Leftovers
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In our world today, it is hard to
avoid food – it’s everywhere! Ads show up on TV and radio, billboards proudly
pronounce the latest fast food fad, and even here at church, there’s always
coffee and treats on a Sunday morning. Before the pandemic, the church hosted a
pastor from Malawi in Africa, and he said something that has stuck with me all
these years: he said, “You American Presbyterians, you don’t just practice
fellowship – you practice swallowship!” Food is such a part of how we interact
with others, too – when meeting someone new, we often “go for coffee.” Lunch
meetings aren’t uncommon either – especially as video meetings allow us to turn
off the camera and mic and still enjoy a treat.
All that being said, however, it is
not that way for everyone. There are parts even of Tulsa that are considered “food
deserts” – that is, areas where more than a third of the population cannot
easily access fresh groceries.(1) While Elana and I were living in Corona, New Mexico, the town grocery store
closed – leaving the nearest small store with anything fresh about 45 miles
away, and the nearest supermarket about 90 miles away. If we hadn’t had access
to transportation, we wouldn’t have been able to live in our home. In the first
years after moving to Tulsa, we found ourselves buying waaay too much at the grocery
store, just because we were so trained by experiences in New Mexico – we always
needed to have extra on hand, to prevent a 4 hour grocery run. Now, we trust in
the availability of food, but during the height of the pandemic, it was hard to
not revert to those old habits.
In the ancient world, there were no
such things as supermarkets, of course. In rural areas of Galilee and Judah,
people would grow some of their own food, fish and ranch, and trade with
others. In urban areas, food was brought in from the countryside and sold in
markets by individual vendors, a lot like farmers markets today. Jews, though, had
a cultural difference from most of the ancient world – they usually tried to
keep kosher, making sure that if they were in an area where they weren’t sure
they’d have access to kosher food and preparation methods, that they’d bring
their own. So, most Jews would carry a woven bag or basket whenever they’d
leave home, making sure that they had food. Bread, fish and maybe even cheese
might be carried this way, wrapped in beeswax-impregnated cloth to keep it
clean and dry.
Now, let’s turn to the story from
Matthew’s gospel, where Jesus gets the bad news that his cousin, John the
Baptist, has been executed by Herod. He, perhaps grieving, sets out in a boat
with his disciples to find a place to be alone for a while. But, at this point
in his ministry, he is well known as a healer and teacher, and so people from
all around the lake track him down, wandering in on foot to where Jesus is trying
to pray by himself. It’s a bit like a celebrity sighting, mixed with hope for
healing! Jesus has compassion for them, and proceeds to heal them for many
hours, as more and more people stream in. By the evening, the people are hungry
– and all the disciples have are two fish and five loaves of bread. They might
even have caught the two fish on the way across the lake!
Fish and bread are interesting fare
for another reason – it is evidence of the prevalence of Greek ways of
thinking. You see, traditional food in the Hellenized or Greek-speaking world
always consisted of three parts – sitos, opson, and oinos. Oinos
is wine – every complete meal included wine in the ancient world. Sitos
is bread, the main dish, the base of every complete meal. But bread on its own
is boring, and needs opson – relish. The most common opson was,
of course, fish. In the Greek culture, people would scorn those who ate too
much relish with their bread, or even would eat without bread at all. By
including both bread and fish, Matthew is pointing out that the parts of a
complete meal were there, even if nowhere enough for the 5000 men, plus women and
children – as many as 20,000 people gathered there!
Nevertheless, Jesus tells the people
to relax and recline – as though they’re at a fancy feast, a symposion
or as though this wilderness area is formal as the home on Passover. Jesus
blesses the meagre food before him, and the disciples distribute it among the
people. This distribution method – with elders and deacons taking the place of
disciples – is how the early church worked to distribute communion. Only later did
the practice begin of approaching the table.
Now, as for the specific blessing that Jesus used – it may have been a blessing like the one still used by Jews today.
Baruch atah Adonai, Eluheynu melech ha’olam, ha-motzi lechem min ha’aretz.(Blessed are you, Lord our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.) This blessing is based on Psalm 104 – but I love that it includes the line, “brings forth bread from the earth.” Bread doesn’t grow on trees – but ultimately, God is responsible for all food that we eat, from the growing to the preparation, to the consumption of it.
This story, and the subsequent miracle
of feeding of 4000, echo the Elisha story from II Kings – in both cases, bread
forms the basis of feeding a group of people, and when everyone has eaten, God
has miraculously brought forth such an abundance of food that there are
leftovers for all. In the feeding of the 5000 (+women and children), the
disciples gather twelve baskets of leftovers – basically, each disciple’s food
pouch or basket is more full than when they started! Jesus feeds everyone gathered
– not just the disciples, not just the men, but the women and children too –
and there are leftovers aplenty. Matthew directly mentions the women and
children, even though Mark left them out. In some ways, they may feel like “leftovers”
themselves in the Biblical account. Yet, not to Jesus – Jesus provides for
everyone, from the poorest person who wore their feet out walking around the
lake to the wealthiest townsfolk who wandered out to figure out what was happening.
The traditional place of this miracle
is today called Tabgha,(2) and a Byzantine church was built at a small rocky ledge that became known as Mensa
Christi – the Table of Christ. In front of that ledge was built a beautiful
mosaic representing this miracle of the feeding of the 5000 – the very mosaic
present on your bulletin cover! The mosaic was uncovered in the 1800s after
centuries of being buried – and today is a pilgrimage site for groups who like
to share a meal in memory of the meal that Jesus provided thousands of years
ago. Even without travelling to Tabgha, we know that every time we eat a meal
together as a church, we are celebrating the memory of Jesus’ miracles.
And communion, too, is a celebration
of that miracle! When we celebrate communion today, imagine yourself reclining
on a lakeshore with people you’ve never met, sharing food that was blessed by
Jesus. And that miracle continues, as we provide food through the community
garden, and through the blessing box, and through welcoming people into the “swallowship”
practiced here at Trinity. In so doing, we remind people and ourselves that we
are not “leftovers” but members of God’s beloved family, extended throughout
time and space. And there will be enough and more than enough to feed us all!
May God multiply your food – enough to
share with all you meet. May the Holy Spirit fill you with compassion and love,
that you share what you have with total strangers as well as family and
friends. May Christ walk with you, blessing you with abundant grace and hope,
even when you find yourself in places of despair. Amen!
(1) The technical definition is, in urban areas, those in each half-kilometer
square who are more than a mile from the nearest source of fresh food. For
rural areas, it’s the same half-kilometer square, but who are more than ten
miles from the nearest source of fresh food. This is set by the USDA Economic
Research Service. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/
(2) An Arabic pronunciation of Tapego, a shortened form of Heptapegon, the Greek
translation of Ein Sheva – Seven Rivers
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