Four years ago this week, I was walking through an African village in Namibia with my friend, Solveig Kjeseth. We stopped to look at a strange tower formed out of earth. It was about five feet high, crooked in shape, wide at the bottom and coming to a point at the top. I thought it looked like the top of a giant, rumpled witch's hat, only it was gray instead of black. Solveig informed me, much to my surprise, that it was an anthill. I was even more surprised when we came across many more, some of which towered over my head. They were huge! I was amazed that tiny little ants could build such large and interesting houses.
So, I began to do a little ant research. I learned that there are about 10,000 different kinds of ants. They live in very organized communities called colonies. They are found almost everywhere on earth except where it is extremely cold. In spite of their small size, ants are amazingly strong. Most ants can lift objects that are ten times heavier than their bodies. That means if I were an ant, I could lift over 1,000 pounds. Some ants can lift things fifty times heavier than themselves! Ants are assigned different jobs within the colony. Some care for the queen, some repair and defend the nest, some care for the young, and others gather food. A lot of ants are assigned to the food detail. That's when I decided to check the Bible on ants. The only two places in the Bible where ants are mentioned are in Proverbs where the writer refers to their wisdom in working during the summer to store up food for the winter. Apparently, ants are both strong and smart!
In today's gospel, the disciples were wishing they had thought to bring along an extra sandwich to share. But they hadn't. They were in a predicament. They were surrounded by hungry people just when they thought they were going to get away for some peace and quiet with their teacher. The disciples were probably tired and cranky and hungry themselves. They had missed their lunch, after all. Jesus seems to take the interrupted day off in stride. He sees these people as sheep needing a shepherd. He gives up his afternoon of rest to give them what he could: an afternoon of teaching. But now Jesus tells the disciples they must come up with some food for this crowd. The disciples try to sidestep the issue, saying "Let the people go find their own food." Jesus doesn't let them off the hook. Perhaps the disciples thought Jesus was suffering from heatstroke. There was no Quik-Trip in sight, not even a village. Where were they to get food for such a large hungry crowd? But Jesus just says, "Go and see what you have to share."
Back to the anthills. Ants of different varieties build very different sorts of houses. Carpenter ants make their homes in the trunks of trees. Weaver ants weave nests out of tree leaves. Some ants build homes under ground and some on top like the African ants. Some anthills are so large they would cover a tennis court. Almost all ants make tunnels and compartments. They make places for the queens to bear their young. They make chambers for nurseries and resting places for the workers. They form storage rooms for their food, and they set aside rooms for raising the fungus they like so much. They grow gardens within their nests to feed them all. And, as the colony grows, the workers simply add more passageways, more rooms, and more food. They know they can do it. They've always been doing it. It's programmed into their genes.
I wish it were programmed into ours. We could feed the whole world if we wanted to. If you have ever worked with disaster relief you know what it is like to face hungry people with inadequate food supplies. If you haven't, you have seen the pictures. After Hurricane Katrina there were huge crowds of hungry people looking for a place to lay their heads and food to feed their growling stomachs. In our world today, there are whole nations where people are starving for lack of food. Like the disciples, we say, "It's too big a problem, Lord. I am just one person. We are just a few people. Send the hungry away to take care of themselves." And Jesus, who interrupted his one-day vacation to give them what they need, says, "Go and see what you have to share."
For a long time, scientists didn't understand how ants managed to live and thrive in the midst of a terrible drought and famine. But then one man studying them discovered the reason. In one huge anthill he was examining, he found an ingenious shaft running through the mound from the top to the bottom. It ran 65 feet down to a spring. All night long the ants ran up and down, carrying the precious little drops of water that kept alive their underground gardens, their food supply. This way they were able to feed hundreds and thousands of their brothers and sisters.
The problem the disciples had with feeding the multitude was that they were operating with a different set of assumptions from those Jesus had. The disciples were operating out of a sense of scarcity. They looked around and saw no picnic baskets, no 7-11 stores, and they assumed the task was hopeless.
Jesus, on the other hand, operated out of a sense of plenty. He looked at the same scene the disciples were seeing, and where they were seeing not enough, he was seeing plenty: plenty of time, plenty of imagination, plenty of possibilities, maybe even plenty of food. Jesus didn't know how they were going to accomplish this task but he knew it was possible. He knew the capabilities of his disciples better than they did. Jesus knew that where there was plenty of God there would be plenty of everything else. If we learn only one lesson from the ants, we can learn that we should build a tunnel into the wellspring of the one who said, "I am the living water." Prayer and faith and persistent trust will build it. If we do build the tunnel, the bubbling grace of God will rush up through us into a world that needs the nourishment God can give. Jesus knows we are capable of it. When it comes right down to it, we have plenty of time, plenty of imagination, plenty of possibilities, even plenty of food, enough for a whole world.
We take our loaves — any number will do. We bless them, thanking God for making holy what we give away in love. And then we have to break them. We have to tear up what is ours, so we can share it with the others. There is no other way. Don't worry that it will not be enough. God will take care of that. No matter if it doesn't look like enough for everyone, God will make it work. All we need to do is to feed the hungry person standing before us. God will do the rest. We can do it because we are stronger than we think. We are God's burrowing people, people who have built a tunnel into the heart of God so God's grace can come rushing back up through us to feed a hungry world. Amen.
Note: I used the intervening verses to the Revised Common Lectionary text for this Sunday. Two stunning events happen between verses 30-34 of Mark 6 and verses 53-56 (the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walking on the water). To me, it feels incomplete to use the verses on either side without using at least one of the stories included between, which — in my opinion — certainly informed the situation described in verses 53-56.