Waste not Want not : Fair Shares for All
This Harvest All Age talk was preached at St Peter’s Stanley on 15 October 2000
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Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
10 When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, 11 but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
12 Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.”
13 He replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” 14 (About five thousand men were there.)
But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.”
15 The disciples did so, and everyone sat down. 16 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people. 17 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
18 Once when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”19 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”
20 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.”
Jesus Predicts His Death
21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. 22 And he said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? 26 Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
27 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.”
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Fair shares for all people
Setting the Scene
People often show their character by what they do rather than what they say.
Luke tells us in this reading some of the things Jesus did and through it we see what he is like.
By feeding 5000 Jesus showed his care and compassion for the needs of ordinary folk. It also showed him to be the miracle worker, the Messiah.
Right at the end of the miracle Jesus did a strange thing. He asked them to gather up all that was left. What was that all about? I think it’s a good lesson to all of us about ‘waste not want not.’
Imagine the scene there on the hillside at Bethsaida, 5000 and more sitting in the Galilaen sunshine listening to Jesus talking about opening the door to the kingdom of God to everyone. It w/h/been like a rock concert or a Classic concert , sat at the proms (outdoors). Just the scene for a great picnic – except there’s no food, they’d forgotten the cooler box with the fruit and the sandwiches, the bottle of white wine, they’d even forgotten the phone number of The Pizza place that delivers to your door!
1. Watch Jesus - what does he do? He shrugs his shoulders, I’m only the preacher, surely I don’t have to lay ion the food as well.
Watch Jesus, he took the loaves & fish and he gave them out. (You may be lucky if you got a crumb in 5000 from 5 loaves & 2 fish).
What did Jesus do he just gave and gave, and kept on giving, as much as they wanted, and more.
This is the creator who could say let there be light and there was light saying let there be bread and there was bread, loads of bread, the God who gives life abundantly and doesn’t know when to stop. And all out of 5 & 2 , it may not look like much but when you trust God with what you have he will transform it. That’s how we can apply this miracle to ourselves. If we are prepared to tell our FRANC (friends, relatives, acquaintances, neighbours, colleagues) about the friend we have in Jesus, it may be only a few words, a few nervous, clumsy words but if you trust the Lord to speak even one word for him he will take it and multiply it and feed hungry souls with it.
Many of us will have stories of how we spoke to our FRANC inviting them to outreach events and missions and we were amazed at how God did the rest. Each thing we offered in our mission from the Friday night to the Sunday night was multiplied and blessed by the Lord.
Now the ball is back in our courts, how can we be used to draw our FRANC closer to our Lord, could it be to the next Alpha Course or Christianity Explored, or Just looking course - the introductory session is this Tuesday.
Could yoiu invite someone to your own Small group or Ark or Explorers or a church service? The options are endless and all it takes are a few words of invite from us and the Lord will bring the increase.
2. Hear Jesus - Jesus said something strange at the end of the feeding. He asked the disciples to pick up the leftovers, what was he doing?
I think he could have been telling them ‘those things matter.’ The leftovers can be put to good use rather than just walk away having been feed more than enough. Jesus makes an example saying ‘waste not want not.’
This harvest time Christian Aid are running a campaign “Waste not want not.” They’re focussing on recycling.
There are many types of recycling today (name them) [produce plastics etc…]
Have you any suggestions how we can recycle some of these things [take feedback - eg jam jar decoration & candle…][Yoghurt pots as seed pots] [children’s polystyrene aeroplanes from packaging]
Why are we talking like this in church (is this Blue Peter? We can learn from Blue Peter and the likes. We learn from Jesus’s actions about his character and that it matters what we do with the waste, the left over. God is a great recycler, he has designed our world so that the CO2 we breathe out is used by trees to produce Oxygen which we breathe in [recycling in every breath].
But God recycles experiences aswell. Nothing that happens in our lives need be wasted, God recycles our mistakes so we learn and grow in wisdom, recycle sadness to produce understanding with others. God can use our good fortune to produce generosity in giving to others. He is the recycling God.
The secret is in the trusting and it comes back to this, the little we have to offer God he can recycle and multiple to bring blessing to others. (whether it’s a word or and action, a prayer or a praise.. God will take it and increase it as he did with the 5 & 2.)
That’s the generous multiplier recycler God we worship this morning!
