John 6:1-21

Bread and water; storms and scarcity.  These are the simple and familiar themes that mark our gospel lesson today.  As is so often the case, John offers Jesus to us in a way that strays from the synoptic sensibilities. What emerges is Jesus acting in a way that might chafe us a bit.  Often when facing storms and scarcity we have very particular ways we expect Jesus to act.  We want Jesus to play his part in our lives according to our desires, preferences and schedules.  We want on our terms.  We want to serve as empowered participants and not just onlookers.  When Jesus acts powerfully in a way that is different than we expect, it can be disconcerting. 

The first four verses of chapter six are dedicated to a description of the setting.  The exact location is unclear.  Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, and with large crowds following him because of the signs they saw him do, Jesus positions himself upon a mountain with his disciples.  A people, following a leader who is known for performing signs, through the waters and up a mountain should sound familiar to us as the pattern of the Exodus.  Whereas in the synoptics the five thousand are fed in the wilderness which also calls to mind Moses and the Exodus, John employs different exodus imagery.  As if to firm up the Exodus motif, John provides us with a time stamp in verse four, “Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.”[i]

So rather than preparing for their pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and offer their sacrifices, this large crowd had followed Jesus through the waters, to the foot of a mountain because they had seen signs of healing and abundance.  It is here that the problem of scarcity emerges. 

When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’  He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’[ii]

Perhaps recalling the complaints of God’s people in Exodus chapter sixteen, and not wanting to “kill this whole assembly with hunger”, Jesus puts the problem of scarcity in Phillip’s lap, asking him where they can buy bread to feed the people.[iii]  John is kind enough to tell us that Jesus has asked this question of Phillip to test him.  So why Phillip?  Also, Jesus of all people is not supposed to tempt us, what is up with that?

The New Beacon Bible Commentary helps us with the why Phillip question by noting…

Like most questions in John, this operates on two levels.  On one level, this is a logical question posed to a plausible authority: Phillip was from nearby Bethsaida and should be expected to know the area.  But it was also clearly a leading question: There was nowhere they could go to secure the amount of food required for such a feast.[iv]

Regarding the test, some point out that the same word translated here as ‘test’ is translated elsewhere in the scriptures as ‘tempt’. James 1:13, using the same term, and translating it ‘tempt’, is emphatic that God does not tempt anyone.  So does God’s tempt his people?  St. Augustine offers us some wonderful insight in his comments on this text from John,

One kind of temptation leads to sin, with which God never tempts anyone; (James 1:13) and there is another kind by which faith is tried. (Deut. 13:3) In this sense it is said that Christ proved the disciple.  …when it is said that our Lord proved Philip, we must understand that He knew him perfectly, but that He tried him, in order to confirm his faith.  The Evangelist himself guards again the mistake which this imperfect mode of speaking might occasion, by adding, For He Himself knew what He would do.”[v]

Phillip responds to Jesus’ test by pointing out that the problem is not just a scarcity of bread in the place but a scarcity of finances to buy enough to satisfy everyone. ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’  Andrew jumps in at this point with a ridiculous notion, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.”  Rather than thinking big, Andrew thinks small.  What if what is truly needed is not a lot but just a little?  This notion is quickly dismissed. “But what are they among so many people?”[vi]   

The barley loaf and the fish were the poor person’s meal of the day.  Cheap and available, this combo represents the staple meal.  In fact, it was so common that a boy would be carrying it around.  James Clark, Vice President of the St. Louis Urban league talks about how the hot dog is the new version of the barley loaf and fish.  He explains, “In the days of Christ, the fish was the most inexpensive form of food.  You can just take a net, go to the river, go to a stream, throw your net and you can catch a fish.  The hot dog today is the most inexpensive form of food.”[vii]

Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 

After making the crowd lie down in green pastures, the Good Shepherd took the little bit that had been offered, gave thanks (εὐχαριστέω) and distributed the bread and fish to the crowd until they were satisfied.  In the synoptics the crowds are fed by empowered disciples serving in the role of deacons (table waiters).  In John’s gospel, the disciples are tested, but not included in the distribution.  Phillip framed the problem and provided good data.  Andrew pointed to the boy and the improbable small solution.  Hadn’t this earned them a place in the miracle?  Didn’t their participation as followers earn them a place at the table of Jesus glorious provision and abundance?

“I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.”[viii]

The Wesleyan Covenant Prayer is challenging to pray and harder to live.  In the synoptics, the disciples are empowered participants in the abundance of Jesus.  In John the disciples clean up after Jesus, the bread of life, feeds the crowds with his own hands.  The disciples are laid aside so that the light of Jesus Christ might shine more brightly. God wastes nothing.  So, when the crowd had eaten their fill, Jesus commanded that anything leftover be gathered up.  From the small common meal entrusted to the hands of Jesus, five thousand ate their fill with twelve baskets left over.

