Theme: God transforms the little things.

Jesus can work miracles with five loaves and two fish.  That is at the heart of the story, that the little boy brought his meager gifts to Jesus, his five loaves and two fish, and look what mighty miracles God did with them! God wants to do the same with us;  that we bring our meager gifts to God, our five loaves and two fish, our meager and ordinary talents and gifts, we bring the simplicity of who we are to God, and look what mighty miracles God can do with our little lives! 

The key for me is that the little boy surrendered his meager gifts to Christ, and at the heart of the story today is the implied invitation for us to surrender our little gifts, the gift of our little lives to Christ, and then see what mighty miracles God can do in and through us. That’s what God wants from you and me, to surrender who we are and what we have to offer.

Dean K., our contemporary musician, tells the story of this past Saturday night, working his job as a pianist and singer in a night club, and a young woman and old friend came to him as the night was winding down.  She hit him with such a heart felt confession and question:  “Dean, I have had two abortions and now a miscarriage.  Does God still love me?”  And Dean wanted to head for the corner, wanted to hide, thought to himself, “Where is Pastor Markquart or O’Neal when they are needed,” and covering up his instantaneous thoughts, he replied, “Of course God loves you.”  A half hour passed and she approached him again, “Dean, would you pray for me, with me?”  “Now?” he thought?  “Now, with all these people around, here in this situation; come on lady, give me a break, I’m not good at this stuff.  This is awkward.”  And so they stepped off to the side and Dean said a quiet, quick prayer.”  …. And there in that moment, God used the five loaves and two fish of Dean’s, a snippet of a conversation, a brief conversation, to feed a person who was spiritually hungry and desperately wanted an answer.  And who knows what miracles God will do from that little conversation.  And all the while, Dean was thinking to himself, “I am not adequate for this. Bring in the real food.  Bring in the pastors.  What do I have to offer?  What I have to offer is not adequate!”  And God took Dean’s gifts and used them and who is to say what miracles God worked that night.

God can use your inadequacies and mine and work mighty miracles through them.

Implied in the story is this question:  Have you surrendered your five loaves and two fish to Christ?  Have you surrendered the meagerness of who you are to Christ?  You would be amazed at what mighty miracles God can do. Have you surrendered like the little boy did?  

Sometimes people ask about this story:  “How did he do it?  How did Christ feed all those people with so little food, with merely five loaves and two fish?”  I like what one commentator suggested:  Some people want Jesus to work a transformation of the loaves, so that the loaves continually multiply, endlessly, so that the loaves themselves experience transformation and become an endless supply of bread.  But others suggest that what was really transformed were the selfish hearts of five thousand people; that when these five thousand people saw the example of the little boy giving Jesus his five loaves of bread and two fish, individuals were inspired to look inside their coats and share the food that they brought with them, food that had been hidden inside their clothing.  The real transformation then, was not of the loaves, but of five thousand selfish hearts.  The Bible says:  “A little child shall lead them.”

I ask you:  which would be the greater miracle: the transformation of the loaves or the transformation of selfish hearts?   I would like to suggest to you that some people would prefer to focus on the transformation of the loaves in order to avoid focusing on their own selfish hearts that need be transformed.  Focus on the magic of it all, in order to avoid the transforming miracle needed in my life and heart. 

If Christ worked that miracle today, and transformed five thousand or five million selfish hearts, we would feed the whole world.  Jesus said that Christians today would do greater miracles than he did when he was on earth; and if the selfish hearts of Christians were transformed, we would feed the entire globe.  Focus on Christ’s transformation of selfish human hearts and you will discover the essence of this miracle.

For more of Rev. Ed Markquart’s sermon