An Economy of Enough

As I read more and more of the stories about Jesus I am struck by the intentionality of Christ. Everything He did, everything he said, everyone he spent time with, ate with and talked with was intentional at that very time -- there was a truth to be learned not necessarily by His words, but by what He was doing, right then. I am reading Brian D. McLaren's Everything Must Change and he points out a couple of these occasions. The most striking is when Jesus feeds the multitudes (many call it Jesus feeds the 5,000, however, the five thousand refers to the men in the crowd. It is possibly more accurate to estimate that Jesus actually fed upwards of 15-20 thousand.)

Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.

Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.”

But Jesus said, “You feed them.”

“With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!”

“How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.”

They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.”

Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred.

Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!

(Mark 6:34-44 NLT)

It is easy to look at this (and other) miracles attributed to Jesus and take them at face value. It is a story about Jesus and his divine power, as well as a deep compassion and love for people. All of that is true, but as usually is the case with Jesus, there is more than meets the eye (or the ears) to this story. When the disciples realize that it is getting late they ask Jesus to send the people away so they can buy something to eat. McLaren points out that "Jesus' reply contradicts both the words 'buy' and 'they/themselves.' Instead of 'they/themselves,' he says 'you,' and instead of 'buy' he says 'give.'"

So many times we can't imagine that what we already have is enough. I'm not talking about some divine thinking about the power of God and if we can only believe in His power we can move mountains. Although that is exactly what Jesus ends up doing in this story, and it is a truth that I haven't quite grasped yet. I'm talking about something much less supernatural. In response to the disciples' request to "send the crowds away to buy something to eat," Jesus says: "You feed them." The disciples' response was probably something like this: "Seriously Jesus? There are possibly 15,000 people here. How?" Jesus tells them simply to "go and see" how much they already have. McLaren goes on, "[Jesus] wants them to count what they already have, because what they already have counts, and is, in fact, enough through God's gracious provision."

Jesus is intentionally contradicting our version of economy and provision and calling us to a radically different economy -- an economy of enough. As in this story, in God's economy of enough the people "ate and were satisfied" (v. 42). In this economy Jesus asks instead for "you" to "give" from what you already have. This is true religion (James 1:27). Finally, and most importantly, Jesus "taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven," gives thanks to God (v. 41). This economy is based on gratitude of the Creator, neighborly sharing and reducing our consumption. When we do this, we will all have baskets of bread and fish to spare (v. 43).