Mark 6:30-44 (NIV)
Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught.31 Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. 33 But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. 34 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”
They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages[a]! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”
38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.”
When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.”
39 Then Jesus directed them to have all the people sit down in groups on the green grass.40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all.42 They all ate and were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. 44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.
Footnotes:
- Mark 6:37 Greek take two hundred denarii
“You give them something to eat.”
I wonder how you reacted to those words of Jesus. Yes, I can see your faces but I can’t read them. I lost the ability since I came to Vegas.
Why? Well, tell me, can you really read a poker face?
Kidding aside, perhaps the moment you heard those words, you immediately felt the weight of responsibility. Or, maybe, you wondered whether or not those words are also addressed to you.
However we respond to these words of Jesus, or however we take them, to the people at the receiving end—those who will be fed—those words are like music to their ears. Well, that is, if they are hungry or need food.
Where I originally came from, the Philippines, foods—especially if there are lots of them—have been the main attraction for any gathering. That’s why we’re not surprised if, for example, some people who were not present at the church for the wedding would show up at the reception!
When I was a child, our family attended a relative’s wedding. There were not a lot of people at the ceremony, but at the reception, the whole village was there!
Food remains a great attraction to people. The casinos know that and that’s why they offer free buffets to potential gamblers. Churches and Christian ministries know that, too. That’s why they may offer food to those in need, sometimes not in a good way because food is used as bait to would-be converts.
Feeding the hungry is a very important subject. But today our emphasis is not only on the theology of feeding—or the right way to use food, or other stuff for that matter, to minister to people. Our text today also speaks loudly about our involvement or participation in what the Lord wants to do through us.
In addition, I think that this narrative challenges us to get involved in ways that our participation affects people in a very real way and in ways that involve more than just words on our part.
So let’s begin with the first emphasis.
“You give them something to eat.”
You, yes you, give them something to eat. The emphasis is on the subject: you.
In the Gospel of Mark, the disciples are portrayed as lacking in faith and thus also lacking in involvement. In the previous chapters, we read about them following the Lord but they had not really done anything. They were mere companions. It is only in chapter 6, after Jesus called “the Twelve” and sent them out, two by two, that they preached, drove out demons and healed many who were sick (vv. 7-13).
Surprisingly, the Twelve did not seem to have any problem doing the Lord’s directives at this point. They went as the Lord sent them and they did an excellent job!
Today, some of us may have already responded to the call of Jesus as the Twelve did. You and I may not be call ourselves Apostles (with a capital “A”), and rightly so because the Twelve had a unique role, nevertheless we, too, have responded to the call of Jesus to serve and not just be served.
Sadly, however, there many more of us who continue to be in the receiving end and, like party crashers or those people who showed up at my cousin’s wedding reception, they are there not also to serve but only to be fed.
I think it’s a shame that some believers even want positions of honor, but not the responsibility. In my ministry, I’ve encountered a few people who love to be elected officers. But that’s about it because, afterwards, they don’t really do anything to serve.
Isn’t that a stark contrast to the goal that our Lord Jesus had when he walked upon this earth? If we say we follow Jesus, then we should be like him who “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (or all)” (10:45).
When the Lord calls, he also gives gifts to equip them in service. Ephesians 4:11-12 reads, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service….”
But is this calling only for a special group of people who would be apostles or missionaries, prophets or preachers, evangelists, and pastor/teachers? No!
The calling to serve is for everyone. Apostle Peter declares that believers “are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” If you believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord, you, too, have been called together with other believers. And here’s the goal of our calling: “…that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).
Have you responded to the call to serve? If not, do so today. And don’t you worry; the Lord has given you spiritual gifts or abilities to equip you to serve. But you need to find out what your gifts are. If you don’t know how, we’re here to help.
But there are things that you and I can do together regardless of our spiritual gifts. This leads us to our next emphasis.
“You give them something to eat.”
The emphasis this time is on the predicate: “give them something to eat.”
If you recall, the disciples did not have any trouble doing what they did when Jesus sent them two by two. They preached, exorcised the demon-possessed, and healed those who were sick.
Now, which is harder to do, to preach, exorcise and heal or to feed the people?
