Do Not Be Afraid
In the Gospel of John, the storyteller shows Jesus going to
the three major pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem repeatedly over the course of
about three years. Yet, in chapter six, the time of the Passover is near, he is
on a mountain top in Galilee, far away from Jerusalem, perhaps hoping to get a
break. [John 6:1-21] More likely, however, hiding out, for just before these
episodes of feeding and walking on the sea to still the rough waters, he was in
Jerusalem for another festival and had healed a man on Shabbat. Which, he
points out to those who complain he is breaking Sabbath customs, is the right
thing to do. “But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also
am working.’ For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him,
because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own
Father, thereby making himself equal to God. [John 5:17-18]
As unusual as it was for him to miss a festival as important
as Passover to celebrate the escape from slavery in Egypt, he is prudent to
stay away. But it must be difficult to hide when some 5,000 people show up at
your hideout! He asks Philip, who was one of his first disciples and had told
Nathanael he had found the one Moses and the prophets had talked about – the
future king of Israel – “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” (It
was to test him, says storyteller John, for he knew what he would do.) Philip
allows it would take six months wages to get enough bread. Fortunately, a young
boy comes to the rescue with five barley loaves and a couple of fish – or goat
jerky, depending how one wants to translate the obscure Greek in the text.
As nearly everyone knows, Jesus takes and blesses the bread
and the fish and has the disciples give all of it away to the crowd, and 5,000
fish sandwiches later, surprise – there are twelve baskets of leftovers. It’s
possible other people, inspired by the young man who gave away all he had to
take home to his mother that others offered whatever they had – and more. That
would be no less of a miracle and a sign, that inspired by the lad and by
Jesus, people suddenly become generous and give away all that they have to help
one another. This does not happen every day. There are stories that suggest
that in the end, Jesus orders the disciples to give the twelve baskets of
leftovers to the young man to take home, whereupon he and his mother throw a
block party for the entire neighborhood.
We are told that these are barley loaves which are much
coarser than wheat, and the staple of the poor who could not afford the finer
and preferred wheat at the marketplace where, as Amos tells it, the affluent
merchants would put their thumb on the scales and over-charge for the good
stuff. Surely Jesus and at least some of the folks in the crowd can remember
the prophet Elisha giving away a gift one hundred barley loaves to feed a mere
100 people in the midst of a famine in the land. Connecting the loaves with the
prophet, some in the crowd want to make Jesus a king right then and there. [2
Kings 4:42-44]
Jesus knows the stories of his people. He remembers the days
when the people demanded that the boy prophet Samuel petition God to give them
a king. “All the other countries have kings,” they whined! “We want one too!” Samuel
tells them the obvious: “A king will take your young men and make them soldiers
for his wars. He will take your daughters and make them his servants. He will
take your fields and your produce. You will wish that you had never asked for a
king, but by then it will be too late.” [1 Samuel: 8:11]
Jesus remembers this warning. And that what Samuel said all
this and more came about in the reign of King Solomon. Solomon had twelve
officials over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household;
each one had to make provision for one month in the year…Solomon’s household
provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal,
ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer,
gazelles, roebucks, fatted fowl, and a partridge in a pear tree! They ate
really really well. [1Kings 4:7,22-23] What Solomon represents is the
consolidation of wealth, goods, access and power in the hands of a very few at
the expense of the entire rest of the nation. There is never enough to feed the
Empire. Contrary to some Biblical claims of peace and a United Monarchy under
Solomon, there was such social unrest due to the excesses of the House of
David, a social and military revolt under Jeroboam led to a fracture of the
kingdom into two opposing factions of Samaria to the north and Judah, or Judea,
in the south. This, as we have heard, is the result when “bad shepherds” are in
charge.
Jesus will not ignore the needs of the people of the land
with pretensions of a new monarchy, and so retreats once more into the
mountains to let things cool down. As always, however, there is no rest for the
weary. As the disciples also depart from the crowd, their boat is endangered by
a mighty wind. They are scared. Jesus approaches the boat, walking on the
water, which terrifies them even further. “It is I; do not be afraid.” And
before they can get him into the boat, they arrive at their destination. The
crowd who ate the fish sandwiches after Jesus had given thanks set off after him
to ask for further clarification about the bread.
When the Word becomes flesh to dwell among us there can be
no hiding from the needs of the people who find themselves under even greater
social and economic deprivation than experienced in the time of Solomon. Under
the Empire of Rome, it feels as if we are back in Egypt slaving 24/7. Jesus,
the Word, knows all of this and sets his vision to return to the Way of the
Lord, refusing to return to the sins of the past which repeatedly tried to
employ power and violence to consolidate wealth, goods, power and access in the
hands of a few.
Jesus is a Good Shepherd. He leads with the forgiveness and
love of God, his Father. He urges a return to the commandments of Torah living
to love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength, and to
love your neighbor as you are loved by the God who forgives you and loves you
no matter what. Jesus leads with Good News, not the desire for yet another
kingship which always results in great social and economic division and
disparity. We’ve been there and done that he seems to say. Jesus brings words
of faith, hope and love for all people, no matter what.
When the consolidation of goods, wealth, access and power
becomes great, and the waters become rough, Jesus appears from we know not
where or how to say, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Jesus knows when we set aside
our fears of one another, we learn to see ourselves in one another and live
together in the Way of the Lord. “The Lord is near to those who call upon him,
to all who call upon him faithfully.” [Psalm 145:19]
May God, the Word made flesh, and his Holy Spirit, lead us
out of all our fears and into his way of forgiveness, faith, hope and love for
all persons, no matter what. Amen.
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