2 Kings 4:42-44
A man came from Baal-shalishah bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord: They shall eat and have some left.” He set it before them; they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.
There are themes that repeat again and again in scripture and once you start to learn them, you can’t help but see them in readings across the canon and even in our own lives. One of the reasons I encourage people to read their Bible’s is that the more you know about this book, the more you will see that it does actually have something in it relevant for most every aspect of life. Stories that teach us something about what it is to be human, and what it means to know God. Teachings that tell us what we should be doing and what we should be avoiding. In this book are all things needful, and the more of it we consume the more of it will consume us.
Of all the themes in scripture, there is a near constant refrain regarding the need to feed the hungry. In Genesis, it was setting a table for strangers that allowed Abraham to receive a blessing from God. The Exodus sees God feeding God’s people with bread from Heaven, and instills in them lessons about what it means to share their excess rather than hoard it. Prophet after prophet tell the same tale – “You would be blessed by God! But you forgot to love your neighbor and feed them when they were hungry…”
In this constant refrain to join one another around a table, to share our food, we are given a variety of other clues about what it means to be a person of faith and live into this prophetic identity we have all been called to. On one hand it seems overly simple to have food and share it with other people – if there’s a problem then we need to be part of the solution – but sharing food is such a common theme because we do so much more when we eat together than just share food. To sit down with someone, to pass plates and bowls between each other, to sit and talk and share life, this is all so much more than just providing calories – this is sharing the very essence of life – connection and community that allows us to become more than we ever were before. In meeting each other over a table, we become vulnerable, and in that vulnerability find strength.
We read in our scripture today an episode where the Prophet Elisha receives an offering and turns that offering into a blessing for the people. Two things are interesting about this gift. Firstly, the offering was from the First Fruits of the Harvest, an offering usually reserved for feeding the attendants in the tabernacle or temple. Yet, when the prophet receives this food he does not save it for himself, as would be all that was required of him, but asks that the people around him be fed with what was brought forward. The few pieces of bread, the collection of grain, it suddenly multiplies miraculously, but this multiplication is a consequence of a far simple action – sharing the abundance God has given for the good of others.
The entirety of this chapter captures other actions that Elisha took for the good of others. He miraculously made oil to save a woman’s children from slavery, he gave a woman her child twice, he made inedible food edible with just a sprinkle of flour… Mundane creatures of oil and wheat were used again and again to care for people. The prophetic life is shown, just across the span of a few pages, not to be found only in dramatic declarations or in fire falling from Heaven, but in the simple act of caring for others and showing love to those who need it most.
If we fast forward to Christ’s ministry we find him acting in much the same way. Famously, scripture records two instances where Christ multiplies bread and fish to feed thousands of people – showing him as a greater miracle worker than anyone before him. Yet, Christ’s ministry was not just in the multitude, but the individual. People would come to Jesus to be healed of all kinds of trouble, and Jesus would address them each in turn. Christ cared for the crowd and for the individual, for the ninety-nine and for the one. This care, the ministry poured out for the good of all people, is the example we all have to follow if we are to call ourselves followers of Christ.
I see, with some regularity, a constant need for people to define the reason for why Jesus would sit and eat with people who were marginalized by society. The sinners and the tax collectors were those Jesus chose to eat with, and people feel the need, and it is a well-intended impulse, to explain why he did this. The problem is that in explaining it, we often miss the point. Jesus tells us point blank that “Those who are well do not need doctors,” telling us this is a redemptive work.[1] The argument usually goes forward then that any work we do in the Church to expand the table and let more people in, must be to “fix,” them and we should always have food in one hand and a reprimand in the other.
As we talked about last week however, the only way anything really flourishes in the life of faith is if God is the goal of our work. For Christ, the reason he ate with sinners was indeed to bring them to a place they could be healed, but that was accomplished through a far simpler method than inviting them in and then imposing change upon them. Christ was changing their lives by making access to God available for them. The “righteous,” those who knew what the word of God was, who read their scripture and claimed to live by it, would not condescend to be with those unlike themselves. They would criticize people for not knowing God and then use every excuse for why those “godless,” people shouldn’t be allowed in their “sacred” spaces.
In opening up the table, in joining the outcast in their homes, Jesus was not sitting there eating with them and waving a finger the whole time. Instead, Christ was moving what was defined as a sacred space away from those with money, means, and access to those who had nothing at all. Christ, the focus of our life and our ministry, moved away from the Church folk and went out to the World, and when Christ did that the entire focus of our lives should have moved with him. Christ did not sit with sinners for any other reason than to allow them to sit, and eat, with God almighty, and we ought to work toward the same goal.
If we want to be a vibrant church, if we want to be Christians in the truest sense of the word, we should work to spend real time with the people in our community. It can be hard in a world where we are so often fixated on our own troubles, locked up in our homes with all the things we could ever need, trapped in bastions of privilege that make us believe the lie that we do not need one another. The work of a prophet, of bringing Christ’s words into the world, requires us to be centered in Christ, to give a message different than what the world offers, to establish something much bigger and long-lived than ourselves… The work of a prophet, grandiose as it is simple, is summarized in simply opening the doors and letting people in.
What are we doing to love other people? What are we doing to get to know them? To pray for their needs and to do what we can to see that those same needs are met? Prophets are not just people who say things, they do not just proclaim, they do! The Church is one source of prophetic work, but through faith we have become a “nation of priests,” and if we are all prophets than we all ought to be doing something. How have you loved your neighbor this week? How have you shown kindness to those who have not had any kindness for some time? How are you opening the doors of faith for others to step in, and centering Christ in all things?
We are here today because someone said to us that we could eat at their table. Let us do the same for others. Open wide the gates, break every lock, remove every barrier! God is here among us and God is here to stay! Let nothing keep people from coming and feasting at God’s table! Let your heart be lit with love and care, let that flame burn bright and let it light this darkened world! – Amen.
[1] Matthew 5:31-32
Teach us to Number our Days 