More Than Enough – Luke 9:10-17 – Lindsay Sytsma

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Corey this morning.

It is lovely to have you here this morning.

I'm gonna try to. The space is gonna be used for

both. Here we go.

Welcome again. That's lovely to have you here.

If you don't know who I am, my name is Lindsey Sisma.

I am a member here at court, right.

I get the privilege of teaching on occasion.

I am married to someone on the pastoral staff guy just leading

worship and it is as always a pleasure to be here with you

this morning and just to dig into the word of God together.

So we have been walking through the book of Luke.

If you've been around for many months, this is what it's been

happening. We've been looking through Luke

section by section, really digging into the gospel of Luke

and this word gospel, it means good news.

The Greek word is you on galleon and before it was really kind of

a Christian word or associated with Jesus.

Yuan Galian just meant a royal proclamation or an imperial

announcement, and Luke and really all of the gospel writers

are really kind of leaning into that definition.

They are proclaiming a good news announcement that the Kingdom of

God is here and that it is breaking through in the person

of Jesus and Luke by sharing the life and the teaching and the

ministry of Jesus. What he's trying to do is paint

a picture of what the Kingdom of God looks like with Jesus as

king, but also how those who follow after Jesus, those who

see themselves as citizens of the kingdoms, disciples of

Jesus, how they should live in light of the Kingdom.

And I'm excited to dig in this morning because Today's Passages

is actually one of the most famous stories that is shared

throughout the gospels. It is one of Jesus's most

familiar miracles. And yet I think this passage

gives us a really cool glimpse. I think in my opinion, it shows

a really full and yet really challenging picture of what the

Kingdom of God looks like. And if you sit consider yourself

a follower of Jesus here, what it means to live in light of

this Kingdom. So we are gonna dig right into

our text. We are in Luke 9.

If you have a Bible with you, you can turn to Luke 9.

You can of course, welcome to use smartphone.

There are Bibles at the back. If you like the physical Bible,

you're always welcome to grab one.

But here we are in Luke 9 versus 10 to 17 when the apostles

returned. I'll stop right there.

I know 3 words in. Don't worry, I won't be doing

this the whole passage. But when the disciples, the

apostles returned, what has happened is if you weren't last

week, Jesus commissioned and gave authority to the disciples

to go out and to preach the Kingdom of God, to heal those

that they came in contact with and that and to do ministry in

Jesus's name. So they have done that and now

they are returning. That's where we are right now.

So when the disciples returned, they reported it to Jesus what

they had done. Then he took them with him and

they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida.

But the crowds learned about it and followed him.

He welcomed them and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God

and he healed those who needed healing.

Late in the afternoon the 12 came to him and said send the

crowd away so they can get go to the surrounding villages and

countryside and find food and lodging because we are in a

remote place here. He replied will you give them

something to eat? They answered we have only 5

loaves of bread and two fish unless we go and buy food for

all of this crowd. About 5000 men were there, but

he said to the disciples have them sit down in groups of about

50 each. The disciples did so and

everyone sat down, taking the five loaves and two fish and

looking up to the heaven. He gave thanks and broke them.

Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the

people. They all ate and were satisfied,

and the disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces that

were left over. This is the word of the Lord.

So like I said, this is one of Jesus's, let's call it iconic

miracles that are ever performed.

It's one of the few stories that appears in all four of the

gospels, and the details between those gospels line up pretty

close, remarkably closely actually.

It is the miraculous feeding of a massive crowd.

And at its core, this is a story of supernatural abundance, mass

multiplication of food. But it also shows Jesus concerns

for meeting people's basic human needs, for caring for people.

And I also think it's an invitation for the disciples to

trust in what Jesus is doing. And I love to imagine myself

inside the story of scripture. I love reading the Bible and

picturing how I would react, what this would look like if I

was there. And part of me just kind of

wants to sit in the picture of the mechanics of what happened.

Like is this Mary Poppins bottomless carpet bag where food

just keeps coming out of it? Is it dropped from heaven in one

massive load? I mean you really have to ask

yourself, my science brain goes, how does this work with the law

of the conservation of mass? Anyone there with me?

I love thinking about that. But here is the truth we have to

confront today. The how is never explained and

the gospel writers don't ever seem interested in explaining

it, which tells me that the how is not really the main point.

