The Question of Abundance: "How Much Bread do you Have?" | Jesus Is The Question

Welcome to Trinity Sermons. Here at Trinity Church, Streetsville, we want to share with

you messages that inspire and encourage you in your faith journey as we learn together

to love Jesus, to live like Jesus, and to lead other people to Jesus. This is our final

episode of our sermon series, Jesus is the Question, and today we have Rob with us, where

we will be exploring a very interesting question that Jesus asks, one about bread. Thanks for

listening today. God bless.

A reading from Mark chapter 6 verses 30 through 44. The apostles gathered around Jesus and

Mark 6:30–44

reported to him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and

going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, come with me by yourselves

to a quiet place and get some rest. So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary

place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and

got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on

them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many

things. By this time, it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. This is a remote

place, they said, and it's already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to

the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But he answered,

you give them something to eat. They said to him, that would take more than a half year's

wages. Are we going to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat? How much

bread do you have? He asked. Go and see. When they found out, they said five and two fish.

Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So

they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. Taking the five loaves and two fishes and looking

up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples

to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate

and were satisfied. And the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread

and fish. The number of men who had eaten was five thousand. This is the word of the

Lord.

Well, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to each and every one of you this morning as

well, especially on this long weekend. We're glad to have you with us on long weekends.

Sometimes people visit, other times people go away. So to one and all, we're so glad

to have you here. My name's Rob, and I have the good, the great privilege of being the

pastor here at Trinity Streetsville. And today what's going on is we are bringing to a conclusion

a seven week teaching series, which we have entitled Jesus is the question. And the thing

that we have been learning as we've gone through this series is essentially this, that when

you come to Jesus with a problem, Jesus is not going to give you an easy solution and

he's not going to give you a pat answer. In fact, it's far more likely that Jesus is going

to ask you a question in return. And in fact, if you read through the four gospels, the

four biographies of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, you will see that Jesus asked

people over three hundred questions in those four books. But in those same four books,

Jesus only really gave answers, direct answers, like four or five times. Now, I am not really

sure how you feel about that idea, because a lot of us, I think we come to church because

we want answers. And a lot of us come to Jesus because we want answers. And so when we're

told that Jesus is more of a question asker than he is an answer man, you might be confused

by that. You might be upset by that. You might be annoyed or you might find that even offensive.

In fact, I was looking this past week at some of the comments that people have been making

on our YouTube channel as we've gone through this teaching series. And if you look at those

comments, you can see the full range of emotion that people are feeling about this whole topic.

So for example, one user by the name of Mr. Ahuapai, when we got started on this teaching

series, his comment was that all this talk about Jesus and questions was, quote, such

a silly concept. And he's not alone. I think a lot of people here, a lot of people watching

online again might be saying, yes, it's so completely silly. You guys are just being

cute. You're just trying to find a cutesy way to talk about something different by doing

this thing with Jesus, who's always asking questions and never giving answers. So you

might agree with Mr. Ahuapai. Somebody else asked this. This user was called Harry Hutchinson4410.

He said, why would he, Jesus, have questions for me? Isn't he omniscient and know everything

that has and will happen? That is a really good question too. That is the question of

God's omniscience, of God knowing everything. In fact, another person said the same kind

of thing. This one's a little hard to read, but Ali Jade said, I thought God was omnipotent.

And I think he meant probably omniscient and has an unchanging word because he knows all,

question mark. And I get it. If Jesus is God and if God knows everything, then Jesus should

know everything. So then why is Jesus walking around asking all these questions? Now, other

people online commented that they felt like they had every right to ask Jesus some questions

and that they frankly deserved some answers from Jesus. Jesus, why do you condone slavery?

They're talking about some, in the Bible, the Old Testament, some stories around slavery.

