Do You Have Something to Eat?

My first reaction to this question was "yes, thank goodness I usually have something to eat, I don't have to struggle with this basic provision."  My second reaction was hearing the question Jesus asked his flailing and anxious disciples when the large crowds had gathered and it was dinner time: "how many loaves have you?"  So often we have resources, we have everything we need, and yet we act out of scarcity, out of fear, out of a sense of hording.  

So why does Luke show us a Jesus who hungers?  Well it certainly dispels the notion that the disciples saw a ghost or created some phantasm in their minds after Jesus' death.  It brings forth the reality of humanness, of hungering, of sharing need in community.  After all that is what we do when we gather and have holy communion.  We admit our need, we turn over our need for sustenance to God.  We find nourishment at the table, in the fellowship, and in knowing where two or three are gathered there he is in the midst.

So many people struggle with the question of knowing Jesus.  The trinitarian aspect of our theology can be daunting.  Three in one, one in three: it is all quite abstract.  But here we get a glimpse into something we know well:  do you have something to eat. Jesus doesn't give a lecture on ethereal things or glimpses of heaven.  In fact, how often does Jesus use the little things in life to illustrate larger points, to point us toward divinity: bread, wine, water, mud, spit, mustard seeds, yeast, etc.  Yet we usually insist on complicating things, finding a way to control that which is divine.  Well, Jesus, you can't just eat fish! We have to get this gig catered, kill the fatted calf, invite important people.  Perhaps people struggle to know Jesus because they see so little of Jesus in our behavior and in our lives.

The people in whom I meet Jesus rarely have to talk about Jesus or even religion.  They live it, they make it present in their earnestness, they exude the grace of knowing mystery and respecting it.  In these people you know the presence of the Lord.  And others generally hunger for this; they inquire, they are drawn to those who harbor the joy of Christlikeness in their everyday lives.  This is the essence of what it means for the church to be in mission.  It is not about assimilating others into our way of thinking or behaving: do we show them Jesus in all we do?

What does it mean to know Jesus?  What does it mean to be Christ like?  Asking the right question is the key to transformation.  For me that question is this:  how might I decrease that He might increase?  How might I lose my life so that I may find it?  What loaves/fish do I have that I might share right here, right now?

In the ordinary commerce of our day may we be reminded of the simple reality that our God is a nourishing God. Whether in broiled fish, bread, wine or water, may be find the nourishment to become like Him, to know the satiation of real joy and peace.