So before we go any further, I want to kind of establish 2

truths that are going to kind of ground what we do today.

First is that with God and with Jesus, the world does not have

to work the way it normally does.

I mean this in the very physical that he can break through the

law of conservation of mass. And I mean this metaphorically

as well. They show us a different way to

live and to be one that is different from this world.

The second thing is that I believe this, this miracle is a

living picture of what the Kingdom of God looks like in

action. The Kingdom operates by a

completely different set of rules and values and priorities.

So we are not going to focus on the how this morning.

We are going to focus on The Who and the what and maybe a little

bit of the So what. And while there are many ways

that we could explore the text this morning, today I want to

look at 5 words that are shared in this passage. 5 words that

when we put them together, I believe they paint a vivid

picture of Jesus, of who he is and what his Kingdom looks like.

These 5 words are going to be our window to see what the

Kingdom of God looks like as it breaks through the person of

Jesus Christ. So the first word that I want to

look at is the word welcome. In verse 17 it says he welcomed

them and he spoke to them about the Kingdom of God and he healed

those who needed healing. The word here does not mean

polite, a polite nod or a reluctant social courtesy.

It means to gladly receive someone or in this case lots of

someones. It's to embrace their presence,

to be present with them and to give them access freely and

joyfully. Remember the context.

Jesus and the disciples have just been out doing ministry.

They've just returned. They might be tired.

They have gone kind of out of their way to be in a remote

place, to meet together, potentially to rest.

But the crowd finds them. They wanted more of Jesus.

And the crowd in some way interrupts this moment they are

trying to share together. It reminds me of when Annabelle

spoke about the woman with the chronic bleeding a few weeks

ago. How this healing, this divine

moment, this change in her life started with an interruption.

She reached out and she touched Jesus as he was on his way to

perform another miracle. And this interruption became a

turning point in her life. It became this sacred moment of

miracle. And Jesus welcomed that

interruption for her. And I think we see something

similar with this crowd. They interrupt, but instead of

being annoyed, instead of sending them away, which he

could have done, Jesus welcomes them.

He embraces them. He just sees their desire for

him and he meets it. He teaches them and he heals

them. This welcome culminates in one

of that cultures most hospitable acts, the sharing of a meal

together. The disciples want to send the

people away for food. And to be clear, I don't think

the disciples are being mean in this.

I think they genuinely are concerned that this crowd is

hungry and that they are in a remote place.

And yet, even in this remote place, Jesus makes sure that

they are fed, that they have their needs met, that they eat

together. This is the beauty of Jesus

welcome. And I think this is the first

snapshot of the Kingdom in this story.

It is a Kingdom of welcome. It's gates, swords, doors.

However you envision it, they are open.

It is a place of hospitality, not hostility, not judgment, not

dismissiveness. It is a Kingdom of open arms,

not a proverbial closed door. Think about the ministry of

Jesus. He welcomes children to him when

the disciples want to shoe them away.

He welcomes and eats with sinners and tax tax collectors

that the religious leaders would reject.

He sees any ministers to the marginal, marginalized and the

disenfranchised. He welcomes the sick, the weary,

the spiritually lost, and those that are said to be unclean.

And he does not tolerate these people.

He opens himself up to them gladly.

The Kingdom is for them. The Kingdom is a place of

welcome. The second word I want to look

at is the word give. It shows up twice in this

passage in different forms. If you happen to be sitting

there reading the Greek, as I know so many of you are this

morning, it shows up in two different ways, but I promise

it's the same root word behind those two words.

It shows up first in verse 13 where Jesus turns to his

disciples and say, well, you give them something to eat.

Then later in verse 16, after he blesses the food, after he

breaks the food, Luke writes that he, Jesus, gives the food

back to the disciples to distribute to the people. 2

forms of the same word. 1 is a command, an instruction.

The other is an action. Now just imagine this moment.

The disciples have already pointed out what they see as an

issue. Thousands of thousands of people

who have been sitting here for a while.

They are likely hungry. They are also in a remote place.

There's not really any nearby towns, at least not ones that

can meet their needs. There's no pop up fruit stands,

no food trucks, no plan. I sympathize with the disciples.

