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Mark 6:34-44
[This is the last sermon in a series we’ve done this summer on seeing the story from the other side, so I’m doing something different today. I wanted to revisit a story that we read from a different Gospel at the parking lot worship last month. I have written a fictional story to help us see the biblical story another way.]
Shoshanah hated begging days. Most days she helped her grandmother around the house. Since it was just the two of them, there was much to do, even in a home as small as theirs. She had to feed the chickens, wash the clothes, sweep the dirt floor—which never made sense to her, since it was all dirt anyway. “Cleaning is putting the right dirt in the right place,” Grandmama always said. And so she cleaned.
Most of the time they made it okay. Sure, they sometimes went to bed hungry, but so did most of their neighbors. But Grandmama had a strict rule for Shoshanah: she could go to bed hungry one night, then two. But by the third day, she must have good food to eat. Shoshanah noticed that the rule did not seem to apply to Grandmama. “You are a growing girl!” Grandmama would say in explanation. “And you are a shrinking woman!” Shoshanah would reply. But still, the rule was firm. If by the third day Grandmama could not provide food, Shoshana had to go into the village to beg.
Shoshana hated begging days. Kids teased her. Their parents ignored her. The priests blessed her, which was the most annoying of all. “You can’t eat a blessing,” she called after one of them. By the time she got home that night, Grandmama had already heard.
“I should whip you three ways from Sabbath for disrespecting a priest,” her grandmother admonished. But the smirk at the edge of her lips told Shoshanah there would be no whipping.
On this particular begging day, she tried to argue with her grandmother. “It’s so embarrassing,” she complained. “That’s enough whining,” her grandmother said, uncharacteristically brusque. “Don’t worry about your wounded pride.” “It’s not wounded,” she muttered on her way out the door. “It’s broken.”
When Shoshanah arrived in the market, she positioned herself near the bread man. When she was younger, if she stood and stared at the bread longingly, he would slip her a little. Now that she was eleven, she guessed she didn’t look pitiful enough anymore. She tried to make a game out of it, to see how well—and how long—he could ignore her. She’d been there about fifteen minutes, her eyes following his every move, when her ears noticed something different. A buzz was moving through the crowd, and she heard one name on people’s lips. She had heard about Jesus, of course. Everyone had. He was from the area, after all, but wild stories were going around about him. Everybody said he could do miracles or magic or something. When it became clear that a crowd was heading out of town to see Jesus, she didn’t think twice about following. She knew she should ask Grandmama if she could go, but what use was begging in the square if everybody who had money was heading outside of town?
It wasn’t hard to find the spot. The crowd was huge—more people than she had ever seen in one spot, certainly more people than lived in her whole town! She scanned the edge of the crowd, looking for a familiar face, and it was near the front that she found Amos. She was friends with Amos in the neighborhood, and he would sometimes share his food with her if nobody was looking. “I don’t have enough food to share!” he announced as soon as he saw her. “What kind of greeting is that?” she replied. “Not ‘Hi Shoshana,’ or ‘How you doing, Shoshie?’ Just ‘I don’t have enough food to share.’ Why would you assume I was going to ask you for food? Couldn’t I just want to sit with a friend?” He had the decency to look embarrassed. “Sorry, Shoshie.” He aimed his words toward his feet. “It’s okay,” Shoshanah said with an exaggerated sigh, hoping he wouldn’t see how much his words had hurt her—or how true his assumption had been. “I’ll share my bread with you,” he assured her. “No, you don’t have to—” she protested feebly. She couldn’t afford to protest very much. “No, it’s okay, I’ll share. But I only have a little bread,” he warned. She smiled. A little bread was better than no bread at all.
They sat side by side for hours, and the rumors were true. Jesus could do magic, or miracles, or whatever you wanted to call them. A whole long line of people came to Jesus, each one sicker than the last, and Jesus healed them all. He was amazing! But to Shoshanah, it wasn’t just that he healed them. It was also the way he talked to them, like they were real people worthy of respect—not lepers and broken-down blind men. It almost made her wish she was sick! Not really sick, just a little sick—enough to get to be able to see Jesus face to face, and have him look at her that way, have him bless her. That blessing could feed her!
As the sun started sinking lower in the sky, Shoshanah noticed that Jesus’ close followers were all whispering among themselves, looking worried. “What do you think is going on?” she asked Amos. “Food,” he answered simply. “What do you mean?” He looked at her, surprised. “It’s getting late and everybody is getting hungry. Aren’t you?” “Well, sure, but . . .” her words trailed off. She was so used to being hungry, she hadn’t really thought about it. She’d been hungry for days, so it hadn’t occurred to her that nobody else had eaten in hours either. “They don’t have any food to give the people,” Amos guessed. “Well, of course not,” she replied. “Nobody would have enough food to feed all these people. But surely some people brought food with them.” Amos shook his head as the disciples rummaged through their bags. “I don’t think they even have food for themselves. I bet they’re going to end this and tell everybody to go home. Jesus has got to be hungry.” Shoshanah looked around. “But they can’t stop. Not yet. There’s still a long line of people waiting to see Jesus.” Amos followed her gaze. “So many people,” he muttered.
