Splendor in the Grass

As I did my Bible reading this morning, I did so under the glaze of yesterday's journal entry.  Today, I read the story of the miracle of distribution:  the story of the loaves and fishes from Mark. 

I used a lectio divina technique:  I read with particular focus on whatever captured my attention--a word or a phrase.  What captured my attention this reading was that He put the people in groups--50 to 100 per group--before He blessed and broke the loaves and divided the fish and served them.  Why that little factoid, God?  I know--especially in the succinct Gospel of Mark--to the spiritual reader, nothing is added simply for flourish, as a local flavor.  All has a power to instruct, to edify.  Why this little tidbit?

And I felt the Spirit of God bring to my remembrance yesterday's journal review.  I heard Him say, "Christ foreshadowed the Church era in this act."  A day would come when various denominations would grow hungry and tired and turn to pick at each other. 
A day would come when people would die for choosing one church over another, despite that both fell within a circle that acknowledged the Christ as Lord. 
A day would come when one man's philosophy would take harsh rhetoric against an other's, marring the faith of both and the beauty of all their praise. 
A day would come--and is today--when a man's hyper-focus on the life of the moment would make him take up spiritual arms, tongue-lashing another, even one whose faith toward the here-after makes them close brothers in the eternal. 
A day would come when those who do profess their eyes on larger realms, the realm of the spirit, see only God's vengeance there, mouth-foamers who proceed to protest at little old ladies' Christian funerals when those little old ladies happen to die in tornadoes or hurricanes--acts of God. 

These are they for whom that factoid was added.  These are they who will be reminded on Judgment Day or sooner if they are wise:
He sat them in groups.  Each group He commanded. 
He provided enough food for all, with food enough to spare.
The disciples would have sent each person on his own way.  Their compassion reached as far as the people's bellies and the nearest obvious resources.  But Christ had more in mind for those who would follow Him.  Christ had a worthy moment in time to fashion, a moment worth living out for the sake of the ages.  A moment for future generations to look back on and bless as a lesson.
He sat them in groups...and He fed them.

February 1, 2005
I turned 41 years old yesterday.  Now I'm old.  (ha ha)  I was reading a graph in my Bible reading in 2 Corinthians today and got to musing on it.  It compared the Old Covenant with the New Covenant.  For the first time, the thought came to me:  why two covenants?  The new one was obviously so much better--at least from the human standpoint.  So why have the old one at all?  Why run all those lives through the world before the "good stuff" got here?  It's like the whole failing-Eve thing.  Why death before real life?  God created all, so technically He created the vehicle through which mankind failed Him...so, why?  He is the author of free-will, and He certainly has it Himself, so He chose this, knowing we'd fail.  Why use that?  I'm curious, God.

Since I wrote this, I've been blessed to read various philosophical texts that led me to feel I had at least the beginning of God's answers for that Old/New Covenant question.  The book of Romans began to speak richly to me as I allowed myself to ask hard questions...but the point of beauty to me now as I look back is this:  I asked. 


In the days of my consideration of an assignment in ministry, I noted that there was an unspoken contract between people and some of their human shepherds--a sort of "don't ask, I can't tell" policy.  It works like this:  somewhere inside your soul, you perceived that there were questions too large for your minister to answer, so you graciously didn't ask those questions.  Well, I asked those questions.  Fortunately, I had pastors who either had good answers, good textual resources to offer me, or at the very least an honest and transparent enough spirit  to say, "I don't have that one answered yet either.  Let's keep seeking God since the question is in your heart."  But many people are so kind that they don't even ask. 


The problem is, these same people project that fragility of knowledge onto God, too.  If the question is too large for a human to answer, they quit asking.  They don't think they are "allowed" to ask man, so they don't ask God, either.  They project on Him the same shame they fear they would lay on a pastor who had no answer for their probing questions.  They presume they would offend God in the asking.  Strange, but the very measure of grace in the cup of their hearts keeps them unnecessarily in ignorance.   Sadly and ironically, scripture contains nuggets here and there that point to God actually loving when we bring these queries to Him.  "Come, let us reason together,"  He invites.  No question is too large for Him to receive, and none too large for Him to fashion some sort of answer that we can comprehend, even if it be only a partial answer due to our limited vision.

But, as the epistle says, if you ask for wisdom, ask in faith.  Don't be double-minded.  Ask with purity.  Ask because you really want the answer--and not just because you want to justify a cherished belief or doctrine.  You might have to let some things go to make room for His answer.

You might have to let go of squabbling with the group sitting next to you in the grass.  I've heard some say (those who like to explain away miracles because their empirical minds can't believe in a good that flows from a place outside the measurable) I've heard them say, "Well, He probably guilted those who were hiding/hoarding food into sharing when He sat them in mini-communities like that.  There was no miracle there."  But the older I get; the longer I watch mob mentality in action and the longer I see selfishness shackle human hearts, the more I'm inclined to say, "No miracle?  Brother, if that is the real story, then surely an even larger miracle happened than that He pulled bread out of thin air!"  It diminishes nothing on the scale of the miraculous, really, because whatever their hunger--whether for food in their bellies or unselfishness in their souls--
He sat them in groups...and He fed them.