Do Think You Have Enough?
Good Morning Friends,
Jesus has an amazing gift for taking the traditions of the past and extrapolating their core ideas and the memories of the good times associated with them to create something new. Hopefully we get a sense of it in today’s lectionary scripture. We see in them that success is not measured by what we possess, but by who possesses us. And friends, if Jesus Christ possesses us, we are successful beyond measure. When we learn to love the experiences of life God has allowed us to be in we become fruitful. Jesus teaches us the wisdom of being content with what we have but also to thrive and flourish in the abundance of the life victorious. Do Think You Have Enough?
Scripture: The rabble among them had a strong craving; and the Israelites also wept again, and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its color was like the color of gum resin. The people went around and gathered it, ground it in mills or beat it in mortars, then boiled it in pots and made cakes of it; and the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil. When the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna would fall with it. Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, all at the entrances of their tents. Then the Lord became very angry, and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child,’ to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favor in your sight—and do not let me see my misery.”
Numbers 11:4b-15 (NRSV)
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Matthew 14:13-21 (NRSV)
Message: John the Baptist has just gotten his head cut off and the people of Jesus’ home town have rejected him. Jesus has been telling his disciples and others parables about the Kingdom of God and now he is going to show them what it is like. And the response is not vengeance or anger but compassion. This is the setting for the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 and its images are so closely linked to the story of Moses that it should jump out of the pages of today’s text from Numbers about the Israelites giving in to wanting more. You see, we live in a world that tells us there is always something more, something better, something we must have to be happy. The twelve tribes of Israel whined about the food they had to eat but Jesus demonstrates the super abundance of God’s provision by feeding 5000 men plus thousands more women and children by taking five loaves and two fish and multiplying them in such a way that once all had had their fill, twelve baskets full of broken pieces of food were left over. That is the miracle of mobilizing the Kingdom.
Pray we realize that the joy of life is more in the journey than the destination. Pray we not even want the right things if it is the wrong time or if we are motivated by the wrong reasons. Pray we realize that God does not want us to look somewhere else to have our needs met. Pray we are never unappreciative of God’s provision. Pray we not reject God’s sufficiency. Pray we realize that godliness with contentment is great gain. Pray we realize that God can create something out of nothing. Pray we appreciate the abundance of God’s compassion.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 