Then she Josiah, her best friend’s older brother, in line waiting to see Jesus. He had broken his leg and it hadn’t healed right, and he could barely walk. The family worried about his future—how he would make a living, what kind of work he’d be able to do, how he would get a wife.
She looked further down the line. There was old Urah, with her grandbaby who cried all the time at first, and now not at all. Her eyes kept moving down the line. She didn’t know many of them, but she saw how tired they were, how desperate they were, and she knew that look. It was the look on her Grandmama’s face every begging day. And Shoshanah made up her mind.
She turned to the man beside them. “Jesus needs food, and we’re giving him ours.” She glanced at Amos and got a quick nod of confirmation. “Can you share, too?” The man scowled at her. “He should have brought his own,” he growled. She turned to the next woman with two young children. “Jesus needs food, and we’re giving him ours,” she repeated. “Can you share, too?” The woman’s face paled. “Oh, I wish I could, but I barely have enough to feed my children.” “Me—I have some!” The voice came from behind Shoshanah, and she turned around. here was one of the people Jesus had already healed. He was grinning from ear to ear. “I’m so full of thanks for what Jesus did that he can have every crumb!”
Another person handed over their bag, and Amos took it. “We’re up to—let’s see—five loaves and two fish,” he said. “Should we keep collecting or give it to Jesus now?” “Let’s give it to him quick,” Shoshanah said, “before they stop the healings.” They ran together up to the disciples. “It’s not a lot,” the boy said, “but I hope it will help.”
They returned to their spot on the grass, feeling good that they had fed Jesus and maybe even a few bites for the disciples, too. Now the healings could continue. They watched as the disciples took the food to Jesus, and they prepared to watch him eat their gifts. Shoshanah’s stomach rumbled at the thought. But Jesus didn’t eat it right away. Instead he lifted it up and he prayed and then the disciples starting passing it out to the crowd. But how could that be? There were only five loaves and two fish. So they’d feed, at most, seven people. Maybe twice that if they only took a little. But there were thousands of people there. What good was feeding the front row if the next row was still hungry?
But it kept going. The food kept getting passed. The disciples kept handing out fish and bread, and Shoshanah and Amos were amazed when some of it made its way back to them. They looked at each other grinning as they stuffed the food happily into their mouths. Shoshanah stood up and looked back at the rest of the crowd. The disciples were still handing out fish and bread. The food just kept going.
And so did the line. Shoshanah watched as first Josiah, then Urah’s grandbaby were touched and healed by Jesus. By the time the sun began to set, the line was finished. All those broken people, made whole. The party began to break apart, people leaving and heading back home before it got dark. Jesus and his disciples were finally getting to eat. Shoshanah kept looking at him, not wanting to leave just yet, wanting to simply be near him, maybe catch his eye, get a smile. Suddenly he looked at her and grinned. “I suppose your grandmother knows what to do with leftovers.”
Her heart leapt—he was actually speaking to her! “Leftovers, sir?” she stammered. “I don’t know that she’s ever had them.” Jesus’ grin faded. “Well, she’ll get them today. You two take one of those baskets and share it between your families. You deserve it.” Shoshanah and Amos walked over to the baskets and peered inside. They were full of bread and fish. “I hope you don’t mind that the pieces are all broken,” Jesus said. “All that broken adds up to a whole big feast,” she assured him. Shoshanah and Amos lugged the big basket home to their village. As promised, they split it between their families—more to Amos’s since there were more mouths to feed. But even then, there was still some left.
Shoshie looked at Amos. “Sharing is kind of fun. Want to do some more?” Amos laughed. “You bet.” They took the basket to their neighbor’s house, and then another and another. Everybody who was hungry had their fill. When Shoshanah went back home, her heart felt lighter than it had for years. She tried to explain the feeling to her grandmother.
“I always worry that people will think of me as that girl who sometimes has to beg for food,” she admitted. “I don’t want people to think of me that way. I don’t want . . .” She paused, searching for the right words.
“You don’t want to be defined by your need,” Grandmama supplied. “Exactly!” Shoshanah agreed. “Today I wasn’t the girl who didn’t have enough. Today I was the girl who had more. More than enough. More than more.”
She looked again at the few broken pieces of fish and bread still lying on their table. “Who knew so much wholeness could come from brokenness?” she whispered. Her Grandmama pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “My sweet girl, true wholeness comes from nowhere else.”