Or Jesus, why are people sick? Or Jesus, why is the earth such a mess? Or Jesus, what about

cancer? Jesus, what about this? What about that? They really do feel like Jesus owes

them an answer for some of these things. Some of them even had like kind of strange, you

know, Jesus, why in the Old Testament was there a command against eating shellfish and

shrimp and stuff like that? Right? So a lot of questions. Some of the questions, because

it's the internet, some of the questions that we got asked were a little bit silly. This

question, this question might not have been silly. It might've been a serious question,

but we had a user by the name of Iron Raiden who asked, I heard Jesus really liked smoking

weed. Is this true? Now, thankfully, Elizabeth, who is our online engagement director, she

responded to all these questions very sensitively and very quickly. She even responded to this

one, very adeptly. Elizabeth said, hey, bud, hope you don't have high expectations because

to be blunt, we don't have a dope answer for you. That is why we pay her the big bucks,

people. By the way, if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel, you really should

do that because there's a lot going on there. These are really good questions. They're really

good comments. And I'm hoping that today as we wrap all this up, the last question that

you're going to like it will maybe kind of help bring all this together because we're

going to look at one more question Jesus asked. And the question is found in what I would

say is probably the most popular story in all the gospels. You see, there is one story,

the story of the feeding of the 5,000 that appears in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And it's the only miracle that appears in all four gospels with the exception, of course,

of the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, Matthew and Mark actually tell an additional second

story where Jesus fed a crowd of about 4,000 people. So you've got four plus two, so there's

about six tellings of this miraculous feeding story that take place throughout the four

gospels. And at the heart of these stories is a question. We're going to get to that

question in just a second. But first, let's get a little background and set the story

up. The story starts with Jesus and his disciples, and they're exhausted. They're tired and they're

worn out because it's the early days of Jesus's ministry and they are busy. People are coming

to Jesus to hear his teaching. More and more people are coming to Jesus to experience his

healing and the crowds are growing. The crowds are growing to the thousands and they're following

him everywhere he goes. And so Jesus says eventually, hey, because there's so many people

coming and going that they didn't even have a chance to eat. Jesus says to his disciples,

listen, come away. Let's get away for a little R and R. Let's go to a quiet place and get

some rest. And so they get into a boat and they sail off to find a quiet retreat. By

the way, I hope this summer you've had a chance to get away and get a little R and R yourself.

If you haven't been able to get away or if you haven't been able to get a break, well,

then you're in good company and Jesus knows how you feel because Jesus couldn't get away

either because what seemed to happen is that Jesus got on the boat and went across the

lake and somebody in the crowd then said, hey, I think I know where he's going. Follow

me everybody. And so they ran and they walked and they hobbled and they were on their crutches

or whatever and they walked around the shoreline to the place where Jesus was going. So that

when Jesus and his disciples pulled into their little retreat, there they were. The welcoming

committee was there. Hey, Jesus, remember us? And I got to tell you, like if I were

Jesus and thankfully I'm not, that's a scary thought. But if I were him, I would be like,

oh gosh, let's get back in the boat and let's try again. Let's go find another destination.

But because Jesus is way more compassionate than I am, he decided to say, no, guys, let's

park here for a while longer. And he began to teach them many things, even though the

disciples were really tired and really hungry and really, really needed a rest. When I think

of the disciples, I think of my own kids when they were younger, especially we would go

to church on Sunday and we'd have two or three services at some of the churches we were at.

And then there'd be coffee hour and they just wanted to go home. They just wanted it to

be over at some point. And Sally and I would usually stick around and we'd be chatting

with people and drinking coffee and refilling our coffee and, hey, catching up with you.

And we were usually like the last people to leave. And our kids would be like tugging

on us or like getting in our line of sight and saying, when are we going home? I want

to leave. And I think the disciples felt a little bit like this. We just need them to

leave. But the problem is Jesus and his disciples can't just leave because they're out there

in the wilderness now, right? On a remote location, there's nothing to eat. Now the

disciples say here, we've got an idea. Send the people away to some town, help them, let

them go and find a town somewhere so they can buy something to eat. And in response

to that idea, this is where Jesus asks the question. It's a bit of a confusing question.

It's a irksome question. It's a kind of bizarre in some ways. But in that moment, Jesus says,

well, how much bread do you have? How much bread do you have? Now, I don't know about

you, but this question throws me for a bit of a loop. You're out there in the wilderness

surrounded by thousands of people who are hungry. And you turn to your disciples and

say, well, how much, how much bread do you have? I spent a lot of time this week thinking

about this question. And I feel there's probably only three possible ways we can understand

what this question means. How much bread do you have? And I think you guys have all got

to kind of decide for yourself what this question means. In my way of thinking, it's either

a question for information, it's a question for participation, or it's a question for

transformation, right? So how much bread do you have? Is that an information question?

