Five Loaves, Two Fish - from May 2006 Chronicle

Do you ever pick up a newspaper or turn on the news only to see that people are still poor, still hungry, still waging wars, that AIDS is still spreading? Do you ever look around your workplace, your school, your neighborhood and see people who are lonely, angry, bored, hurting, sick? Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Do you ever feel powerless? After all what difference can one person make? The numbers are all wrong, the odds are against us. The global situation doesn’t often make one feel very hopeful.
But that can’t be the whole picture, because there’s a story in the gospels about a time when the odds weren’t so good for Jesus, his pals or his audience either. The story I’m referring to is the account of the greatest seafood buffet of all time; as Jesus takes five loaves and two fish and feeds more than five thousand people. You’ve heard of it right? Here’s what I find interesting, each of the gospels records the story, but only John tells us where the foodstuffs come from. They come from the hands of a little boy:

“Jesus soon saw a great crowd of people climbing the hill, looking for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, ‘Philip, where can we buy bread to feed all these people?’ He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.
Philip replied, ‘It would take a small fortune to feed them!’
Then Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up. ‘There's a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?’
‘Tell everyone to sit down,’ Jesus ordered. So all of them - the men alone numbered five thousand - sat down on the grassy slopes. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and passed them out to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate until they were full.”
John 6:5-11

Now I have a feeling that Jesus probably didn’t need this little boy’s bag lunch. He could have just as easily fed the masses from nothing. In fact it might have been an even bigger show of power, He could have been “The God Who Makes Pop-Tarts Appear from Thin Air”. But I think Jesus had a point in borrowing the fish and bread.
All the problems we face each day as we look at the world, at our communities, at our lives, they seem monstrous. There are no easy answers, rarely good solutions and it seems like no end in sight. These are God-sized problems! How are we supposed to help, what good can we accomplish in a world in so much need? Ultimately the answer is that only Christ can bring the healing and peace we need; it is what we look forward to with His return. But while we are waiting for that day, we can learn from this story that Jesus is the Humble King. He isn’t just looking to perform big production miracles for His sake, but He sees His children’s needs and invites all us to be involved and to join His work.
There is a moment in C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” where Mr. Beaver tells the children “…Aslan is on the move.” And to me those five words are beautiful. Aslan, our great God is coming to rescue His children, to break evil’s spell, to end the terrible winter. Where is God moving near you? He is not blind to the heartache in your home, your workplace, in the ghettos, in Africa. He is not blind; He is on the move. And He is inviting us to join Him. You may already be there, involved with God and others all around you. Or you may be seeing that God is calling out to you to join Him with your time, your heart, your prayers, your skills, your money. Wherever you are, know that God is not daunted by the odds. Even when it seems that the needs around you are enough to drown in, or that what you have to give is barely enough to be counted, know that God is bigger than bad odds, and that He is calling you to be involved.
This summer I’m offering God my five loaves and two fish, it isn’t much but it’s what I’ve got: two hands and my heart. I am heading to the Philippines to work as a midwife in an urban slum in Manila. There I will be working with my classmates to run a free birth clinic, providing maternal and child health care and love to families don’t have the resources to see a doctor or go to a hospital. Last year I began to feel God calling me join Him in this work, to be a part of what He is doing through the Mercy In Action Maternity Center. And I know that I can’t solve the maternal health needs of the world, and in the end I’m not what these women and their babies really need, they need the Great Physician. But I trust that by doing what I can, that we’ll find God moving in miraculous ways, that we’ll see life where we did not expect to find life. That we will see hope and smiles return to women who have not had any reason for them. Against all odds God’s grace is breaking through in Welfareville, Manila and I have the chance to go and be a part. Perhaps you would like to join what God is doing with a young, rag-tag group of midwives, if so send me an email, lets be in contact.
“…Aslan is on the move.” Does He have your five loaves, your two fish?