One of the hardest lessons in life I had to learn was never to get a job at the restaurant I enjoyed eating in since childhood. There was a particular fast food restaurant that had plenty of vegetables and condiments on their sandwiches that I had always looked forward to eating since I was twelve years old. When I got out of college in the 1970s, the job market in my area had a glut of four-year college degree graduates. I applied for a manager trainee position at the restaurant I have cherished since childhood. I was sent to manager training sessions and worked at a training store in a metro area. It was an unforgettable experience. I wondered why God would allow me to do such a thing.
After the novelty of eating sandwiches for a discounted price wore off, I learned about the inner workings of the cooking process for sandwiches, deep fried grease products, and drinks. I also soon learned that the employees there were all working for minimum wage and were unhappy because they were working so hard for low pay. All workers had perpetual applications in other places of employment to get a job with more pay. Training workers for both the kitchen and front counter duties was a perpetual merry-go-round. I learned that other restaurant managers had their “favorite” and not so favorite employees. Restaurant work is hard, long hours. Being on salary as an assistant manager consumed so many hours and weekends, that when I did the math, I was making below minimum wage! My innocence was lost!
Weekends involved long lines of customers who had varying degrees of intoxication that resulted in fistfights and brawling in the lobby. These people were not very friendly like on the TV commercials. Quite often they were more than ready to start a brawl, which resulted in flashing blue lights from local police squad cars in the parking lot. This also scared away customers. When a sudden crowd “rush” occurred after a concert or sports event, there were certain shortcuts in the kitchen that one had to resort to in making the sandwiches, fried products, and dispensing the drinks. I had never known of this reality. It was sort of like being immersed in the unknown world or “Matrix” movie where one would learn they would rather prefer to live in the disillusioned world than that of seeing how this food was really prepared. However, I learned much about food hygiene, how to deal with bottlenecks of long lines of people, as well as waiting for food to be fully cooked and how to deal with people who have short tempers. I learned how to schedule workers on varying shifts as well as how to count and deposit money, receipts, and coupons. But this was not enough for me.
One weekend, I was overscheduled and slept in on Monday morning. The supervising manager called my house and yelled at my mother who picked up the phone. He cursed at her. When I got to the restaurant, he had slammed the phoned down so hard, he had broken it! I thought to myself, “Do I want to give my life to the cause of fast food? Why did God allow me to be here?” I called my college placement center and got an office position in a nearby city. I could not ever eat at one of those restaurants for over ten years. I would make a bologna sandwich and bowl of soup instead. The restaurant meal is not the loaves of bread I desired.
Jesus offers loaves of bread that point to a divine reality beyond any time of hunger or chaos we can ever experience here on this world. In Bible times, before that of refrigeration and electric food storage technology, a typical family spent half of their day getting enough food for meals for just that day. The food had to be consumed at the meal. There were no leftovers to put in the microwave. Barley bread was preferred because the barley ripened before wheat for bread did. Poor people used barley bread as a staple food of the time along with fish that would be smoked similar to how we might eat hard sticks of beef jerky today. Jesus was on top of a mountain in this text. He might be likened to another Moses-like prophet mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15-18.
Jesus was similar to a prophet such as Elisha in 2 Kings 4:42-44, who fed one hundred people. In John’s gospel, many of Jesus’ signs or miracles occurred around the traditional Jewish festival days, however Jesus fulfilled them in a greater manner. This resulted in hostility from the traditional Judean leaders, which escalated into Jesus’ eventual crucifixion in John 18. His death would be for the sins of humanity, so we may eternal life John 3:16 (RSV). In this case, the Passover event celebrated the nation of Israel being delivered from the Egyptians by escaping through the parting of the waters of the Red Sea, and then they were sustained in the desert by eating manna and quail provided by God (Exodus 16; Numbers 11). Jesus’ loaves of bread sign “upped the ante” in John 6 in terms of him being more than a Moses prophetic figure.
After observing the large crowds who were hungry, he knew what he was going to do, but decided to test his disciples by asking, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” John 6:5 (RSV). John was unique to other gospels in that he featured the disciples Andrew and Philip in his stories, rather than Peter, James, and John in the synoptic gospels. Lesser known names do have a place in the kingdom in John’s gospel. There was an unnamed boy with five loaves of barley bread and two fish. Jesus took his offering. He had the disciples seat the people in groups of fifty. Jesus then parted the food and fed five thousand people. All four of the gospels report this miracle or sign of feeding five thousand people with bread and fish. John added the details of “barley” bread.
