July 28, 2024, What’s the Point?, Mark 6:30-44 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ July 28, 2024 ♦ Leave a comment

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There is at least one theme in our lectionary readings today, and that is the theme of “Signs and Wonders.” In the Old Testament reading, Elisha performs a Jesus-style miracle. It’s a time of famine, and Elisha is having dinner with the sons of the prophets, a hundred men. A man brings an offering to Elisha, the first fruits of his harvest, twenty loaves of barley bread and fresh ears of grain, and Elisha tells his servant to give the bread to the men to share. His servant can’t believe there will be enough to serve a hundred men, but Elijah assures him that there is enough and to spare. And there is.

Jesus’ miracle, of course, is way more impressive – not 20 loaves shared among 100 men, but 5 loaves and a couple of fish shared among 5,000, with a good 12 baskets full of leftovers. And there are yet more signs and wonders packed into the gospel this week: a huge crowd has followed Jesus and his disciples because they have seen him work miraculous healings for the sick. And then after the feast, Jesus terrifies his disciples by walking on the waves of the stormy sea. And he quiets the storm, and brings the boat safe to shore. Lots of signs. Lots of wonders.

It is a tricky thing, I think, for a person of our modern era to know how to read these stories about signs and wonders. As heirs of the Enlightenment, most 21st-century readers are pretty much pre-programmed to read with a certain amount of cynicism. For non-Christians, that generally translates into simple disbelief, taking these stories as something like myth or fairy tale. But for modern Christians, who seek to read faithfully, there is often a struggle to provide a rational explanation for biblical events that strain our credibility. One well-respected commentary that I have read “explains” the feeding of the 5,000 by proposing that Jesus provided an example of generosity for the people to follow. He blessed the 5 loaves and 2 fishes; he broke them and distributed them; and first one, and then another person searched their heart – and their lunchbag – and added what they had to the offering, until there was more than enough for everyone.

The problem with reading the gospels in that rational kind of way, is that it completely ignores the context. In the case of the feeding of the 5,000, we find that the people’s reaction was to rise up and try to take Jesus by force, and by force, to crown him King. Sharing is a wonderful thing, but no one ever tried to make someone king by force because he taught them to be nice to each other. Not in the first century, not in the 21^st century, not ever.

No, if we read this gospel story faithfully, in context, we have to assume that the people were astounded – to the point of taking Jesus by force – because Jesus had done something that couldn’t be explained away. And then, our question becomes, not “Did it happen?” but “What did it mean?” “What was the purpose for all the signs and wonders Jesus did?”

The context, again, tells us a lot about that question. It’s pretty clear, by Jesus’ reaction, that the people got the answer wrong. They ate as much as their bellies, and their children’s bellies, could hold. And they saw baskets full of leftovers, piled high. They had never experienced anything like it. And they wanted more. Clearly the sign meant Jesus was able to bring an end to their hunger, an end to their constant anxiety about providing for their families, an end to their grinding, everlasting poverty. If they could just get hold of Jesus all their problems would be over.

The reason they got it wrong is, the signs and wonders Jesus performed never pointed to Jesus himself. Everything Jesus did, everything he said, every sign and every wonder pointed only and entirely to the Father. When the people came clamoring for him, after the miraculous feeding, Jesus told them (Jn. 6:38) “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.”

Another time, when the Jews sought to kill Jesus because he healed on the Sabbath (another sign!) Jesus told them, “The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

When Jesus was grieved by the unbelief of the people, he cried out, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me…I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment – what to say and what to speak.”

He said many things like that, so that when Philip asked Jesus, at the Last Supper, “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us,” Jesus answered him in astonishment – and maybe a little frustration – “Have I been with you so long, and you still don’t know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

It was hard for people to understand that the signs and wonders of Jesus were never about Jesus. When Jesus fed them, they went after him, clamoring for more, as if he were a sort of divine vending machine. When he healed them, they followed him, afraid to let him go, as if he was their only hope. When Jesus walked on the water, his disciples were suddenly afraid of him; terrified of the strangeness of his power.

But the signs weren’t pointing to Jesus’ power. Jesus didn’t do signs and wonders to impress people with his greatness or his uncanny abilities. He didn’t do them to increase his polling numbers. Jesus’ signs and wonders always pointed through Jesus to the Father who sent him. They were about who the Father is, about the Father’s powerful and eternal love for his children, all about the goodness of the Father toward his whole creation.

Jesus did signs and wonders of healing to show us the Father’s care: that the Father formed each one of us in our mother’s womb and called us by name, that the Father holds our lives, each and every one, in the palm of his loving hand. Jesus did signs and wonders of miraculous feeding, to show us that the Father knows what we need before we even ask him, that he is generous to provide for everyone, from the least to the greatest of his creatures. Jesus performed signs and wonders over the forces of nature; he walked on water and he calmed the storm with a word, to teach us that the wind and the waves are the Father’s creatures, just as we are. The Father spoke and the creation came into being; the Father commands and creation rejoices to obey the word of his command. The signs and wonders of Jesus are all about, and only about, the love of the Father.

Everything Jesus taught, every work of his hands, every sign and every wonder – Jesus said and did them to make the Father – and his love – known to us, who are his beloved children. The Son of God was born as a flesh and blood human being, and worked signs and wonders in the sight of us human beings so that we, who are small and finite and poor in spirit, could see and know the Father who is infinite and unseeable and who is beyond our knowing.

Let us pray, using the words of the apostle Paul:

I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of the Father. Amen