Of Loaves and Fishes and Grinches and Beads
Len Niehoff
A sermon shared at the Suttons Bay Congregational
Church
March 24, 2019
Scripture: Mark 6:35-44
As some of you know, although I practice
law and serve as an occasional itinerant preacher, my actual full-time gig is
teaching at the University of Michigan Law School. My courses there include one
in Evidence—the rules that determine what a jury may and may not consider
during a trial. I’ve taught this subject for more than thirty years and I find it
fascinating. If we’re ever seated next to each other at a dinner party, I will
bore you senseless talking about it.
Early in my teaching, I realized
that many of my students assumed that the best evidence comes in the form of
eyewitness testimony. In my experience, most non-lawyers think this way, too.
If we want to know whether something happened, we often begin by asking whether
anyone saw it happen. We tend to view
eyewitness testimony as uniquely reliable.
Social scientists and trial lawyers
will tell you that it doesn’t exactly work that way. In fact, eyewitness
testimony can suffer from all sorts of problems. A witness’s testimony can be
distorted by their memory, their suggestibility, their assumptions, their biases,
or their failures of perception—especially their failures of perception. Indeed,
none of us is as observant as we think we are; when Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson “You
see but you do not observe” he might as well be talking to everyone but
himself.
To make the point to my students, I
engage them in a little exercise. At the beginning of a class, I hand out small
pieces of paper for them to write on. I say: “Okay, I’ve been standing right in
front of you for a few weeks and you’ve had plenty of opportunities to observe
me. I’m going to leave the room. While I’m out, please write down your
estimates of my height, my weight, and my age. And please describe the clothes
I wore to class yesterday.” About ten minutes later I return and collect the
results.
Every year, things play out the same
way: the students’ perceptions of me vary wildly. Guesses at my height range
from 5’6” to 6’2”; my weight ranges from 150 pounds to 230 pounds; my age
ranges from 50 to 70. And almost no one has the foggiest idea of how I was
dressed the day before—even though I stood before them for more than an hour. (By
the way, since you’re now all staring and trying to guess the answers to these
questions I will tell you that I’m about 5’8, weigh around 195 pounds, and am
61 years old, which explains why the students who put me at 6’2 and 50 always
receive A’s.)
Eyewitnesses perceive things differently—sometimes
very differently. And having more witnesses
does not necessarily help. Indeed, as my class experiment shows, additional
witnesses can just mean additional variations.
I think that understanding this
reality about eyewitness testimony helps with the business of biblical
interpretation. Religious skeptics sometimes point out that the scriptures give
us inconsistent accounts of what happened around a particular event. For
example, the four gospel accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection differ
significantly in their details. And that’s a story we might think the Bible would
report consistently given the fact that, well, it’s sort of important, being
the foundation of our religion and all.
But those differences do absolutely nothing to
undermine my faith. To the contrary, they are exactly what I would expect to
find in reports of what eyewitnesses say they saw. If people did indeed see
something, they will vary in how they describe it.
In this sense, inconsistencies serve
as a paradoxical source of comfort. They reassure us that the thing witnessed
actually happened. So, sure, my students may vary in their guesses about my
height, weight, age, and clothing. But not one of them harbors any doubt that I
am indeed the guy who has been standing in front of them for weeks, talking to
them about Evidence. No student has ever written on their piece of paper: “I do
not know who you are. I have never seen you before.” In other words, testimony
from multiple witnesses can differ in its details—and it usually does—but it
tends to be consistent with respect to “the big picture.” And that can also
help us understand what the big picture is.
So it goes with the eyewitness narratives we encounter
in the Bible. Stories may differ in their details, but often the details
frankly don’t matter much. The point of the story is that something amazing happened, and the stories will align in general
terms about what that something amazing
was.
This brings us to our scripture for
today, the story of the loaves and the fish and the feeding of the multitude. The
scriptures give us a number of different versions of this story. Some passages
describe this as a miracle involving five loaves and two fish, some as
involving seven loaves and a few fish; some say that Jesus fed five thousand,
some say he fed four; some say the disciples collected the leftovers in twelve small
baskets, some say they used seven bigger ones; some versions suggest we’re
talking about one miracle on one occasion, others indicate we’re talking about
two miracles on two occasions.