I love a good plan. The disciples see their own

supplies as meager. All they can see is the

impossibility of this situation. And Jesus looks straight at them

and says, well, you give them something to eat.

I can almost feel the calculation happening in their

head. Like for me, I'm I get like

anxious for them. I'm actually anxious for them in

this moment because they are doing the math in their head.

And five loaves and two fishes equals not enough.

But it's so interesting, isn't it?

Because these are the same disciples that just returned

from healing the sick and performing miracles and

proclaiming the Kingdom of God. They have been living in the

miraculous. They have been given the

authority and the commissioning of Jesus.

And yet when they're confronted with this crowd, they cannot see

past their own scarcity. They feel the weight of the

impossibility. Again, I do not say this as a

judgment. I completely sympathize with

them, but I also love what we see them do, even in the

uncertainty. They obey.

They hand over what little they have.

They organize the people into groups like they've been asked

to do. They take that step into

participation even without understanding how this is going

to possibly work. And then Jesus takes what is

given to him by the disciples. Jesus blesses it.

He breaks it. And here's the beautiful part,

He gives it back to the disciples.

They are the ones who are going to distribute the food.

And what's really interesting is in verse 16, this second give,

it actually is the word gave. He gave it back to the Sipples.

It's written in what's called the imperfect tense.

What that means is that this doesn't actually mean it's a one

time handoff. It's continuous.

The image here is of Jesus giving and giving and giving and

giving. There is this continuous

outpouring coming from him when the disciples.

What the disciples gave to Jesus is given back to them in an ever

increasing continuous measure. The little that they have

surrendered to Jesus is more than enough when it is in His

hands. That is the picture of the

Kingdom on one side. The disciples are invited into

participation to give what they have, even when it feels

insignificant to give what they have, even with the belief that

it is not going to be good enough.

They are invited in this moment to share what they have so that

it can be shared with others through the act of giving.

And on the other hand, you have Jesus.

He is this continuous source. He is multiplying, sustaining.

He is expanding what has been placed into His hands and He is

giving it back to the disciples to use to bless others.

We live in a world where giving is often seen as a loss.

We're it's approach that all of you give, you're losing

something. But in God's economy, the giving

is that you are joining in with His overflow of abundance.

You get to become an active part of what God is doing in this

world. Jesus doesn't command his

disciples to give so that they are deprived.

The goal is not to deprive them. The goal is to draw them into

the work that He is doing. Psalm 24 says that the earth is

yours and everything in it. We so often think that what's in

the disciples hands in this story was first theirs, but

really it was first Gods and then it was in the disciples

hands to steward. They give it to Jesus.

Jesus multiplies it, expands it, and then puts it back into the

hands of the disciples so that they can go and share and give

and bless those that are there with them.

The next word I want to look at is the word everyone.

In verse 15, it says Jesus gets the disciples to organize the

crowd to sit down in smaller groups and it says that everyone

sat down. In verse 17, Luke tells us that

they all ate. Again, all is the sense of

everyone. It's not some, it's not most,

it's everyone. There is a togetherness in this

passage that I don't want us to miss.

If you opened your Bibles or maybe even depending on what

what app you're using to read the Bible, the story is

traditionally called the Feeding of the Five 1000.

That's title in my Bible. I use Bible Gateway to copy and

paste this some verses into my sermon.

It is also called the Feeding of the 5000 at Bible Gateway NIV

version. You can look it up after if

you're concerned about that. Some more modern translations

have have changed this to the feeding of the multitudes, but

we usually stick with the feeding of the 5000.

There's a problem with that. 5000 only includes the men that

were there. It even says that in the

passage. OK, that's, that's not where

we're going. Calm down.

That was my husband, by the way. I know that this number only

counted men. The women and children are not

included in that tally. And most scholars agree that

women and children would have been present, likely in larger

measure. That means that there is

probably there could have been 10,015 thousand, 20,000 people

as part of this miracle, this miracle of abundance, what Jesus

does here, it's actually so much greater than we sometimes think

because of how many everyone actually includes, because it's

not just 5000. And I'm not saying this to be

critical of Luke, and I'm not saying this to make an angry

statement about the ancient world.

That is how the culture recorded numbers.

