Wild Food, Wild Faith

July 26, 2009

Ephesians 3:14-21 and John 6:1-15

Picture this: no supermarkets. No convenience stores. No lush Wisconsin farms nestled on gently rolling hills. No 18-wheelers laden with produce, going beep-beep-beep as they back into a loading dock to discharge their considerable cargo. No McDonald’s, KFC, or Taco Bell.

No roadside stands, either, with multicolored crops picked fresh this morning. Just wide open spaces. Rocks and sand and formidable mountains. And 5000 people whose feet are tired, and bellies empty.

Oh … and Jesus.

Does that backdrop around him disturb you?

Living as we do in the “Breadbasket of America” which produces so much food for the world, and where we may occasionally experience simplicity but rarely a shortage on our tables, being surrounded by so much of nothing may sound bizarre.

Nevertheless, it’s where today’s Gospel begins.

And ends.

The very first thing the Gospel requires today is that we adjust our vision, and admit that we’ve been plunked down with Jesus and a crowd in a desolate, distant, uncivilized place – a desert land, really – with no ready resource for life … apart from God.

The curtain lifts on this drama to reveal a bare stage. There is grass, so that other animals may be fed and for the people to sit; but nothing for humans to eat.

Jesus has just crossed the Sea of Galilee and climbed a mountain to be alone with the disciples. At the close of the story, he will withdraw “again to the mountain by himself.” In between, a massive crowd shows up uninvited. (Imagine a throng of teenagers descending on your refrigerator in the middle of the night.) The lack of food becomes explicit. Jesus asks Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people?”

John, for his part while writing the Gospel, tries to make light of the matter. Hs says Jesus already knew what he was going to do. He wants to reassure us that Jesus is on top of the crisis and has a ready answer about providing the much-needed meal.

But I disagree. For me, John’s claim contains strong dose of wishful thinking. I can’t quite believe that the crowd would have shared John’s conviction that everything was going to work out all right. They were probably more like the Israelites who grumbled at Moses until God rained down manna from heaven in a similar situation.

I also can’t believe that Jesus yet knew what he was going to do. Rather than having a solution, he was acknowledging the problem. The crisis was real. I mean, honestly, “where does one buy bread for so many, so far from home?”

In the desert, nothing can or should be taken for granted. Not when the next meal is at stake. Not by the followers of Jesus, nor by Jesus himself. It’s all up for grabs.

All we can say for certain is this: If God is not there or does not care, the chance of a next meal is between slim and none.

Every day, people die in the desert. Even now, they perish from hunger and thirst and exposure. No matter what John says, there’s no guarantee of a happy ending in that landscape.

Everything is at risk.

When the usual dispensaries of food are far, far away, the status quo changes only if God feeds the people. Then – and only then – can we trust God to tend to our needs in other extremes.

* *

But why go in the first place? Why take a chance? Why enter the wilderness at all? Two answers:

First, I imagine that there is something in a body – almost every human body – that craves and longs for the wild. Something in us loves a challenge of an unfamiliar place.

We have an inborn need (I suspect) to get away from it all … away from the bright lights and big city. Away from supermarkets and combination gas station-grocery stores (begging for a sign that says, “Eat Here, Get Gas”). It’s the same urge in us that compelled Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo and Sir Edmund Hillary and Shakelton and Peary, and Lewis and Clark, and Neil Armstrong to do what they did. Exploring new lands is more common than rare for us as a species.

Something in us yearns – and needs – to rough it once in a while.

I’ve grown more aware of that in recent years. I’m helping arrange a funeral, talking to family about their departed loved one. I ask, “What are your fond memories of an earlier time with that person?” Surprisingly often, the answer is: “Family vacations. Camping trips, mostly. We saw the country that way.”

Parents did it for us. We do it for our kids. We “get away from it all” for a week or two in the summer with nothing more than a tent, sleeping bag … cooler full of food, lantern, cook stove, skillet, ponchos, dog, RV, satellite TV, GPS, and goldfish.

(I exaggerate. A little.)

We innately know that the untamed and uncharted places are where we will find ourselves. So we “get away” in order to “get back.” Back to nature. Back to basics. Back to what matters. Back to something elementary and essential that can’t be bought at Pick N’ Save or Sendik’s or Sentry. Or even Outpost.

We go to the wilderness to remember who we are …

* *

And whose we are. Belden Lane, author of a book on wilderness spirituality, says that “desert and mountain are associated with people ‘on the edge’ who have run out of language for speaking about God – [people] who turn to the wilderness to abandon [self] control and [to] accept God’s love in absolute, unmitigated grace.”

I think that’s the other reason we go to uncharted spaces. Not only to get in touch with ourselves, but with God.

That’s what Jesus did. He regularly retreated from the crowds, going off by himself. Alone. With God. Across bodies of waters or up to the mountains.

As I read Belden Lane, I hear him saying that the wilderness breaks down the defenses we use to keep God at arm’s length. The desert upsets our “do-it-yourself” notions, throwing us mercilessly on the mercy of God for survival. It reminds us that even when we go back to the city we’ll depend utterly on God.

It also reminds us that our wilderness journeys aren’t always literal. There are dry metaphorical deserts too, such as …

• The isolation and emptiness that follows the death of a beloved spouse.

• The comfortless landscape of a doctor’s office where the diagnosis of “cancer” echoes from the bare and sterile walls.

• The shifting sands and empty horizon that can accompany a job loss.

* *

Literal or metaphorical, such wildernesses can be endured only if God is there … and cares. Which is what feeding the 5000 affirms. In a real and concrete act of mercy, it declares that God is with us, even when our resources are remote and depleted. God continues to provide, wherever we go and whatever we need.

According to this passage, faith can be defined as trusting God to care for us when we are traversing the most bleak and desolate landscape we might face. In impassable mountains and shadowy valleys of death. When no quick fix can be seen. In a dense and dangerous forest where no light streams in and no path leads out. And in deserts, teeming with human pilgrims, but not a morsel to eat.

* *

Today’s Gospel is more about Communion more than Baptism. More about the sacrament we did not celebrate today than the one we did.

But at some deep, basic level, the same message applies. It assures us that God will be present for Faith and Owen … even when they have their own desert moments (as everyone does). When no other resource is at hand, God will find a way out of no way … a way to feed them … and lead them, from sure death to sure life in the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of Jesus Christ.

And, in that way, the passage we heard from Ephesians 3 will also be fulfilled. That passage describes what the sacraments do – granting strength for our inner being … enabling Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith, rooting and grounding us in God’s love … and accomplishing far more than we ask or imagine.

That is true for the Lord’s Supper and for Baptism. For Owen and Faith. For you and me. The sacraments declare that God can be trusted in all situations.

* *

In the first-century Roman world, adequate food was a daily challenge. Without supermarkets, convenience stores or fast food, the next meal was never guaranteed for the masses.

In the city and farmlands, the power brokers and elites extracted food from their peasants through taxes and tributes. Few ate well. Most ate little.

It was even worse in the desert, where there was no food to begin with, and everyone was in danger.

Yet in that extreme situation, Jesus provided, with basketfuls left over.

The Bible often depicts God’s final and faithful salvation that way. It sees heaven as a place with abundant food, where all people have fair access to the table. The miracle Jesus did in the desert on that long-ago day points toward that future age of fulfillment.

But it also shows that it is possible, right now, in this world, even in the most remote and desolate places. Because God is incarnate with us.

And so it calls us (along with Owen and Faith in due time) to work for such a world. Even if all we have to offer right now is five loaves and two fish …

To the glory of God.