Is that a participation question? Or is that a transformation question? Let me explain

what I mean by each one of those. The first possible meaning of the question, how much

bread do you have? Could just be the face value. Just, you know, he's simply asking

the question, how much bread do we have? Because Jesus legitimately did not know how much bread

they had. It's just a question. Like this morning, for example, I got a text message

from someone and they said, Rob, could you go check and see how much cream and milk we

have in the fridge for coffee hour? Now I didn't say, what are you really getting at?

You know, what's the real question behind your question? They would have been like,

no, we just want to know is there cream and is there milk? And so I went and I checked

and I said, there's not very much. You better go buy some more. They just wanted information.

And maybe that's all that was going on here. Maybe Jesus just legitimately did not know

if they had enough bread. And I guess one thing this interpretation has going for is

it definitely emphasizes the human side of Jesus. Maybe there are legitimately some things

that Jesus just as a human being did not know. I mean, was part of Jesus giving up his divine

privilege? Did that also mean giving up his divine knowledge? You heard the users on YouTube,

they were like, isn't Jesus omniscient? Doesn't he know everything? Or was Jesus just like

you and me? And there were actually lots of things that he didn't know. How much, how

much bread do you have? Right? Maybe Jesus just asked this question for information and

when he got his answer, he said, oh, we don't have very much. We're going to have to do

something about that. Now that there's still something about that that doesn't sit well

with me. It seems a little silly. I know there's no such thing as a stupid question, but in

some ways that is kind of a stupid question because you're, you're surrounded by 5,000

hungry people. Some say it's 5,000 hungry families, right? And, and you know, as if

Jesus would, would think that there's a possibility that there's actually enough bread. I mean,

did one of you guys, uh, guys, I'm just going to ask you a question just out of curiosity.

Did anybody happen to bring like 750 loaves of bread with him? I did. I didn't know. Did

anyone have a couple of wagon loads of bread that I didn't see? No, no, you didn't. You

didn't. Okay. I just thought I'd check. I was just trying to get some information. I

just wasn't sure. But now that I know the answer, see, I didn't want to do a miracle

if we had the bread, but now that we don't have the bread, I'll look after it. Stand

back everybody. Ta-da, boom. And then the bread comes up. So yeah, there is something

that doesn't seem right about this answer that Jesus was just asking for information.

It doesn't make sense. At least it doesn't make a hundred percent sense to me, but thankfully

that's not the only possible way to understand the question. How much bread do you have?

It might not have been a question about information. It might've actually been more of a question

about participation, participation. Could it be that Jesus's great miracle of feeding

the 5,000 depended on the disciples participation? Could it be that before Jesus would do his

part multiplying the bread and the fish, they had to do their part, which was bringing whatever

they had. Is that why he asked, how much bread do you have? Now on the one hand, I don't

think I can't think that Jesus absolutely needed them to have some bread in order for

this miracle to happen. Because I think that if, if Jesus has said, how much bread do you

have? And they had said, we don't have anything. I don't think Jesus would have shrugged his

shoulders and said, there's nothing we can do then let's get out of here and walked away

disgruntled. No, I think Jesus still would have found a way to feed this multitude. But,

but even though Jesus doesn't need us to accomplish his mission, maybe he still invites us to

be part of that mission. God always has the victory. Yes. But he wants us to join him

in that victory. Could it be that Jesus just couldn't or wouldn't have done this miracle

without them? That he wouldn't have done the miracle if they hadn't brought the bread and

the fish and put it in his hands so he could bless it, break it and share it. It's kind

of like math. It's like multiplication. Zero times anything is always zero, but even a

very small number can be multiplied to exponential size if need be. If the disciples had hoarded

all they have, yes, sure. They may have had enough for themselves, but nobody else would

have had a thing. So I don't know. I'm a little bit torn by this explanation. I want to believe

that Jesus could have fed these people without their help. But, but I also believe that God

can't work with what we're not willing to give. So what about you? If I ask that question

to you now, how much bread do you have? Are you willing to trust God with your possessions?

Are you willing to participate in God's kingdom through generous giving? Do you believe that

God can take what you give, even if it's not very much, and he can multiply into more than

you can imagine in your life, in our world, even in our community here? Do you want to

participate in a miracle? Then how much bread do you have? Can you put it into God's hands?

