“32 Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.” 33 The disciples said to him, “Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?” 34 Jesus asked them, “How many loaves have you?” They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.” 35 Then ordering the crowd to sit down on the ground, 36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 37 And all of them ate and were filled, and they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 38 Those who had eaten were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 After sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan”       (Matthew 15).

As we approach Thanksgiving, I can’t help considering the states of our guts. So, to help us out, I invite you to put your hands on what we call the stomach and take deep breaths. Throughout this time, I want to connect you with what you’re feeling as we hear about the people Jesus feeds in this scene.

The crowds that have been following Jesus for quite a while now. This is no small crowd either and they have already been being fed, though with healings and wholeness instead of food. Now that time has passed Jesus notices the crowd’s need for physical feeding, and after three days much of the food that they have already had with them is gone. They are hungry. Maybe not as hungry as Snickers™ commercials make light of. Yet they are at least hungry enough that Jesus worries about them fainting during any possible return journeys home. What are you hungry for? Food? Acceptance? A community? Change? Hope?

When the disciples do find some food, it does not appear to be enough. How far can 7 loaves, think the size of biscuits, and a few small fish go? For us, it seems like almost nothing at all; yet, for Jesus it is not about the amount/volume of food. Instead, Jesus is excited for the opportunity! The opportunity to provide and acknowledge what God has done, and faithfully lean into what God could do. Notice the verbs around Jesus’ actions toward the food. He gives thanks for what has been offered to share. He breaks the offering or divides it for multiplication or extension to all. And he gives it for distribution to the crowds without regard of who might receive it. Modeled here are the key verbs of what will take place within his own body for our salvation upon the cross: thanksgiving, broken, and given for all.

In this experience, the people become satisfied, or as the text is translated here, ‘ate and were filled.’ We typically think this means that the people ate enough for the journey home. Yet, in Christ, are we ever truly just filled; or perhaps like the Psalm 23 might put it, ‘does our cup overflow’? The word that’s translated here as ‘were filled,’ might better be translated as stuffed! I pause us to think about that comparison. For those of us who have already eaten, or might eat after this time of thanks and praise, what is filled? What is enough? Do you feel satisfied? Will you be satisfied? Are we ever?

In our lives, are we truly thankful enough to enter into God’s continuous blessings to us that we say with whatever we are given, “I’m stuffed.”? It has always fascinated me that we move from giving thanks as a culture to shopping and replacing and seeking out more, and more, and more! (I sound like the Grinch.) Or might this year we give thanks, and realize that what God has given us stuffs/over satisfies our lives? I’m not saying you cannot enjoy the meals you might eat this week. Rather, I hope that maybe we might consider what it would be like to multiply the blessings of what is given, as Christ does. Not by volume, rather in the company we share it with, through our reason behind it.

Why does Jesus feed this great crowd, which numbers 4,000 men; and when you add in the women and children probably brings the total to 7,000? Look at the passage. What does it say? That Jesus, noticing them, had ‘compassion.’ The word that is there, compassion seeks to the spirit of what Christ felt. The Greek word here is splunknedzomai. It’s a verbal form of the word splunkna or bowels. (It’s where we get the word ‘spalunking’ or cave diving; because people go into the bowels of the earth.) However, what is here in this passage is meant as Jesus was ‘stirred in the bowels.’ He yearned for the people, cared for, loved them with grace and concern beyond their understanding that it affects his body, and he cannot help but act. Jesus literally knows in his guts what he has to do!

Will we? Will we be stirred in our bowels to notice the needs of others and act to multiply the blessings of which we can fill them, to experience God make more than enough? Will we give thanks to God for what has been given to us, through us; and then break and share that blessing so that blessing might satisfy… no stuff us? Then as Christ’s body in the world until he comes again; let us do as Christ does through himself:   Give thanks, Break, and Give ourselves for the world!