Should these variations trouble us?
I think not at all. As I’ve suggested, these sorts of differences in accounts
are completely consistent with what we routinely find when multiple witnesses see
the same thing. Besides, all of the versions agree that something amazing happened and agree in general terms about what that something amazing was. And
remember: in life, we want to strive to become seers of miracles—not counters
of fishes.
But here’s the main thing: I believe
there is one number that matters more than all of those others I just gave
you—the number four. The feeding of the multitudes is the only miracle reported in all
four of the gospels: Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6. Clearly,
something very important is going on in this story. I can almost hear our
heavenly parent saying—as parents around the world do with considerable
frequency—“how many times do I have to tell you this?”
It’s tempting to think that the
importance of this story lies in the magnitude of the miracle. After all,
feeding thousands of people with a handful of bread and fish makes for one
impressive feat. But I don’t think that’s the answer. After all, raising
Lazarus from the dead seems at least as remarkable and that story appears only
in the gospel of John.
No, in my view this story derives
its importance primarily from the attitude
of the disciples that prompts Jesus to
perform the miracle. In other words, I think this story matters so much—and
has so much to teach us—not because of what
Jesus does but because of why he does
it. Of course, to some extent he multiplied the loaves and fish because he
had lots of hungry people on his hands and felt compassion for them. But I
think he also did it (and perhaps mainly did
it) because of something his disciples said
that he felt compelled to correct.
On this point, the gospel narratives
are extraordinarily consistent. In every one of them, the disciples say it is
impossible to feed the gathered crowd with what they have. The details vary:
for example, in Matthew 14 the disciples say: “We have nothing here but five
loaves and two fish” while in John 6 they say “Six months’ wages would not buy
enough bread for each of them to get a little.” But the thrust of their remarks
is identical in every gospel: we don’t have enough; it can’t be done. In each
of the gospels, the disciples express an attitude of scarcity—and in each of the gospels Jesus shows them to be wrong. “Not enough? Here, start passing
the fish.”
Jesus conveys this anti-scarcity message
over and over and over again throughout the scriptures. Indeed, it lies at the
center of many of the most familiar gospel stories. Remember the story of “the
widow’s mite”: A poor widow contributed all she had to the treasury of the
house of God. She could have held back—after all, money was scarce. But she did
not and Jesus blessed her for it. (Mark 12) Or this story: A woman broke open a
bottle of costly ointment and rubbed it into Jesus’s hair. Some of those
present complained that she had “wasted” it—after all, such ointment was
scarce. But Jesus admonished them and
blessed her. (Mark 14)
Now, I want you to notice something
about all of these stories—they involve real
scarcity. In contrast, we human beings can sometimes indulge in an attitude of false scarcity.
We manufacture a scarcity concern
that does not actually exist and then use it to justify our behavior. Let me
give you a trivial—but pointed—example that comes from a recent experience …
because, you know, when you do sermons you walk through life looking for parables.
And you find a lot of them. So here’s my latest.
Lisa and I love New Orleans and the
festive weeks leading up to Mardi Gras. As many of you know, lots of beads get
thrown during Mardi Gras, sometimes under circumstances that have given the
practice a regrettably sketchy reputation. But here’s what you need to
understand if you’ve never been: thousands and thousands and thousands of
strands of beads get thrown to people during Mardi Gras, mostly during parades
from floats. Late at night, the streets are littered with them—they crunch
under your feet. And all you need to do to get someone to throw some to you is
wave and yell.
A grand Mardi Gras tradition holds that
if you catch a strand of beads, and you’ve already got some, then you look
around to see if anyone near you needs any. If so, you give them away. On Mardi
Gras itself—the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday—Lisa and I found ourselves in a
parade stand surrounded by people who were giving beads away as fast as they
could catch them—to strangers, to children, to the less mobile among us. An
elderly woman visiting from England, who couldn’t stand up to catch any herself
because of her physical limitations, laughed in delight as people around her
draped dozens of strands of beads about her neck. “Does she have purple?” I
heard someone yell. “I’ve got an excellent purple!”