That was the cultures general perception of women and children

that they could be overlooked, literally not counted or seen as

insignificant. But Luke also shares a powerful

observation because when the bread and the fish are passed

out, it says that everyone eats, all are fed, all are satisfied,

even those that society didn't count.

Jesus welcomed them. He saw them, he saw all of them,

he preached to all of them. He healed all of them or those

that he healed in that crowd and he met all of their needs in

that moment. That is the beauty of this

moment is that the Kingdom of God is not just for the

powerful, for the the visible, or for those who qualify, the

ones that history might remember.

In fact, the Kingdom has a bent towards the overlooked, the

discounted, the uncounted. Jesus shatters throughout his

ministry. He shatters insider outsider

lines. Everyone was at the same table

with him or in this place in the same remote place.

He loved everyone, especially those that the world tends to

ignore. In fact, if you notice something

really interesting about this passage, this is a slight aside,

I will admit, but Jesus has them sit in smaller groups of about

50 people. Now there is an entire

numerological component to this passage which we are not going

to get into, but you can research that.

It's interesting. But 50 is an interesting number

that Jesus chose one because 50 has ties to the concept of

Jubilee. We've talked about that earlier

in this series. It is God's, it's the kind of

the Super Sabbath, it's the 50th year.

It is a Super Sabbath, a year long Sabbath where God's promise

of freedom and provision for all of His people in the wilderness.

When Moses in the wilderness with the Israelites, he also

divided them into smaller groups and one of those sizes was of

about 50. And that was to ensure that

people's needs were met and that people were well cared for.

I don't think that number is random.

It is within the context of community, these smaller

communities, that the illusion of scarcity that we talked about

earlier is completely broken and where the reality of abundance

unfolds when we sit together, when we share together what God

provides in this image of togetherness, it is an image of

everyone, of everyone being welcome in the Kingdom.

Next word I want to look at is the word satisfied.

And verse 17, it says they all ate and were satisfied.

The Greek word here means just what the English suggests.

It means their physical hunger was filled, their need was met.

But it goes deeper than that as well, because to be satisfied

means to be filled to the point of contentment, to having a need

meant so that there is no sense of lack.

This is a miracle of abundance. Keep reading, we're going to see

it. Soon there was too much food.

There were 12 baskets of leftovers, and yet Luke doesn't

say, well, they all gorged themselves.

They all hoarded the extra. Most took some now, but they

also snuck some in their backpacks for later.

The word here is satisfied. It's not indulgence and it's not

excess, even though there is abundance.

In fact, the point of God's abundance is that there be

enough, even the appearance of more than enough, but that

enough is not actually really used with the crowd that is

there the enough. The abundance means that

everyone there was full and complete in that moment.

It is a picture of provision that says that God meets the

needs of today without there being any anxiety for tomorrow.

It is very much aligned with the passage of when Jesus is

teaching his disciples how to pray and he says give us this

day. Our daily breads give us enough

for today. But there's also another layer

here because Luke, as we have noted, it says that they are in

a remote place. But the Greek word here is

actually better translated to the word wilderness.

Any Jewish listener, and many Gentile listeners who are

familiar with the story are immediately going to think back

to Moses in the wilderness and God providing manna and quail

for his people. God provided manna from heaven,

but the people were told to gather only enough for what they

needed in a day. If they tried to hoard it, take

more than they needed, save it, it would spoil.

It was a lesson in trust that God would provide enough to fill

their needs. The wilderness in the Bible is

generally understood to be a place of testing, a place where

scarcity feels very real, but where God invites his people to

discover. Underneath the lack they see is

the reality of God's provision and abundance.

And that's exactly what happens here.

The disciples look at their five loaves and their two fish and

they say that it's not enough, but they hand it to Jesus and he

turns it into abundance. And not just an abundance in

general, but an abundance that could be shared with everyone so

that everyone had enough and was satisfied to the point of

contentment. And something that I love about

how Luke writes this is that he writes it in the passive voice.

He says they were satisfied. The action happened to them.

In this sentence, the action didn't happen from anything that

they brought or anything that they did.

