Satisfaction Guaranteed
Scripture Reading: John 6:1-15
Last Sunday during coffee hour, Ron Drost, Eric, Jim, and I were discussing music, in particular how some artists from the 1960s are still—I don’t know if I would say “going strong”—but at least still going. Case in point, that very evening the Rolling Stones finished up their latest, but probably not last, US tour, with a concert in Springdale, Missouri. The tour, which was unironically sponsored by AARP, wrapped up just in time for Mick Jagger to return home to celebrate his birthday this past Friday. At 81, he’s the senior member of the band, Keith Richards being a more youthful 80.
My favorite story about Keith Richards involves how he wrote the riff for the song “Satisfaction,” perhaps the Stones’ most famous song and one of the quintessential rock songs. He would sleep with a guitar and a tape recorder near his bedside, just in case inspiration struck while he was asleep. Sure enough, he awoke one night with the riff to “Satisfaction” in his head, and he quickly recorded it before falling back to sleep. When he awoke the next morning, he saw that the tape had played all the way to the end. Curious, he rewound the tape and pressed Play. After about 30 seconds of the riff that would become “Satisfaction,” the rest of the tape was just Richards snoring because he had never pressed Stop.
On top of that famous guitar riff, Mick Jagger sings and sneers that he can’t get no satisfaction. The point of view is that of someone who’s restless and cynical, unsure of what he wants but certain that he hasn’t found it.
The elusiveness of satisfaction is a theme in today’s passage from John. Jesus miraculously satisfies the hunger of the crowds that are following him, transforming five loaves and two fish into a feast for 5,000. But that only whets their appetite for more—not more bread but what more Jesus can do for them. If he is a prophet of such power, they think, wouldn’t he make an excellent king? If he can feed a crowd of thousands with just a few loaves and fish, then he can feed an army that could deliver us from the hand of Rome. But Jesus, as we’ll soon see, is not interested in worldly power and, in fact, rejects it when it’s presented to him.
The first thing that I want to draw your attention to is that John writes that it’s nearly the time of the Passover. Passover, of course, commemorates the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, where for generations they had been enslaved under Pharaoh. In that sense, Passover is the Israelite Independence Day. But in the first century of Jesus’ day, Israel did not have its independence. It was part of the Roman Empire. We’ll come back to this point later, but I want us to keep in the back of our minds that in first-century Judea, Passover carries with it patriotic and even revolutionary overtones.
The second thing to note is that Jesus has been making a name for himself. Wherever he travels, a crowd gathers. They come not just to hear him preach. They come because, as John writes, “they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.”
Signs are a recurring theme in the Gospel of John. Many people are drawn to Jesus because of the signs that he performs, from turning water into wine at a wedding reception to all manner of miraculous healings. To the crowds that follow him, the signs are an indication that Jesus is a prophet, a messenger from God.
That is certainly the opinion of the crowds that gather at the foot of the mountain that Jesus has just ascended with his disciples. Seeing the mass of humanity assembling below them, Jesus asks Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Curiously, John notes that “he said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.”
I submit this as Exhibit 64 in my case for under-appreciated humor in the Gospels. Jesus knows what he has planned, but he puts on an act for Philip. My goodness! Philip, look at all these people! They’ve come such a long way. They must be hungry, but where are we going to buy bread for 5,000? There’s no bakery up here. There’s no 7-11.
Assessing the situation, Philip responds, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread fore each of them to get a little.”
Then another of the disciples, Andrew, Peter’s brother, says that among the crowd there is a boy who has five loaves and two fish. You can almost see the incredulous looks from the other disciples. Five loaves and two fish…for 5,000 people?! What good is that? Perhaps feeling the heat of their gaze, Andrew bursts his own bubble, saying, “But what are they among so many people?”
People have a need to hear a word of forgiveness and a word of hope, a need for a sense of purpose and meaning, and a need to belong.
There are 5,000 mouths to feed and only five loaves and two fish to feed them. It’s an impossible situation. The sensible thing to do would be to send the people away. There simply aren’t enough resources to meet the need.
