I.
One of the things the Israelites had trouble doing was trusting in God to provide for them.
Psalm 78 describes this struggle in detail.
It reminds them (and us) that God parted the Red Sea, led them with a pillar of fire by night, and shielded them from the hot, burning sun by day with a cloud.
When they thirsted, God literally got water out of a stone.
Yet Israel was stiff-necked and never learned that, unlike a stock portfolio, God’s past performance is a guarantee of future results.
So, Psalm 78 reads:
“They spake against God also, saying : Shall God prepare a table in the wilderness?
“He smote the stony rock indeed, that the waters gushed out, and the streams flowed withal : but can he give bread also, or provide flesh for his people?”
Why did Israel find it so hard to answer this question with a resounding, “Yes! God has, He does, and He will continue to provide for us!”?
II.
In today’s gospel reading from John, Jesus reverses the roles in this historic dialogue between Israel and God. This time, the Word of God Himself is asking His people,
“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
John then adds a note of intrigue:
“He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.”
Which, I think, is precisely the point of the psalms and of the stories from Exodus of the wilderness wanderings of Israel.
Psalm 81 says so explicitly:
“He should have fed them also with the finest wheat-flour : and with honey out of the stony rock should I have satisfied thee.”
What God would have done was provide — and not just provide, but provide well, “the finest wheat-flour” — for His people.
The reading from Exodus today shows Joseph doing just that: providing well for his half-brothers, despite what they did to him, and providing five times as well for his full-brother, Benjamin.
III.
There is an important point to make here.
Joseph’s provision for his brothers occurs during a famine, a time of want, but it also occurs four hundred years before the Exodus.
Given the history between Joseph and his brothers, the brothers would have had every reason to fear Joseph, had they known who he was.
Instead, they are provided for, in secret.
(Just as Jesus plans to provide for the 5,000, in secret.)
The point is this: before the Exodus, the Church had little reason to expect God would provide. After the Exodus the Church has visible proof that God can, does, and will provide.
Why do I say “the Church” here?
Because that is who Jacob, and his sons, were. Beginning with Abraham, Jacob’s grandfather, the Church is built on the faith of those who believe in the LORD God.
The reasons for our faith have only multiplied over time.
Abraham’s faith was truly remarkable, and based, as Paul writes today, only on a promise, the promise that his wife, Sarah, who was 99 years old, would conceive and have a son, one born into freedom, and not born into slavery.
Perhaps that miracle, and that Jacob knew he was the son of that promised son, was reason enough for him to have faith.
In our own day, with so much more of the Church’s story now told, haven’t our own reasons for having faith been multiplied?
IV.
Jesus asks,
“Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
Philip replies:
“It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
Another disciple, Andrew, tries to help saying:
“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
What do you think Jesus was testing for here?
If your answer is “faith,” then, congratulations. You’re not only following this sermon, but nearly every sermon I preach!
What is that faith, exactly?
First, let me tell you what it’s not.
Faith is not the notion that we can accomplish great things through our own efforts.
Heroic effort seems to be what is behind Andrew’s words, “but how far will they go among so many?”
Andrew honestly seems willing to try, but he knows the effort will be hopeless.
All of us get to a place in our lives when we know our efforts won’t do any more good.
Jesus is teaching us that when get to that place we need to do two things.
First, we need to recognize that it is a sacred moment. It is sacred because surely when we have come to the end of our own efforts then we are finally ready to meet Him. That is sacred.
Second, realizing we have come to this sacred moment, what we must do is cease all of our efforts.
We need to stop trying and start obeying.
We see the brothers do this when they meet Joseph:
“When Joseph came home, they presented to him the gifts they had brought into the house, and they bowed down before him to the ground.”
We see the crowd do this when the disciples and the crowds obey Jesus’ instruction: “Have the people sit down.”
It should be easy (or at least easier) for us, who have the benefit of the biblical record of God’s work for us and on our behalf, to have faith.
So, when your doubts overtake you, I urge to recognize that you have arrived at a sacred moment.
Stop trying and start obeying.
V.
Now, like the boy in the story, we have something to contribute to this miracle.
John tells us:
“Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.”
God is able to take what little faith we have and multiply it.
He can do this because all things come from Him.
The loaves and the fishes were God’s before they came into the possession of the boy. They are still God’s after He multiplies them. Even the leftovers belong to God (which is why they must be gathered up).
Who knows? You and I might be among God’s leftovers!
Are you okay with that? Or do you see yourself as deserving the first, or maybe the main course?
I’m okay with being a leftover. Because it means I belong to God. He’s picked me up and is carrying me home in His basket.
Your faith does not begin with you, and you are not its origin.
Rather, your faith is a gift of the Spirit. And there is no reason that the Spirit’s gift will not increase as your capacity for faith grows.
If you want your capacity to receive this gift of faith to grow, then you must learn obedience to God’s law.
The law can be summarized as “love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love thy neighbor as thyself,” but that summary can’t stand alone. It needs to be applied.
This is where the Ten Commandments (and every other word in the Bible) comes in. Not one jot or tittle of it can be dismissed or ignored. Jesus said so Himself.1
And if you think the New Testament discounts the Old Testament, the historic doctrine of the Protestant Episcopal Church says otherwise.
Article 7 of the Thirty-Nine Articles reads:
“The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ….”
It continues:
“Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men… yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral.”2
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said last week that a lack of faith, not crime or migrants, is the biggest problem his city faces.3
What the mayor is saying is that while we may have our differences, no one is exempt from the moral law. We’ve got to behave, and we’ve got to treat each other right.
When we forget the moral law, our cities fail.
So do our churches.
Article 19 says:
“As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred; so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.”
To that list I would add that any church errs, including our own, if it does not preach “the pure Word of God.”
The good news is that churches, like individuals, can repent. They can reverse course. They can change.
They can take the five loaves and the two fish that they still have and ask God to multiply them.
God will multiply our numbers if we return to His Word and sit before Him in obedience. Amen.
Preached on March 19, 2023 at St. Peter’s Lithgow, Millbrook, New York.
Lent 4
Gen. 43:26-34; Gal. 4:21-31; John 6:1-14
Bernadette Hogan and Emily Crane, “Mayor Eric Adams Says Lack of Faith Is Biggest Challenge for NYC - Not Crime or Migrants,” New York Post (New York Post, March 16, 2023), https://nypost.com/2023/03/16/eric-adams-says-lack-of-faith-is-biggest-challenge-for-nyc/.