began
to share. Then Jesus took the little
fish from my basket; he thanked God again for putting the fish in the sea and
for the fisherpeople who spent their days catching the fish and again for my
mother who had dried the fish and prepared it for our lunch. As the fish began to be passed around the
same thing happened. Fish came from all
over—all different kinds of fish, but all prepared with loving hands for
lunch. We ate and ate. Why, I’d never had this much to eat at one
time. There were even leftovers. I kept watching Jesus; he just sat down and
ate like this was no big deal. But, even
as young as I was, I knew something special had happened; and, I had that
feeling deep down inside that I had been changed, too.
You know that feeling when you are present for
a miracle or you hear or see something so amazing that you feel your heart
melt? Well, that is what was happening
to me. I eventually wandered back to
where my mother was and sat down with my family. I couldn’t talk at the time; but, my mother
was ok with that—apparently I talked a lot as a kid. I don’t remember a lot of what Jesus
said. I and lots of the kids were so full;
we kinda dozed on the ground while our parents listened to Jesus. After I was grown I learned a lot more about
what Jesus said that day and all the time while he was on the earth; but, at
that point, I was still processing what I had seen and experienced. And, somehow, that was enough.
In the years that passed, I
grew up, and had a typically rebellious stage.
My own spirituality continued to simmer somewhere deep within. But always, it was centered on those fishes
and loaves of bread. Having seen this as
a child, I was filled with the unshakeable knowledge that God’s abundance would
never run out. No matter what decisions
I made as a young man, I made them in this circle of abundance—knowing, without
even knowing why I knew, that, if my decisions were made in line with God’s
will, there would always be plenty. I
started a little business just after I married my wife Dara. It was tough, at first; but, we kept at it
and God never let us go hungry. Of
course, soon the children started to come; and, there were more mouths to
feed. But always, I thought of those
fish and loaves. I know that Jesus did a
lot more than bless my fish and loaf that day.
I know that he was arrested for challenging the Roman rule and
questioning the head priests of our own religion. Later, when I knew the whole story about how
those two forces worked together to rid the world of Jesus, I was always
confused about what went so terribly wrong.
I know that there are stories, and lots of them, about Jesus being on
earth for a short while after he was killed and buried and that communities
were founded all over our part of the world to spread his teachings and let
people know how much God loved them.
But for this Jewish man,
that had already happened when I was just a child. I didn’t really get involved with the so
called new-movement; I was too busy raising a family and trying to help them
understand what had changed my life so many decades ago. This is what I told them and their cousins
when I had a chance:
Yahweh was God of
everything. We know that God created
everything for us. But, that didn’t mean
that it was all for us alone. It was for
everyone else, as well. Now, even in my
time, that’s a concept that didn’t always catch on. My wife, Dara, bless her heart, didn’t always
understand why I gave away some of the benches I made to families who had
nothing but dirt to sit on. I just
always knew that Yahweh would make up for it.
We were never counted among the wealthy, we didn’t have to be. We had what we needed and some of what we
wanted and that was enough. Because I
saw what Jesus could do with the one family sharing their bounty, I knew that
was the basis of all that I believed about everything. I knew there would always be enough when
people who had things shared with those who needed but did not have those very
things. Now, you may say that I was
naïve and you would be right. I had no
way of knowing what you know now, that some people in the world believe that
they deserve more while others go hungry, or homeless, or sad beyond
words. Although, now that I think about
it, there were definitely people in my village who refused to share—thinking about
it, they never looked very happy to me.
But, I was all smiles and I can almost tell by looking which ones of you
share with your whole hearts whatever you have—it gives you a certain look, a
certain peace inside that simply glows on the outside.
Generous is a word you
modern day folks throw around a lot. I
learned what that means on that hillside that day. I learned that many have not; and, sometimes,
only a few really have. Sometimes, a lot
have some; and, only a few have not.
Mostly what I’ve learned is that is does not matter. It does not matter at all. If all give of whatever they have and that
may not be money at all, then God’s wonderful abundance is set in motion and
the miracle happens. The other thing
I’ve learned is that it doesn’t always happen on our time-table. God knows what is best for us—it seems to me
that the world (you now call it the universe, but what did I know then?) cares
for us in her own special way; and, that when we trust that all will be well,
we guarantee God’s presence in our lives.
And, gratitude is really all there is.
Today, I am grateful that you are a group of people who are sharing what
I learned so long ago on that hillside and what I dedicated my life to—passing
on the word of God’s great generosity and love for all of us; and, of God’s
unending abundance of all there is. As
is my tradition and yours, I bid you goodbye and God bless. Shalom and amen.
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