They are satisfied because of what Jesus provided, because of

what Jesus did. And here is where the Kingdom of

God comes into focus. And this Kingdom abundance is

real, but its purpose isn't indulgence or hoarding or

stockpiling. Abundance is given so that needs

are met. Abundance is given so that we

can understand and learn the value of contentedness, of

satisfaction. And it sounds easy, but that is

a very hard lesson to learn in this world that always says you

need to be saving, striving, and gathering more for your

security. The lesson here is learning to

trust that God will provide. That is what the Kingdom looks

like. It is a place where the

abundance of God meets our hunger and our longing and our

fear of not enough. And if we let it, it will fill

us completely. It will teach us to live in the

freedom of being satisfied. It will teach us the

contentedness of enough that the excess is not necessarily For

me, the last word I want to look at is the word broken.

And that word shows up again twice in this story.

It says he gave thanks. Jesus gave thanks and he broke

the loaves and the fishes. And then at the end in verse 17,

when the disciples gathered up what was left over, it says that

the broken pieces were left over.

So he gathered the they gathered the broken pieces.

Usually we think of broken as a negative word.

Broken means something needs to be thrown out or useless or it

needs to be discarded in some way.

But here brokenness is directly tied to the abundance in both

places were broken in brokenness, as mentioned, It's

either mentioned before the miracle or directly after it.

This idea of brokenness and abundance and multiplication are

directly connected in this passage in verse 15, when Jesus

breaks the bread, that's an unlocking moment.

Again, breaking bread is an act of hospitality.

It's an act of welcome. It can be an act of covenant.

To break bread with someone is to invite them into a

relationship. But practically speaking as

well, the bread in the story had to be broken before it could be

shared. The act of blessing and breaking

is intrinsically connected to the miracle of provision and

abundance. Without breaking, that abundance

is not shared. It doesn't reach everyone and

then at the end of the story, after everyone is eaten hadn't

been satisfied, the disciples gather the leftovers, the

overflow of this miracle, and it is called the broken pieces.

We talked earlier about how you know this miracle abundance.

Everyone is satisfied with point enough.

We said that just a few minutes ago.

But the idea here is that even though there is abundance, it is

not wasted. The broken pieces themselves,

the evidence of God's abundant provision, they are not wasted

or thrown out. Even in a miracle of

multiplication, even in a miracle where it looks like

there is excess, nothing is wasted.

The fragments are gathered up and we assume it's to be used

for another time. It is not, as far as we know,

ever used on those that have been satisfied in the crowd.

It is being stored up for another use, another purpose.

Maybe we distributed to people in need on their travels.

But whatever it is, the miracle is not wasted.

And what an interesting picture of the Kingdom that this paints,

because it almost feels like attention.

Like why would Jesus make too much food?

Why did he produce extra? And then also the focus on there

being just enough. Why do we see these two things

together? And I think again, if we go back

to this idea of satisfied, it's that the Kingdom is a place of

abundance without overindulgence.

It's abundance where maybe we know that the excess is not just

for us, it is provision. The there is provision, not only

provision, but it's also this. Jesus can do increasingly more,

but the excess is not wasted. The broken pieces are collected

and used for later. Brokenness is connected to the

idea of abundance. These are not opposite ideas.

These are connected ideas in this story.

I mean, the promise of the Kingdom of God is 1 of

abundance. It's just not necessarily an

abundance. The world prizes as citizens of

the Kingdom of God with Jesus as our King, and that is available

to everyone. What becomes available to

everyone is abundant Mercy's abundant fruitfulness, abundant

forgiveness, abundant love, overflowing more than enough

abundance not to be hoarded, but to be shared.

And yet, brokenness is also an image of the Kingdom.

It is a Kingdom full of broken and imperfect people, and not a

brokenness that means that you have to be discarded.

It's a brokenness that has a purpose.

It is a brokenness that has value that is not wasted.

I mean, after all, we worship a king who was broken for the sins

of this world. This story of the feeding of the

multitudes, it shows a rhythm of taking, blessing, breaking, and

giving. It's the exact same rhythm that

we see in the Last Supper when Jesus takes the bread, he

blesses it, he breaks it, and he gives it to the disciples

sitting around the table with him.

Luke is creating a foreshadowing event.

He's creating a glimpse of the Last Supper world.

Jesus will sit at a table. He takes, He blesses, he breaks,

and he shares and he says that this is a symbol for you.

