Apologies,  we were unable to livestream our service this weekend.

Maggie Kirkbride, Lay Preaching Advocate for URC Wales Synod led our service.

Fortunately we have been able to share her reflection with you.

Reading:                      John 6: 1-15

Reflection

This is a very well-known story from the Bible, but this version is different in that it concentrates much more on Jesus than the miracle he performs of feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes.

It shows a contemplative Jesus, a compassionate Jesus but also a Jesus that did not want be the King the people were looking for.

Jesus had been in Capernaum but took to a boat on the Sea of Galilee to journey to the other side, near to Bethsaida Julias. Near this town was a very large plain given to growing good grass and Jesus headed  to a hill overlooking this plain. He wanted some time to refresh and also continue his teachings to the disciples.

We are told that this happened near the time of the Feast of the Passover, which meant that there was a lot of movement on the roads leading to Jerusalem. Many pilgrims used the roads around the Sea of Galilee for their travels, which may explain why such a crowd gathered. Jesus’ reputation had been widely spoken about, so any chance to see and hear him would have been too much to miss.

In this version from John nothing is made of the time that Jesus spent talking to the crowd as it is in Matthew, Mark and Luke. His first, compassionate thoughts in this passage are for the welfare of the crowd. It is possible he asked Philip as Philip came from Bethsaida Julius, and would know the local providers well enough to gauge if they could actually find enough food for the crowd. Philip was more concerned with the cost! Don’t we all know that feeling? Faced with an enormous feeding task we bring it down to cost.

But Jesus doesn’t, it is all about compassion from him. He is totally struck by the fact that there is a huge crowd that need feeding. But Jesus does it his way! He not only feeds them physically by providing enough food and plenty left over, but he feeds them spiritually, by providing them with a miracle right in front of them, for each of them individually, not just one lucky person.

So what is compassion? Well Google tells me one explanation is:

Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.

Why is it so important in this passage? My thoughts on this are that Jesus doesn’t think on the problem the way we do. As I have said we would look at the task of feeding this enormous number of people, but Jesus simply sees their possible suffering. They have sat/stood for hours, possibly in some heat, or may be cold, and as they had not planned to do that, they possibly would not have brought enough food for the day. So Jesus takes on the responsibility, the motivation, to relieve their hunger. In the passage John dares to state Jesus’ thinking “actually he already knew what he would do”  Yes Jesus knew how he would sort out the situation but he still manages to stun the disciples.

So how do we see compassion in practice today? Well, there are many Christian charities doing marvellous work, and I am sure this church is full of compassion, I know of the good work done in the chaplaincy at the University, well needed in our times of mental issues. There will be lots of other examples that you know of, but I am, as yet, unaware.

It’s not a big leap for us to think about how we can show compassion in our lives. Jesus shows us a huge miracle but we may not have that sort of option. But we can look into this story and find some different ways of looking at it.

It may simply be the miracle it was! Some of us can look at it and wonder, may find it hard to reconcile in a practical way. Taken to an extreme there may be those who wonder why he could do it for the crowd but refused to do it when he was being tempted himself.

Could it have been a sacramental meal? Could the small morsel we imagine each to have received have turned from a crumb to something that richly nourished their hearts and souls? As we have at our communion service today, a small morsel that fills us with ………… well your personal experience.

Or maybe there is another explanation. As I have said earlier, it is probable that many of the crowd were travellers, so they would have provisions with them anyway. But would they willingly share what they had with others? Then Jesus shows the crowd the small offering from a small boy, he thanks God for the food and then proceeds to have it shared out. Maybe, moved by this example, everyone who had something shared it too, which mean, in the end that all were fed. Could this be a miracle of selfish people being turned into a fellowship of sharers? Did this represent the biggest miracle of all – one which changed not loaves and fishes, but men and women?

There has, no doubt, been a lot of compassion around your deliberations on the move you are making to your new church. It isn’t an easy issue and there will have been some who have needed your compassion through the deliberations and decisions.

So Jesus lives on in us. He shows us through his stories how we can be more like him, more compassionate for our fellow human beings.

Amen

A poem:

The World’s Greatest Need                       C. Austin Miles

A little more kindness and a little less greed;

A little more giving and a little less need;

A little more smile and a little less frown;

A little less kicking a man when he’s down;

A little more ‘we’ and a little less ‘I’;

A little more laughs and a little less cry;

A little more flowers on the pathway of life;

And fewer on graves at the end of the strife.