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’ When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

We don’t know whether their meal sparked the crowd’s imagination to see Jesus as a new Moses providing manna.  As the crowd saw the baskets of leftovers, perhaps they called to mind the prophet Elisha from II Kings 4 when he fed the people twenty barley loaves.  The work that Jesus had done in feeding the five thousand was deemed by the crowd to be something consistent with the work of a Prophet.  A prophet meant a clear message from God.  The crowd wanted more than a clear message, they wanted someone with the power to enforce whatever message God sent.  Jesus was aware that the crowd was about to take him by force and make him king.  The platform of a prophet with the earthly power of a king, all wrapped up in Jesus who had fed them.  What a tempting offer; control of the message and the power to enforce it.  When the crowd attempts to force Jesus to be their man with the message and their favored power broker in the political, Jesus withdraws to the mountain alone.  Free Methodist Bishop Kaye Kolde makes this observation in a recent article she wrote about John chapter six…

“Even in this response, the people are fixed on their temporal needs, but He wants to teach them their need for something greater than those.  …they are still looking for the miracle and missing the gift of the Miracle-Maker.”[ix]     

As evening rolls around and a new day begins, with Jesus still alone on the mountain, his disciples set off across the lake to Capernaum.  In the darkness, verse eighteen tells us that, “the lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing.”  Having rowed hard for miles they see Jesus walking on the rough waters near their boat.  To their anxiety and exhaustion was added terror at the sight of Jesus walking to them.               

The same name that God gave to Moses at the burning bush, Jesus now claims for his own.  “I am”, or “It is I”, followed by a command to not be afraid.  What a relief!  Jesus has arrived!  He has the power to walk on the water through wind and rough seas!  Now he can still the storm, calm the seas and rescue them!  That’s his job right?  “Then they wanted to take him into the boat.” But Jesus does not enter the boat with them.  Whether by some miracle or because in the confusion of the storm they did not realize where they were, the disciples reached the shore of the place they were going.

This bread and water passage challenges so many of our sensibilities.

“Big problems need big solutions!  Those solutions take a lot of money!”  So Phillip, how do we solve the problem of there being a scarcity of bread.  People are hungry.  We don’t have enough money to buy bread to feed them all.  The five loaves and two fish in the possession of this child is obviously not enough.  In response to this huge impossible problem, Jesus does not call his disciples to roll up their sleaves and get to work.  He calls them to have the people sit down and settle in.  Jesus honors the small, ‘But what are they among so many people?’ solution.  How much time do we waste fretting over the next big thing, when what Jesus is looking for is the next small and innocent gift entrusted to his hands.  It is the small solution for which Jesus gives thanks and then makes miraculous.

“Because I have followed faithfully, I have earned the right to be empowered and included in the next big thing Jesus does.”  Perhaps the next thing we need to do is get out of the way and let Jesus do what only he can.  What if ours is not the cutting-edge ministry task, but the ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost’ task. Are we as willing to be empowered to accomplish the small work of waste management as we are the big, bleeding edge work of feeding the five thousand?

“Jesus is always with us, always working for us and never leaves us alone.”  What if, contrary to the lyrics of the popular song “Waymaker” God is not the workaholic, micromanager of our lives?  So many of us have sung, “Even when I don't see it, You're working, Even when I don't feel it, You're working, You never stop, You never stop working, You never stop, You never stop working.”[x]  Jesus stopped working and went to the mountaintop.  Jesus was following the example of his Father in heaven who after six days of creating, stopped to value time more than space and matter.  In the same way that the creation held together and kept living and moving when God rested, so the disciples started across the lake for Capernaum with Jesus resting on the mountain. To superimpose our sinful restlessness upon the God who created sabbath and commanded it, is wrong.  To understand Jesus as our powerful employee, always on our side and in our boat with us, is to fundamentally misjudge our own agency and importance.  To believe that the main work of the Holy Spirit is to fuel our initiatives, and to ceaselessly empower and gift us, is to ignore the full work of the Spirit in leading us to stop, breath with him and find peace.

Our fear makes us want Jesus in our boat.  We want Jesus on our side using his power to make us comfortable, lending his glory to our causes and ends.  John shows us a Jesus who draws near and calls the disciples not to be afraid.  He never enters the boat.  He never stills the storm.  He never makes things easier so they can stop rowing.  He affirms who he is and calls on them not to fear, and somehow, they make it to shore. Perhaps rather than calling upon Jesus to restlessly comfort and affirm us, our work and our churches, we would do better to yield to who we know him to be, the Son of God, and obey his command to be fearless.  

[i] biblegateway.com, NRSVA

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Exo. 16:3, NRSVA

[iv] Laura Sweat Holmes & George Lyons. “New Beacon Bible Commentary: John 1-12 A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City. 2020, pg. 164.

[v] https://www.ecatholic2000.com/catena/untitled-94.shtml, comments on verses 1-14.

[vi] John 6:9, NRSVA.

[vii] https://youtu.be/8NbfuP1vCMI?si=IwEawh1yEK2DaRte – Check out the “Grills to Glory” campaign.  It is wonderful way for the church to feed the hungry around them.

[viii] https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Covenant_Prayer_Wesleyan_Tradition.pdf – Wesley’s Covenant Prayer.

[ix] Bishop Kaye Kolde, “Soul Satisfaction”. Light & Life Magazine, June 19, 2024 - https://lightandlife.fm/soul-satisfaction/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR2Vgjnh3CM_OirV0TSMr43UVWjJmuVS8-WkdUOENavTvVOiNcrs9V_UNg8_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw

[x] Osinachi Kalu Okoro Egbu, “Way Maker”, CCLI Song # 7115744