Just Enough for Me
Do you ever feel like you just have to get away?
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while." For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.- Mark 6:30-31
In today's reading from Mark, Jesus and the disciples are overwhelmed. Everywhere they go, people crowd around them, wanting Jesus to heal them and teach them.
So, Jesus plans a short vacation. Let's go away, he says, to a place that is remote.
The way Mark describes it, they need time to be alone, time to eat and relax. So, they must have brought some food with them, enough for a small group, just for them.
The people follow, and the scene is set for a well-known occurrence, the feeding of the thousands.
But I think there is something significant that happens before the people arrive. Jesus is with them alone in the boat and they continue to be alone together until the people arrive on foot.
They would have eaten.
When the people come and listen and are healed, the food they are fed with would have been food they brought with them. The fact that it was meager and insufficient for their number is an important fact, not because of the miracle, but because it tells us something about ourselves.
We all bring just enough for ourselves, if we bring anything at all.
Apparently, many brought too little or nothing. Why?
Those who brought something discovered quickly that they were expected to share what they had, and perhaps they did so willingly, but it was not enough. And how did those who brought nothing feel when they learned they would be fed by others?
All would have been humbled, realizing they had not brought enough and there was no where to go to get more, even if they could afford to do so. And we can expect that they did have the means, since the disciples pondered two scenarios, either to send them out to buy food for themselves or to spend two hundred denarii to buy it for them.
The means were there, so that is not the point, is it? This is not so much a redistribution of wealth story as it is about being prepared and setting our expectations straight before God.
We should come to the table with something to offer, rather than expecting to be fed.
That is a big twist. We tend to be receivers at the altar table, not givers. We expect God to provide, yet we sometimes fail to bring the raw material for the job.
I see people every day who come to the community table to have a meal provided by volunteers and donors. All have something to offer. Some help carry in boxes when we make a food run. Some instruct new guests on what to do. Some help set up the coffee and rolls, or collect the recyclables.
Others create an atmosphere of welcomeness and community, engaging in conversations and even breaking into song now and then.
The day laborers who come while they are waiting for work are told by others to do nothing without pay. Yet they offer to help, wanting to give as well as receive.
The language of the politicians and pundits would have us believe that we are at odds with each other, that the ones who have do not want to share the ones who don't. They have not eaten at our table.
The lesson of the Gospel today is one of community. Come together and sit, relax, be at peace with each other, and then after you get to know each other, share a meal.
Whether you brought just enough for you or not, you will leave full.
One of the men who comes to lunch asked me if he could volunteer to help. It is what he has to offer, and it is exactly what God wants, for all of us to discover the gifts we have, and use them.
More to come...