This meal, these actions, they are pointing to what I am going

to do for you. I am going to be taken away.

I am going to be broken. My life will be poured out for

you. I am giving myself away for you.

So when Jesus feeds the multitude here in Luke 9, Luke

is preparing us. He is pointing us towards the

culminating moment when the King himself will give his life and

be broken on a cross. And through this breaking comes

abundance and satisfaction and life in Christ.

Welcome, give everyone satisfied and broken.

It is an interconnected picture of the Kingdom and the king, and

I really wrestled with those words this week.

Welcome give everyone satisfied and broken.

I had a sense this week I'm going to try not to cry cause I

cried every time I prepared this in my sermon.

I felt a profound sense of heartbreak for how far our world

feels from this picture and yet how desperately it needs it.

And I am not trying to say that to be a doom and gloom.

It is a genuine sense of mourning.

And I know there is so much beauty in the world and that we

need to see it and celebrate it. But sometimes even that beauty

feels like it's being trapped in a system so very different from

what those worlds words represent and from the picture

of the Kingdom. And yet, in the same time as I

talk about wrestling, I recognize the tension in myself,

how much I struggle at times to live into those Kingdom words.

And I sometimes think it's because I don't live in the

wilderness of nothing. I live in a world of privilege,

and privilege can make me want to close the door instead of

offer a welcome, and it can make me hold tightly and be concerned

about my own self preservation when I am called to give and be

generous. It can make me count some people

as more valuable than others, even though I really, really

hate to admit that. It can make me restless, never

satisfied, even when I have enough.

It can make me want more and more and more.

It can make me want to hide or discard the broken pieces of

myself instead, or and the broken pieces and other people

for that matter, rather than looking on them with value and

gathering them with care. I live in this conflict.

I think we live in this conflict.

I love the vision of the Kingdom and yet I know how hard it is to

live that out in the middle of this world and yet that is what

we are called to do. Leonard Sweet in his book The

Bad Habits of Jesus, Don't let the title be off putting to you.

It's a good book. He talks about the abundance of

Jesus and he says this Jesus expects his followers to

surrender their all to him to put at his disposal and that at

the disposal of the Kingdom all of their possessions, all of

their time, all of their abilities, even their very

lives. The world will say what a waste,

but Jesus will say well done and he's right.

Living like this will look upside down to this world.

It will look impractical at times.

It might even look a little bit foolish, but that is the way of

the Kingdom. So the challenge maybe just for

me this morning, maybe for us, maybe for us as a worldwide, as

part of the worldwide church and for the worldwide church, it's

to not walk out here and try harder to create the Kingdom and

our own image to find a way to reconcile how we want to live

and force the Kingdom into alignment with that image.

Maybe the challenge for us is to surrender what we have, to put

ourselves in the hands of Jesus and to trust Him to do what He

did with those lobes and fishes, to bless it, to break it, and to

multiply it so that it can be given away for the benefit of

others. The world does not need a church

that reflects itself. The world need a church that

reflects Jesus, a church and its people who welcome, embrace

everyone, live satisfied in Jesus, and see the value in

things even when they appear broken.

I feel about your heads with me. Jesus, we thank you that you our

of abundance, that you are a God of abundance, that you give in

our overflowing measure, that you do more than we could ever

ask or imagine. We think of the times where we

have felt only scarcity and lack and we repent and ask

forgiveness for those times and and know that you call us into

greater things. That you call us into this

Kingdom, That you call us into welcoming people, all people.

That you call us to give ourselves and that which you

have blessed us with away so that we can help others.

God, we pray for the courage to live lives of contented

satisfaction. To know when to say is enough to

know that sometimes the excess is not for us, that you bless

and you bless and you bless, but that we so that we can be a

blessing to others. God, it is hard.

Would you give us the strength, the courage, and the calling?

Would you have your spirit prompt us to see how we might

live more in alignment with this picture of the Kingdom?

God, may we have the courage to surrender our lives to you, to

give our all to You, knowing that when we give that you can

do so much more than what we think that you can do, that you

can turn even what we see is not enough into magnificent

abundance. We thank you, Jesus.

We thank you for for being broken, for us, for our sins,

for the sins of this world. God, we thank you for that.

May we not be afraid of that. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.