Our job is to give it. His job is to multiply it. So that would be a second way of understanding

Jesus question. How much bread do you have? Not about information, but an invitation to

participation. Still, I want to throw out a third possibility of what that question was

all about. Not information, not even participation, but it was a question meant to affect radical

transformation in people's hearts and minds. Here's what I mean. Some interpreters of this

story suggest that perhaps all those people on the hillside that day with Jesus, they

actually had some food with them. But because they were only thinking of themselves or fearing

that they wouldn't have enough, they hid their food from others. But only when Jesus asked

the question, how much bread do you have? And only when the disciples brought their

meager amount of loaves and fishes, did the others start to do the same. And then when

people saw the generosity of Jesus and disciples, they opened up their own knapsacks and they

started sharing whatever they had brought. And all of a sudden it turned out that what

they shared was enough. It was more than enough. They even had leftovers after it. So now if

you believe this question, if you believe that this is what the question meant, then

Jesus isn't asking for information. How much bread? No, we've got two loaves, five fish,

five loaves, two fish. And he's not even asking for participation. Jesus, I'll do my part

if you do your part. It's actually a question of transformation. He wants to radically transform

people's hearts and minds. You see, like the disciples, even today, many people live and

operate out of what you might call a theology of scarcity. Just like the people in the story

who were on the hillside that day, they were sure they did not have enough. And we are

quite sure that we do not have enough either. Right. And we need to therefore protect whatever

we have. But Jesus wants to transform our thinking. What answer did Jesus really want

to hear when he asked how much bread do you have? What did he really want to hear? Did

he really want to hear? Oh, we've got five loaves and two fish. No, I think what he really

wanted to hear was this. We've got enough. We've got more than enough. By asking this

question, Jesus is transforming their thinking from a theology of scarcity to a theology

of abundance. And a theology of abundance is an approach to life that says, you know

what? God is generous. There is enough. There's enough for our needs. And there's enough for

the needs of others, too. Just about everybody in this room could go home and look at their

life in one of two ways. You could look at your home. You could look at your apartment.

You could look at your car. You could look at your paycheck. You could look at your dinner

table and you could either say there is not enough or you could say there's enough and

there's more than enough. But that requires a transformation in your heart and in your

mind. So the third way of understanding Jesus's question, how much bread do you have is, is

he's trying to transform us full disclosure. I actually gravitate toward this third interpretation.

And it's not because I'm a person of science and I don't have faith to believe in miracles.

I'm not skeptical of the supernatural. I believe Jesus could have multiplied fish and bread

and done a miracle that way. But is it any less of a miracle when people are feared or

when people are freed from the grip of fear and scarcity and transformed into generous

people that trust in God's abundance? I think that's a pretty big miracle too. If that happens,

you know what it means? It means that it's not that Jesus does a miracle. It's not just

that we participate in a miracle. It's that we become the miracle. And you know what?

Isn't that what the world needs? Not just for us to believe in miracles, not just for

us to pray for miracles, but the world needs us to be the miracle. The poor and hungry

need us to be the miracle. The lonely and lost, they need us to be the miracle. The

kids in Honduras need us to be the miracle. The people of our city need us to be the miracle.

With all the problems in our world and in our community, Trinity, let's not just watch

for a miracle. Let's not just wait for a miracle, but let's be the miracle. Let's be transformed

in our thinking, be transformed in our hearts and in our actions. So why did Jesus ask the

question, how much bread do you have? Was it for information? Was it for participation?

Was it for transformation? You can decide for yourself, but you still need to answer

the question as well. Because Jesus asks you and me, how much bread do you have? You could

say not enough Jesus, sorry. I don't have enough Jesus. I don't have enough time. I

don't have enough money. I don't have enough ability. I don't have enough faith. Or you

could answer, God, I don't have much, but what I do have, I give it to you. Or even

better, I hope we can get to the place where we can say, God, you know, I've got plenty.

I've got enough. I've got more than enough to share. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Thanks so much for joining us today and we hope that you enjoyed our sermon. If you enjoyed

the show today, please take some time to rate and review our podcast so that we can better

share our good news with others. Come back again next week where we will be beginning

a brand new sermon series. Thanks for listening. Today's sermon was taken from the September

3rd, 2023 service at Trinity Church, Streetsville in Mississauga, Ontario.