And so we begin a five week “detour” from Mark to explore in some depth the understanding that Jesus is the Bread of Life. (Tenth Sunday after Pentecost. John 6:1-21.) But Jesus does not utter these particular words this week. While there are many tantalising images and phrases to alert us to some of what is to come we seem to begin with reminders of the “enoughness” of God, indeed the generous providence of the Maker, which informs and nourishes an economy (or household) of grace. It is out of this enoughness that Jesus feeds the gathered hungry people.
You may like to read what I wrote on the gospel text three years ago.
If I may summarise the theme of enoughness that comes from the fullness of God, or providence, from the texts: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing.”(Psalm 145:15-16.) “But his servant said, ‘How can I set this before five hundred people?’So he (Elisha) repeated, ‘Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left’.” (2 Kings 4:43-44) “Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down’. . . Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them . . . as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told the disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’’ . . . they filled twelve baskets.”(John 6:10-13.) “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”(Ephesians 3:18-19.)
So if we live in a created world of such generous and expansive fullness, or enoughness, then why do so many of us suffer from insatiable hunger and thirst? Hunger and thirst that is spiritual, physical and social. I am sure that the answers are complex and many layered and surely include our psycho-spiritual dis-ease; our western insatiable model of economics; and our social disconnect from our neighbours near and far.
Whilst it is difficult to examine the earth we stand upon it may be worth, very briefly, looking at the assumptions that drive the western economy that most of us live in and contrasting them to indigenous and Hebrew views. For how we see the world determines how we act and feel.
Western models of economics are driven by an assumption of the scarcity of resources that lead humans to be engaged in war like competition over those resources. Society is seen of being made up of an aggregate of individuals with insatiable appetites. The outcome and perceived solution is usually hierarchical in terms of workers and owners, classes of varyingly successful providers and competitors, and the ongoing struggle to increase the size of the pie to be divided rather than to distribute the goods of production more equitably as the solution to need and want. While crude this probably covers the basic assumptions. (Don’t get me wrong – this model has led to much innovation and improvements but at the expense of justice and sustainability.)
In contrast indigenous economies tend to see all aspects of life and persons as part of nature and interconnected therefore survival and thriving, season by season, is understood as integral to nature’s own health. Harmony and balance rather than being a romantic ideal is a practical way of seeing nature as the source of knowledge, the community as essential for survival, culture and spiritual beliefs as defining relationships and distribution, and the sharing of knowledge, decision making and goods as being determined by rights and obligations.
While Hebrew or Biblical views are not identical to indigenous they are much closer. The Hebrew, or Old Testament, view emphasises that all good comes from God’s hand and this is reflected in tithing and home based rituals of prayer and thanksgiving. The community, including the widows and orphans and aliens, are made up of those who are also chosen ones and the agreed upon religious wisdom (The Ten Commandments and other guidelines) determines how people are to be treated and what they may expect. While not equal the poor were to be provided for. Complex systems of belonging and obligation meant that most people were responsible for others and even the disadvantaged had those required to care for them.
On the contrary “Most of us have grown up with a capitalist world view which makes a virtue and goal out of accumulation, consumption, and collecting. It has taught us to assume, quite falsely, that more is better. But it’s hard for us to recognise this unsustainable and unhappy trap because it’s the only game in town ... The course that we are on assures us of a predictable future of strained individualism, environmental destruction, severe competition as resources dwindle for a growing population, and perpetual war. Our culture ingrains in us the belief that there isn’t enough to go around.”(Richard Rohr) Now most of us hearing or reading these words are twenty first century westerners so how are we to recover the sense of the fullness of God, the enoughness inherent in creation, in a way that makes sense to us and sets us free to life hopefully and faithfully?
I would like to suggest three principals that may assist us to reorientate and rest more deeply in the enoughness of our generous God and creator. Firstly to practice recognition and thanksgiving to the Creator for the goodness, preciousness and essentialness of Creation itself. This may sound simple and obvious but for centuries Christianity has tended to treat the earth and all upon it as temporary and therefore of little importance. This principal can be expressed in actions as small as remembering to start the day, even before our eyes are open, with a variation of thanksgiving: “Thank you for another day in this precious world!”; giving thanks, or saying grace (I literally sometimes just say ‘Grace’), before each meal or blessed cup of coffee; looking at the familiar and noting the beauty and complexity of what we take for granted.
This may lead us to the second principal which is to live in more interconnected ways – recognising and respecting all those we are bound to as fellow creatures. Once again this might sound simplistic and romantic but as we seek to follow this principal into and through everyday life it becomes challenging and energising. This principal may also be expressed in bigger decisions such as when planning our gardens and land care to consider the needs of bees and birds and those who live “downstream” from us; to donate to charities that care for animals and wild terrain as well as those charities which feed and help broken persons; when contemplating who to vote for consider their policies as they impact other species and the land itself. Interconnectedness is not a one way relationship, it is by definition a two way (at least) web of relationships that has us giving and receiving, growing and sharing, taking a little and passing on, having for a time and embellishing before giving to the next door neighbour or the next generation. When we truly recognise those who live in poverty and work in danger to make our clothes as interconnected we will find the energy and ways of changing. When we truly recognise those who live far away and have different ideas about things to us as none the less being deeply connected by our shared genetics and habitation on this planet we shall no longer be able to so easily divide the world into those we like and those we don’t. When we see how interconnected we truly are we will not need to be made to be better stewards of this earth but shall desire to take good and godly care of the creation and all who live upon this earth.
And when the first and second principals begin to take root and grow within us we shall desire to live more simply, our third principal, and not have to be threatened with the need to live more simply! If we remember whose creation this is and give thanks, if we recognise how interconnected we truly are, then we shall desire and trust to live more simply and gratefully, more graciously and hopefully. And when we have practiced this a little while I suspect that we shall know our selves full – full of the fullness of God – and to relax into the gratitude of having enough. May it be so.
Even so, come Lord Jesus Christ the Bread of Life that is enough for all our needs.
This is my work informed by all I have heard, read and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others. This week I am especially grateful to:
Rebecca Adamson: “Restoring Balance to the Economy” www.garrisoninstituet.org
Richard Rohr: “Embracing Enoughness” Daily Meditations, June 30 2020 www.cac.org
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