Enough?

We’ve saved for a new roof. It’s supposed to happen next month. Our savings will cover the estimate, but there is always the chance that once the old roof is pulled off there will be unexpected problems like rot, etc. So I still worry that we will have enough money for the project.

Many of our worries are about whether supplies of what we need or desire will be adequate. Earlier in the pandemic, we worried about enough vaccine being available soon enough. Now we worry, at least in this country, about whether enough people will use the abundance of vaccine that is available so that the pandemic can be ended.

There is much to learn from the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, our text this week from John 6:1-21. It’s the only miracle (except perhaps the Resurrection) recorded in all four Gospels, and Jesus Himself has a lot to say about it in the rest of John 6. But for this Sunday, thinking directly about the miracle itself, I’d like to focus on the abundance that was created by Jesus. Verse 12 says “When they were satisfied…,” clearly showing that everyone in the crowd had enough to eat. Then verse 13 tells how twelve baskets full of leftovers were gathered up by the disciples. There was more than enough.

It’s all too familiar that we often operate on an economy of scarcity. Prices for lumber, cars, and other basic parts of life in the United States have risen because pandemic limitations on production and transportation have caused there not to be enough now that people are buying again. Computer builders and gamers are more than aware of a scarcity of graphics cards caused by both pandemic problems and the cornering of the market first by bitcoin miners, then scalpers. Scarcity of medical supplies and facilities of all sorts still plagues the world, including parts of the U.S. where COVID-19 is on the rise.

So we ask, “Will there be enough?” If we’re honest, that question often implies the continuation, “for me?”

The message of the Gospel for this week, then, is the divine assurance that there will be enough. Our Lord is not a God of scarcity, but of abundance. Now all we need is to grow in a discipleship which finds that gracious abundance coming from Jesus even when it seems like we don’t have enough of other things in life.