In the Gospel of John’s account of Jesus feeding the 5,000, it talks about how after the little bits of fish and bread have somehow fed so many, even to the point where everyone assembled could “eat their fill,” Jesus instructs the disciples to “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.”
Fragments left over? That is abundance upon abundance; how could anything be left over? But the message is clear: that “nothing may be lost.”
And so it is with us: The Kingdom of God needs all of us, and all our parts, our fragments. These words shimmer with mystery and provocation and promise: that all the fragments count, are needed. That it is not up to us to decide which parts of ourselves to discard, or disown—God will use them all. That feeding—ourselves, others—is something that happens in very unpredictable ways.
Hunger is also at the heart of this story…hunger for food, and the hunger for God that is at the root of other longings. This Lent, Marble will be looking at the topic of hunger—in our stomachs, hearts and souls. The remarkable Ash Wednesday sermon by Dr. Brown started us off; come this Sunday at 1:30, where the Adult Education class will ably deepen the inquiry.
Gather up your fragments. Let nothing be lost. Receive the bread that is your complexity, your confusion, your shame; let God bind the parts together. And look for all the ways you can be and offer the bread that others need. |