But then there was “that guy” and,
as we all know, in life you never want to be “that guy.” He caught lots of
beads, sometimes snagging them from the outstretched hands of others—and then
kept all of them! He accumulated quite a stash, at one point bragging that last
year he had brought home many pounds of them. Lisa leaned over to me and
whispered conspiratorily: “We have a bead hog in our midst.” And here’s my
point: the bead hog had brought an attitude of scarcity to an activity where
there was anything but. My friends, whatever other shortages exist in the
world, I’m here to tell you that there is no deficit of beads in New Orleans,
Louisiana, in the days leading up to Lent.
Now, contrast this with the Bible
stories I referenced a moment ago. If you’ve got thousands of people to feed,
then having a few loaves and fish is genuine
scarcity. If you’re poor like the widow, then the money you give the church
comes from genuine scarcity. If
ointment is rare, then by definition there is a genuine scarcity of it. And yet, even in those circumstances where true scarcity exists, Jesus tells us
that we must have an attitude of abundance.
And Jesus tells us this—as he tells
us all things—because he loves us more
than we can imagine. He understood that an attitude of abundance makes our
lives—and the lives of everyone around us—better. An attitude of scarcity, in
contrast, breeds a smallness of heart and a corresponding smallness of life. Have
you ever met a sad person who had an
attitude of abundance? Neither have I. Have you ever met a spiritually mature person who had an attitude of scarcity? Me
either.
This is, of course, the point of one
of the famous stories of that other great gospel writer—Dr. Seuss. The greedy
Grinch that we meet at the beginning of his story has a shriveled, tiny heart
that is “two sizes too small.” The generous Grinch that emerges at the end of
the tale has a heart three times bigger—and, to go along with it, the “strength
of ten Grinches, plus two!” We are all human beings and therefore, alas, full
of Grinch potential. The question is: which
Grinch are we going to be? The petty and childish one at the beginning? Or
the spiritually mature one at the end … who gets to join hands and sing with
Cindy Lou Who?
Now, Jesus does not promise us that
maintaining an attitude of abundance will come easily. He knew that genuine
scarcity exists—indeed, he was surrounded by it. And he understood how easily
an attitude of scarcity can infect our hearts and the hearts of everyone with
whom we interact. He realized the temptations that exist to become that Grinch and that guy.
But he also understood that an
attitude of abundance has its own
infectious quality. If we sow it, we will reap it. If we model it, others will
embrace it. Many of us give to worthwhile organizations that try to address the
genuine scarcities of the world—like Leelanau Christian Neighbors—because someone else pointed the way for us out
of their spirit of abundance.
And, of course, a central point of
this message has nothing to do with material things. It has to do with things
like patience, and forgiveness, and compassion, and empathy, and love—things that
exist in infinite quantities, but that can become scarce if we choose to make
them so. Jesus tells us they are plentiful, indeed they are inside us all the
time. Let ‘em out, he says, and pass them around like loaves and fishes.
Going through life with an attitude of abundance is
like riding along on a float and throwing shiny gifts into crowds of people you
don’t even know. By this, Jesus said, everyone will know that we are his
disciples. They will know that we are Christians by our love.
*
Perhaps you’re wondering: what became
of the bead hog? Well, he wandered away for a while, and I assumed he was gone
for good, but then he came back. At first, I thought he seemed a bit sheepish
because of his earlier bead-hoarding. But then he sidled right up next to the
street, in front of everybody else, where the opportunities for catching things
were the best. I thought to myself: “Wow. He’s watching all these people give
all this stuff away and he still doesn’t
get it.”
But then a very special prize much rarer than a strand
of beads—a bright yellow plastic horn, ideal for tooting—flew from a float,
passed through his fingers, and dropped at his feet behind him. He spun around,
snatched it up, paused for a moment, and then handed it to me. Then he caught
another prize—a foam football—and stuck it in the hands of a boy standing next
to him. A whistle, a medallion, a coin … he caught them and passed them around!
Sure, he still kept some beads—as did we all. But he was giving them away as
well.
When last I saw him, he was headed away from the
parade with his wife, working his way through the throngs of people. In
addition to some strands of beads, he was wearing something else—something I
hadn’t seen on him all morning long. It was a faint, but clearly discernible,
smile. For the first time, he actually looked happy.
Who knows?
Perhaps it was because his heart had
grown three times bigger that day.
Ah, praise God that it might be so.
And the people said: Amen.