This is the situation that so many of our churches find themselves in, including this church. We are surrounded by need. People have a need to hear a word of forgiveness and a word of hope, a need for a sense of purpose and meaning, and a need to belong. The need around us is great but our resources are small. We have a historic building with renowned stained-glass windows, but what is that amid the long list of repairs needed—the leaky roof, the crumbling exterior, the rotting doors and window frames?
With such vast need against such limited resources, we can do the sensible thing and try to preserve what we have, measuring it out carefully in small increments so that it will last us until…. Or we can do what Jesus does: give thanks.
The Feeding of the 5,000 is perhaps the most well known of all of Jesus’ miracles. In fact, it’s the only miracle found in all four Gospels. And yet, the depiction of it here in John, as well as in the other Gospels, is rather subdued. There are no fireworks. There’s no hocus-pocus. Jesus doesn’t ask for a drum roll to build excitement. He doesn’t put on a teary show like some tawdry televangelist. He doesn’t let on in any way that something extraordinary is about to happen.
This is what John says he did: “Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they needed.” That’s it! That’s all he does! He gives thanks. And then he shares what God has provided. Any Hollywood director would be like, “We can’t use that. We need more drama. Let’s have the screenwriter embellish it. Write a fancy prayer for Jesus to say. Have him raise his arms in a dramatic gesture, like Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea.”
Gratitude is not flashy. Gratitude doesn’t sell. It doesn’t make headlines. I would even go so far as to say that gratitude is countercultural. The loudest voices are often those that lack any sense of gratitude. Think of the Israelites as they were wandering through the wilderness being fed each day with manna from heaven. In a dry, barren wasteland they were sustained day after day with a miraculous abundance of food, but what do they do? They complain! “The food was so much better in Egypt! Sure we were slaves, but at least we could munch on melons and have the occasional cucumber.”
Trust me, I’m preaching as much to myself right now as I am to all of you. I want to cultivate a sense of gratitude in myself for all that this church provides me because it’s too easy to focus on the negative—on the $50,000 that we need to pay to have the brick repointed in spots, on losing $3,000 a month in income because T-Mobile didn’t renew their lease of the clock tower. I could go on.
Gratitude is not flashy. Gratitude doesn’t sell. It doesn’t make headlines.
And so, yes, I’m grateful for this old building, even though everywhere I look I see projects. I’m grateful for the hill overlooking the chapel, even though it’s filled with knotweed. I’m grateful for the resources that we have because I trust that, when placed in the hands of Jesus, they will be more than enough to satisfy the needs of this community.
That’s precisely what Jesus does in this passage. He turns five loaves and two fish into more than enough to feed 5,000 mouths. So abundant was the feast that the disciples gather up all the leftovers into twelve baskets. This is like the exclamation point on the miracle, as the people now take in what they’ve just experienced. There are rumblings and murmurs rippling through the crowd, and some begin to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
Now let’s return to that point I said we’d come back to earlier. The setting is the Passover, a religious festival with strong patriotic overtones. The people have just witnessed Jesus perform an undeniably miraculous sign. Clearly he is a prophet of great power, and perhaps more. They’re thinking, We could sure use a man like this. We saw what he could do for a hungry crowd of 5,000. Imagine what he could do with an army of 5,000! John writes, “When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.”
Jesus turns his back on power. He literally walks away from it. He will have nothing to do with earthly power, however much he is tempted with it. This is a lesson I wish the church would learn because too many Christians today are focused on power. “Just imagine if we had power,” they think. “If our candidate were in the White House, if our judges sat on the Supreme Court, if Christians were in positions of power at the national, state, and local level we could establish the kingdom of God right now!”
How easily we forget that the third and final temptation that the devil presents to Jesus before he begins his ministry is power. The devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and says, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Power, Jesus. Think what you could do with all that power! How many more hungry mouths you could feed! Five thousand would be just the start.
Jesus utterly rejects all offers of worldly power. He will not be Caesar, however much we want him to be. He would literally rather die, and that is what he does. Jesus did not come to rule over us but to die for us. For in his wisdom and mercy, God knew that we may have wanted a king, but we needed a savior. And with unfailing and unconditional love, God satisfied our need.