Reading Luke Together #28 – The Loop of Grace

In Luke 9:9, Herod asks “Who is this I’ve heard so much about?” Luke supplies the answer with a story, Luke 9:10-17, the feeding of the 5,000, the only miracle recorded in all 4 Gospels. Late in the day, the lingering crowd is growing hungry. The disciples want to scatter those whom Jesus has gathered! “But Jesus said…” (Luke 9:13). The glory of that word “but”! To our limited vision, our seeing only what can’t happen, Jesus injects his counter-punch. To the grouchy realists, those disciples, Jesus pointedly responds, “You give them something to eat” (verse 13). The glory of that sentence, too. We see vast need. We pray – and our best prayers dare to ask, “Lord, show us how we might be the answer to our own prayers.” You give them something. It’s on us – thankfully.

Kids love that a kid is the hero with his lunchbox of 5 loaves and 2 fish, which Jesus manages to bless sufficiently to feed 5,000 – and with leftovers! This story invites us to live into what Bishop Robert Barron calls “the loop of grace.” “What you have received as a gift, give as a gift – and you will find the original gift multiplied and enhanced.” This crowd is “symbolic of the hungry human race, starving from the time of Adan and Eve for what will satisfy.” We try to fill up the hollow gap inside with busyness, fun, stuff, diversions, self-medicating… all of which only enlarges the hole inside. “Only when we conform ourselves to the way of love, only when in a high paradox, we empty out the ego, that we are filled.”

What intrigues me isn’t How’d he do it? or Did he really do it? but Why on earth were there so many leftovers? You’d think a better, more amazing miracle would have been if he’d produced just enough, just the right amount. Could they get the leftovers to the poor before they got stale? Why the waste? We hate waste – although we Americans waste plenty!

Theologian Sam Wells has written much about how there is a “superabundance” in our life with God. God’s not stingy. God is extravagant; generosity is the very heart of God. Mind you, not by our measures – so it’s not that God gives you more cash or comfort than you’d even wanted. God’s love, wisdom, direction, and eternal hope overflow the banks of our abilities or wildest dreams.

We get glimpses here and there. Nature’s abundance and complexity and beauty reveal God’s lavish creativity, gifting us with exponentially more than we could ever enjoy. Medieval Cathedrals feature fabulous carvings and painting in the attics, or too high for people to see – just some extras, above what was required, for God. There’s this: Jesus forgave, not the searchers or the penitent, but even the soldiers who just crucified him. Dorothy Day’s ministry to the poor was once given a woman’s diamond ring; she simply then gave it to the next person who came asking for help. When quizzed and criticized, she asked if precious things are only for the wealthy. Maybe, if God is super-abundant, there is good hope for people of other faiths. Maybe, if we see God’s super-abundance, we grow exponentially in our generosity toward God’s work in the world.

John’s version of the story is longer – and amazing. If you read it big picture, not just verse by verse, there’s a plot (and I owe this to the great preacher, Fred Craddock). Jesus begins with hungry people, and gives them bread. Then he begins to talk to them about “bread,” not just what they’d eaten that day, but as in “You shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from God.” Okay, they’re sticking with him – maybe.

Then his mood turns dark, as he begins to speak of bread broken, as in “I am the bread of life, and this is my body, broken for you.” He’s talking death and crucifixion – and the crushing of their fantasies – now. So they begin to head for the exits. After most have drifted away, Jesus looks around at the handful who are left, who’ve stuck with him as far as he wants to take them, and he asks “Will you also go away?” Peter, rather pitifully, but hopefully and faithful, replies with his own question, “Lord, where else would we go?”