I confess. . . .

I'm a big Martha Stewart fan.

My favorite image of Martha Stewart?

It's the American Express Card commercial where she pokes fun at herself. She's sitting on the bottom of a drained pool, counseling us on how to use all our cutup, no-longer-needed other credit cards. Martha suggests re-tiling the bottom of a swimming pool with them, as she carefully places credit card fragments into an Olympic-pool sized mosaic-reproduction of the Venus de Milo.

There is nothing Martha Stewart can't find a second use for. Some of her tips are ridiculous, but she does harken us back to a time when frugal families handed-down, recycled, repaired, and re-heated instead of throwing away. Many of us here this morning grew up on a waste not/want not mentality. Our current everything-is-disposable and planned obsolescence mentality, which keeps us running out to Wal-Mart or Home Depot for more stuff, would have scandalized our ancestors.

In today's gospel text Jesus sounds like Martha Stewart. He commands his disciples to gather up all the remaining food from the multitudes. He was insistent that nothing be lost (verse 12). Some scholars cite with the well-documented Jewish tradition to gather up all the remaining food at the conclusion of a meal (for instance see H.L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zem neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch (Munchen: C.H. Beck, 1926-61).

But it is doubtful that any culture before ours (in other words, before cheap, fat-laden, fast-foods) ever dined without scrapping together the leftovers. Food was hard to come by. Food wasn't grown in laboratories. Food was grown in laboriously maintained orchards or raised on hard-scrabble farms. Food was tended and protected-whether by shepherds or cowboys. Or food was hunted with skill, hard work, and sheer luck. Food cost much in time, materials, and dedication.

Leftovers are the raw materials from which casseroles, soups, stews, and stir-fries are made. Leftovers have a long and proud tradition in our history as a nation. Even as recently as the 60s and 70s. It took a save it for tomorrow mentality to enable the Tupperware party to become a staple of suburban culture. Even today, when we carelessly toss away half eaten KFC buckets and burgers from McDonald's, or dump still sloshing cups of Subway soft drinks, we have available ways of dealing with leftovers our ancestors could not have dreamed of: food dehydrators, microwave canning jars, vacuum-sealed plastic pouches (to name but a few). [You may want to showcase some of these leftover containers at this point]

But, when you think about it, perhaps that is the biggest difference between our attempts at frugality today and the waste-not/want not code demonstrated by Jesus in his feeding the five thousand. Today we save without ever intending to share. Our stockpiles of leftovers, our embarrassing abundance, is kept freshly frozen, sealed, or stored, behind the security-locked, alarm-activated doors of our homes.

While a billion humans fall asleep hungry every night, another billion grow fat, frantically foraging for more storage systems that will keep our stored-up stuff neatly accessible, conveniently available, stylishly stacked up.

Ever notice when community food cupboards are most bare, when church pantries are most empty? The holidays.

Those exact times when our refrigerators are groaning, when caloric goodies spontaneously generate on platters, when well-meaning diet plans go up in succulent-scented smoke. It is not that those who are hungry decide that they too must have more stuff on their empty shelves and cupboards. It appears as a perverse rule of thumb that the more the stockpiles grow in our home pantries grow, the more we forget about saving leftovers for the world.

Jesus provided an embarrassingly huge amount of food for the crowd that had gathered to hear him. This crowd was far from any village or other food source, but they were unwilling to leave Jesus' wilderness teaching session. The crowd decided that their hunger for truth was greater than their hunger for food. So they trusted Jesus. They made themselves wholly dependent upon Jesus for their sustenance.

And God's provisions for them were more than they needed. We don't have a just enough God. We have a God who has promised to fill our minds, our bodies, and our spirits with an abundance abundantly above all that we can even ask or think, Paul said.

But even though Jesus transforms the tidbits into a tidal wave of nourishment, he refuses to let the leftovers be squandered. God's gifts are not to be left spoiling on the ground. God's gifts are to be used and reused, distributed to all and then gathered up to be redistributed when need resurfaced.

There are no directives given about how the twelve baskets of leftovers gathered from the satisfied crowd were to stored or saved. There is no suggestion that the Jesus and his disciples will take these leftovers with them as they continue on their journey. No special group receives this bread. It is a open gift for all.

So, what happened to the leftovers?

Journalist Elizabeth Jarnagin, a Drew University Ph.D. student in history, creates an imaginary character Esther who was there for the feeding of the 5000 and struggles with what to do with the leftovers.

Jesus was and is a gracious host and gracious hosts have a way of making guests feel like family. My favorite party hosts are the ones who insist on sending leftovers home with me. It is as if they want the party and fellowship to continue after we've parted. (Truly gifted hosts can even make you feel you're doing them a favor by removing this burden of excess.)

I know such friends truly care for me when they want to nourish and sustain me even after I've left their presence. Jesus is such a host, such a friend.

Now what would Esther do with this bread? Besides savoring some later herself, I think she might want to take this broken bread, this symbol of God's gracious generosity, and share it with her neighbors, with those who were absent.

There would be plenty of people near Esther's home who hadn't ventured out to hear and to see Jesus. Perhaps they felt whole, like they didn't need healing. Perhaps they'd had their fill of sermons for the week and didn't care to sit through another. Perhaps they simply hadn't heard.

I can see Esther knocking on such a friend's door. "Let me tell you about Jesus," she'd say.

She might be flustered. She might not know how to begin. And then the words would rush out. "You know Joshua, the blind beggar who sits by the gate? Jesus cured him. And our neighbor Hosea, who has been lame ever since an accident when he was a child? Jesus told him he could walk. And suddenly, he could. Then there was my little cousin Sarah. She's six, you know, and she's never uttered a sound since birth. She cried out in joy when Jesus touched her. Oh, I want you to see Jesus for yourself. In fact, I urge you to seek him. Yes, I know you don't like crowds. And you're neither blind nor lame. Neither am I. But I received a miracle, too. You know me.

"Always unprepared. I hadn't realized how long we'd all be there. None of us did. We brought no food. But we couldn't leave. Not while Jesus was speaking and healing people. We were entranced.

"I was starting to feel weak and a little lightheaded but I still couldn't bring myself to go to a nearby village and buy food as a few people suggested. So Jesus fed us all. No. He didn't seem prepared, either. His disciples had only brought a little food, a few fishes, a few loaves of bread."

That was it.

Jesus blessed what little there was and suddenly there was plenty, more than enough to feed the thousands of us gathered. In fact, there were baskets and baskets full of broken bread left over after we'd all eaten.

"Here, I've brought you some."