Not My Problem

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on April 21, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Mark 6:30-44.

            Our reading for today is one most of us have heard before.  Even people who do not know much about the Bible are often familiar with it.  It’s a story that appears in all four gospels. In fact, Matthew and Mark each have two stories like this, with Jesus once feeding five thousand and then later feeding four thousand. The stories are all fairly similar, but the one we’re going to look at today comes from the book of Mark, and is about feeding five thousand.

As the story is presented, this was not something Jesus planned ahead of time. Mark says Jesus had intended to take the disciples with him in a boat to a quiet place where they could get some rest. The problem was that people got wind of where they were going and went on ahead to meet Jesus there. By the time Jesus and the disciples were ready to get off the boat, there was already a big crowd waiting for them.

I wonder, when Jesus and the disciples saw that, if there was at least a little bit of them that was disappointed. I mean, I would be. Here they were, thinking they could get away from everyone and just get a little rest, and here there’s this big crowd of people there waiting for him. If Jesus was disappointed at all, though, he did not give any indication of it. Instead, we’re told, Jesus had compassion on them and started teaching them.

We don’t know how long he taught them, but eventually it got late. The disciples told Jesus to send the people away so they could get something to eat. Instead, Jesus tells them, "You give them something to eat."

I wonder how the disciples reacted when Jesus said that.  I mean, that’s quite a thing Jesus is telling them to do, right?  How were they supposed to give all these people something to eat? They did not really even have enough for themselves to eat. All they had were five loaves of bread and two fish. 

But they take that little bit of food to Jesus.  Jesus takes the bread and fish, gives thanks, gives them to the disciples, and tells them to distribute them to crowd. And the disciples must have thought, "Oh, yeah, right.  This is really going to work. We’ll get maybe ten people fed, and the other four thousand nine hundred and ninety are going to kill us." They probably start out just giving a little tiny bit to each person, trying to make this food last as long as they can. Still, they know it’s going to run out pretty soon.

Except it does not run out. They feed ten people, they look in the basket, and—there’s more food there. They think, "Huh. I guess this’ll go a little farther than we thought." They feed a few more people. They look in the basket again. And—there’s still more there. This keeps happening. They keep thinking they must be about out of food, but there’s always more food there.

At some point, they must’ve figured out what was going on. And so, they look over at Jesus.

I picture Jesus just kind of smiling at them. Not making fun of them, not being upset with them, but just having this knowing smile on his face. I imagine him thinking, "See? See what I can do if you just trust me?"

Think about how the disciples reacted to this situation. When the problem of food first came up, the disciples’ idea was that Jesus should send the people away and let them fend for themselves. The thought that they, the disciples, should help these people does not seem to have occurred to them. They did not think it was their responsibility to feed these people. After all, they had not told these people to come all this way out into the middle of nowhere without any food. If those people were dumb enough to do that, well, that was their own fault. The disciples had wanted to get away from these people. They were tired. They’d been working hard, and they wanted a chance to rest. The disciples knew the people did not have anything to eat, but the disciples did not see that as their problem.

Jesus told them it was their problem. He told them, no, we’re not going to send these people away to fend for themselves. We’re going to give them something to eat. In fact, Jesus said, you’re going to give them something to eat.

The disciples reacted pretty strongly to that. They were incredulous. They thought Jesus was giving them a hopeless task. He was asking them to do something that was clearly impossible. There was no way they could do what Jesus was asking them to do. Even if they wanted to, even if they forgot how tired they were and tried really hard, there was no way they could feed all those people. The little bit of food they had would make no difference at all. The disciples were probably stunned, trying to figure out why Jesus would tell them to do something they clearly would not be able to do.

How many times does this happen to us? We see a situation. We know people are in trouble and they need some help. But we think, "That’s not my problem. I did not put those people in that situation. They got themselves in trouble, and they can get themselves out of it. The little bit I could do would not make any difference anyway. I’m tired. I just want to get away and rest for a while."

Please don’t think I’m pointing fingers here. I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I’ve done it plenty of times. I can be awfully quick sometimes to judge people and decide their problems are their own darn fault. I can be very quick to decide there’s nothing I can do that will make a difference. This is not me trying to make anyone feel guilty, or at least not any more guilty than I am myself.

But the thing is that Jesus says the same thing to us that he said to the disciples. He says it is our problem. We’re not supposed to just leave people in trouble and let them try to get themselves out of it, even if it is their own fault. We’re supposed to help them. In fact, Jesus says to us, as he said to the disciples, you are supposed to help them.

And, many times, we react the same way the disciples did. We’re incredulous. We think Jesus is giving us a hopeless task. He’s asking us to do something that’s clearly impossible. There’s no way we can do what Jesus is asking us to do. Even if we want to, even if we forget how tired we are and try really hard, there’s no way we can do it. The little bit we can do will make no difference at all. We cannot figure out why Jesus would tell us to do something we clearly will not be able to do.

But give the disciples this much credit: they trusted Jesus enough to do what he told them to do. Even though they did not understand, even though they thought there was no way this could work, even though they could not understand how this little bit they could do would be enough to get the job done, they went ahead and did it anyway. They trusted Jesus enough to do what Jesus wanted them to do, even when they thought it would do no good. And when they did, Jesus took that little bit they could do and turned it into enough to get the job done. In fact, it was more than enough. We’re told that when they got done, everyone was able to eat as much as they wanted and there were still twelve basketfuls of food left over.

Can we do what the disciples did? Can we trust Jesus that much?

There are lots of situations that we think are not our problem. There are also lots of situations that we don’t think we can do anything about. That’s true about situations in the world. It’s true about situations in our country. It’s true about situations in our state. It’s true about situations in our community. It’s even true about situations in our families sometimes. We look at a situation like that and we think "I can’t do anything about that. It’s hopeless. And besides, it’s not my problem anyway." Or, sometimes we might try to think of something we could do, but we cannot think of anything. Or, if we do think of something, we don’t see the point of doing it, because the little bit we could do would make no difference to anyone.

Jesus tells us to do it anyway. Even if we think the situation is hopeless, even if we cannot see the point of doing the little bit we could do, Jesus tells us to do it anyway. And when we do, Jesus can take what we do and bless it and make it go a lot farther than we ever imagined it could.

It’s not easy to trust Jesus that much. It was not easy for the disciples. I suspect that when they took those five loaves and two fish and started distributing them to the crowd, they felt pretty foolish. They may even have been kind of scared, not knowing how people would react when they ran out. They thought Jesus was asking them to do something that was not only silly, but that could be dangerous. And yet, they trusted Jesus enough to do it anyway.

That’s the kind of trust you and I need to have. We need to trust Jesus enough to do what Jesus wants us to do. We need to be willing to do it even when we feel foolish. We need to be willing to do it even when it could be dangerous. We need to trust Jesus enough to do it anyway.

If we can, Jesus will bless what we do. And we just may see the effects of what we’ve done spread far beyond what we ever imagined.