There was enough food that the people were satisfied. Some might have gone back for “seconds,” like an all-you-can-eat dinner bar. Jesus told the disciples to gather the food up, “that nothing be lost” (John 6:12). Unlike the manna and quail while in the wilderness under Moses, this food did not perish immediately. Jesus’ loaves of bread were to be preserved and served to other people. This could be cross referenced into John 10:10, where Jesus “came that people may have life and have it abundantly.” Abundant in this reference is both a quality and quantity of life, which is forward moving (from the Greek word zway, where we get the female name Zoey). Jesus was more than a prophetic figure of Moses; he was a Messiah who brought one eternal life (John 3:16 is another cross reference here). Once food had been given, John wished to make another point why Jesus was beyond Moses, as it related to chaos and disorder in peoples’ lives. The text continued.
During the walking on the Sea of Galilee at night, John wished to remind people that water represented chaos and disorder in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The event occured at night or during the hours of darkness, which intensified this sense of disorder in John (consider Nicodemus visiting Jesus at night in John 3).
In John’s gospel, Jesus is God in the flesh. Jesus was the organizing principle of the universe, also called the “logos.” John 1:1-14 is a bold in-breaking beginning or prologue of the gospel. We can have confidence that God has a plan for his people despite the forces of darkness and disorder. Jesus’ walking on the Sea of Galilee made this point. Any person of faith could end up working for a restaurant or public place where crowds and lines of people can be as disorienting as the disciples felt here in John 6. John’s gospel wished to remind us that God still is there in the person of Jesus or God in the flesh. God remains with us in these times of disorder. There is the promise of deliverance and new life.
More good news of this text today includes that God provides for all of our needs. Whether one works in a chaotic restaurant, office, or public place, we can confidently pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,” Matthew 6:10-11 (RSV). The feeding of the five thousand resulted in more than enough food. Jesus’ walking on the sea of Galilee at night reminds us that there is no event or time of lack or survival resources and no chaos that might invade our lives that Jesus cannot and will not overcome. Furthermore, Jesus pointed us to new life. In the season of Pentecost, what are areas where our congregation might observe we are short of resources? What forces of weather, political seasons, or economic trends might cause us to become frightened? John 6 allows us to go to sleep confident that Jesus provided enough loaves of bread for us to have life and have it abundantly. God still watches over us into the future and for eternity.
After five years, I grew weary of working in an office at an area manufacturer. My wife and I were quite active in our inner city church congregation and I had felt the urge to explore the possibility of being called into the ordained ministry. After many denominational hoops to jump through and probationary acceptance into the seminary (I needed to take Greek and I did poorly on the standard tests), I eventually moved into another state to attend seminary. For a ministry related work study job, I was a supervisor at a church sponsored rescue mission for the homeless and transients in the inner-city.
All of a sudden, the epiphany lights went on for me! I realized that the fast food management training months at the fast food restaurant chain had prepared me for this very position. There were loud, smelly, half-inebriated homeless people who demanded meals and coffee. There were times we had to call the local police when somebody brought a weapon into the mission. The working staff was both fellow seminarians as well as homeless shelter volunteers with varying days of sobriety under their belt.
We all had to think on our feet in food preparation in the event that the church that had signed up to provide food for the evening did not arrive or they had forgot. There were many short-fused tempered people. There were also thankful people who praised God for such a mission. We were fortunate to have generous donors and people of good faith who wished to help in this ministry. If the cook drank too much and relapsed in alcoholic consumption, the mission staff had to improvise. After all, there are one hundred hungry people in the chapel area awaiting a meal after the church service. As one mission staff member, guess who also had to lead worship and preach a sermon on short notice? I still do not eat at the fast food restaurant I worked at. But a good bologna sandwich, bowl of soup, and cup of coffee often hits the spot as one of Jesus’ loaves used to feed the five thousand people. How are we as a congregation providing loaves in our community? This is a question to grow on during the season of Pentecost.
Amen.
Sources:
1. Culpepper, R. Alan, Interpreting Biblical Texts: The Gospel and Letters of John, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998).
2. Lincoln, Andres T. Black’s New Testament Commentary: The Gospel According to Saint John, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006).
3. O’Day, Gail R., and Susan E. Haylen, Westminster Bible Companion: John, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006).