Well, that depends on a number of things. One is the number of people involved. Many of us may find preaching, exorcising, or healing harder to do than feeding people until we find out that there are more than 5,000 people to feed. We, preachers, would rather preach to a multitude than give them food!
Because of the number of people, it is not surprising that the disciples gave Jesus a very practical suggestion: “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. 36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
We can’t blame the disciples. We could have easily come up with the same smart idea. But Jesus had a better idea: you feed them.
Better? How could that be a better idea? Jesus himself said, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill” (John 6:26).
It may be difficult to understand why feeding the people is a better idea than sending them away to fend for themselves until we see the important things that, I believe, Jesus wanted to impart to his disciples, and us. The first:
The importance of faith-building
Oftentimes the practical solution is just an excuse to do it the easy way or to avoid responsibility. But what does the easy way produce in return? Well, easy-go-lucky believers whose faith has not really grown.
So how is faith built? Do you think it would help grow faith if people witness signs and wonders? We seem to think so.
But that did not happen in the case of the disciples of Jesus. After they witnessed the miraculous things that Jesus did, they did not really grow in faith. After calming the storm, Jesus said to these terrified men, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40).
And you’d think that after Jesus demonstrated his lordship over nature that these guys would be bold enough to face even the fiercest demons? Well, nothing could be father from the truth. In fact, in Mark 5:1-20, encountered Legion, an army of demons who possessed the man who made his home among the tombs, they did absolutely nothing.
So I think it’s just right that Mark wrote the narrative as if the disciples were not there at all. Take a look, for example, at the beginning of the narrative. He wrote, “When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him” (v. 2). He wrote as if only Jesus got out of the boat!
Jesus and the disciples came to this Gentile country for a mission. But who accomplished it? Definitely not the disciples. It is the ex-demon possessed Gentile who proclaimed Jesus in all of the ten cities of the region!
Because of their non-involvement, they did not “shine … like stars in the sky” (Philippians 2:15) in that foreign land whose inhabitant Josephus, a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian, called Syrians.
That leads us to the second thing that I believe Jesus wants to impart to us:
A life characterized by compassion
Believers do not grow in faith and do not shine like stars in this world of darkness because they do not let God work “in them in order to fulfill his good purpose” (v. 13). Such kind of selfish living runs counter with the life of love and compassion and lived “not looking to your own interests but … to the interests of the others” (v. 4) that the Apostle Paul talks about at the beginning of Philippians 2.
The Lord we say we follow is full of love and compassion. In our Scripture text today we read, “When Jesus … saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” In Mark 8, where our Lord also fed about 4,000 people who had “nothing to eat,” he called his disciples to him and said to them, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat” (vs. 1-2).
Unlike some Christians today who feed people to make converts out of them, Jesus fed the multitude because he had compassion on them. So should we. But this same motivation applies not just to feeding the physically hungry but also to other ministries that seek to minister to the physical needs of people.
I’m sure there are other things that may be as important as these things I’m pointing out here, but let me give the third and last thing that I think Jesus wants to impart to us based on our Scripture passage:
When serving, the secular becomes sacred
To say that the disciples tried to avoid feeding people because it was not a spiritual activity is really forcing it. But I think the fact that Jesus insisted doing it shows that he did not see feeding or other forms of social work as less important or less spiritual. I don’t even think that Jesus had in mind the dichotomy—that is, the distinction of spiritual and secular—that we have today.
Jesus, spontaneously followed his heart. Now that does not mean he was not thinking. In fact he knew that feeding could give people the wrong idea for following him, which it did! Nevertheless, he followed his heart of compassion.
So, anything we do that flows out from the compassionate heart of Jesus and through our hearts is sacred. And so, even the so-called secular work that many of us do, when done in the name of Christ and in service to others, becomes sacred as well.
In his book, The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer, a pastor who lived a simple and non-materialistic lifestyle, wrote, “Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it” (italics mine).
So as you and I look ahead to Monday, let us not regard it a day to dread. Instead, let us look forward to it as the second day to worship, as we do today. And let us seek to glorify the Lord by serving others, perhaps by feeding them or meeting a need, all throughout the week. Amen.
PENnED 
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