Many of us probably know the story of Jesus catering a crowd as they found themselves without food in a kind of waste land. It is a good story. Or rather, there is not much story to it, but the image is good.
But what are we to make of the story? He gave food to the 4.000 back then. But what does the story leave us with? How are we to interpret the Reading?
There are many ways of answering that question. Two years ago, I did it by comparing the Reading with a rock concert. Do you remember that?
This year I choose a more traditional approach. An approach I choose to show all of you how the reading – despite not being long, nor dramatic – has a lot of powerful meaning to it.
And let me start with the probably more boring traditional approach. An approach that has to do with numbers. I wild guess it that it is due to numbers it might be boring. But the numbers reveal a hidden yet powerful meaning. So here goes:
You are probably aware that there are important numbers throughout the Bible. In this Reading there is a lot of such numbers. Four, five, or six numbers depending on which you want to include:
The first number is presented to us through the amount of food the boy has. Five loaves of bread and two fish. Five symbolizes Judaism. Or more exactly the Torah, as the Torah consist of five books.
Two symbolize dualism, showing that the Reading wants us to reflect on opposites. At first, it is not evident what dualism the Reading want us to reflect upon, but with the rest of the numbers in mind, it becomes clear that it is the dualism between God and man.
The next number is 5.000. Again, the number five points to Judaism.
The fourth number is the amount of bread gathered following every person has eaten. The 5 pieces of bread somehow left them with 12 baskets. Hence, something happened. Not only did the people get their need for food satisfied, but 5 became 12 as well.
12 is an important number in the Bible. There are 12 disciples. But there also is according to the Torah 12 ancestors from which all human beings originate from.
With this in mind, what really happens in the text not only is that some people long time ago miraculously got full. No. What happens is that salvation and faith move from being an ethnical thing only available for the five – the Jews – to be an open thing available to all.
I know numbers do not always make a text better. Rather opposite actually. Boring some might say. But I hope you are still awake out there because I only have two numbers left to talk about. Four and seven.
Now as the keen of you – the ones of you that do not mind numbers filling up so much of a Reading – might have noticed, these numbers are not present in the Reading.
But there are other Readings in the Bible where Jesus gives food to a crowd in a similar way. In these Readings though it is 7 pieces of bread that feeds 4.000 people. And there are 7 baskets full of bread as leftovers.
In the Bible, 7 is the number of perfectness. For instance, God created earth in seven days.
The number 4 is the number for humanity. 40 days humans wandered the dessert. Just as a reference.
3 is due to Trinity the number of God. Excluded from each other, 3 and 4 are the dualism that the number 2 showed us the Reading was all about, but if you multiply these two numbers, you get 12.
12 therefore is not only the number of ancestors. Also, it is a number that shows a union between 3 and 4 – God and human.
Are you still with me?
(that is good/bad)
Anyway, now we are ready to sum up: looking deeper into the numbers, little is the Reading about how some people long time ago miraculously got full. No. The Reading is about the creation of a unique union between – no longer just God and the Jews – but the entire human race and God.
Those who got full back then really were not the ones getting full. We are the ones getting full. Because in numbers the Reading tells us about the new covenant Jesus brought to us. A covenant not only reaching out towards an ethnic group. But a covenant bringing faith and salvation to all human beings.
And with that I believe enough is said about numbers. Numbers that when just read does not pose very interesting nor deep. Yet numbers that when explained opens… well, faith.
This was the first traditional approach to the text that I wanted to share with you today. The second approach follows the first – not that it is about numbers (rest assured) – but that it explains what then is given to us. What comes with the new covenant?
In one word, what is given to us is nourishment. After all, nourishment is what is provided to the crowd. But we should probably not expect it to be physical nourishment. If Jesus ever cooked that food is long rotten by now. No, we should expect spiritual nourishment.
In one of my favourite Luther quotes that I translated rather loosely, Luther says the following about faith:
“It is never about sin but about seeing behind sin and notice mercy; and it is never about death but about seeing behind death and notice life; and it is never about hell but about seeing above hell and notice heaven.”
One can say that it is the same that is at stake in today’s Reading: it is not about the lack of food – or any other thing that can discourage us for that matter – but it is about seeing behind or above that and witness the love of God and its presence in everything.
Lack of food turned into a multitude of food as God with Jesus became present among us. In similar ways, all bad we encounter – well, cannot go away – but can become of less importance if we only notice mercy, notice life, notice heaven.
I do not know exactly how long I have been speaking. But I hope that what might have been 5 minutes did not become 12 hours in your minds despite it being somehow quite fitting.
Rather I hoped you enjoyed. Enjoyed my little sermon – not upon numbers I would say – but about the faith we find behind them.
Amen.