What
Do You Have?
Mark
8:1-9
In the upper room, as Jesus took the loaf of bread,
broke it, and gave thanks, it may gave triggered a memory for some of his
disciples. They may have remembered the time when Jesus asked them to do
something that was clearly impossible. It was one of the many times that Jesus
had acted as the host, breaking the bread and giving thanks. It was the time in Mark 8 when about 4,000
people had followed him into the desert region of Decapolis. Mark says, “he called his disciples and said
to them, ‘I feel compassion for the multitude because they have remained with
me now three days and have nothing to eat; and if I send them away hungry to
their home, they will faint on the way; and some have come from a distance.”
Then he laid the problem at their feet saying, “give them something to eat.”
Can you imagine the started look on their faces? You can hear how impossible they thought this
was in their question, “How can we feed all of these here in the
desert?” There’s nothing out here, they might have
continued. No supermarket, no McDonald’s, nothing. What can we do? Then he asked, “how many loaves do you have?” What is available to you? What do you have?
What is under your control?
When the disciples shared their seven loaves and a
few small fish Jesus turned that table in the desert into a life-giving
communion table. Mark says, he took the seven loaves and then, “He
gave thanks and broke them and started giving them to his disciples to serve
them.”
Later, long after the upper room, the disciples must
have continued to remember those occasions when Jesus went through the same
action and fed the multitudes. When they sat in the assembly at worship, as we
are now, and saw the bread upon the table, they must have seen not only the
living presence of Jesus, but heard his word once again, “Give them something to eat.” And they could see themselves once
again, with rough fishermen’s hands, breaking off the bread, piece after piece
after piece, without end, until all were fed. Somehow, miraculously, in their
rough hands, that bread was multiplied.
And so it is today. Every piece of bread upon this
table that conveys to us the energy of Christ can be multiplied in our lives today
and tomorrow. Someone in our
neighborhood, our city, in Syria, in the Ukraine, or in Kenya can be stronger
in body and spirit because we worshipped here today. The bread of life taken by
us today can be multiplied across the world by our faith and action. For that
reason, the communion, which symbolizes the body and blood of Christ, and the
offering, which symbolizes our faith in action, are united to feed not only us
but a spiritually and physically starving world.
