Lenten Perspective: Miracles of the Heart

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Miracles of the Heart

I tell you this: if you had even a faint spark of faith, even faith as tiny as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, "Move from here to there," and because of your faith, the mountain would move.  If you had just a sliver of faith, you would find nothing impossible.

Matthew 17:20 (The Voice)

This world needs God

But it's easier to just stand and watch

I could say a prayer and just move on

Like nothing's wrong

From "I Refuse" by Josh Wilson

Jesus once sent the twelve Disciples out to travel from village to village, with the instructions to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God to anyone who would listen and to heal all who were suffering.  The time had come for them to do what they, as students, had been watching their Teacher do.  When they returned to Jesus to report what they had seen and done, they all withdrew to a deserted location so that they could rest from their journeys.  Inevitably, the crowds discovered where they were and came to them in search of healing.

As day became evening, the people became hungry.  The Disciples urged Jesus to send the people away so that they could find food and lodging for the night, but Jesus challenged the Disciples to take action, saying, "You give them something to eat."  There were at least five thousand people present, but the Disciples could only find five loaves of bread and two fish.¹

This story appears in each of the four Gospels.²  Some of the Gospel writers are intentional to note that there were five thousand men present, meaning that, if they brought their wives and children with them, there could have been upwards of twenty to thirty thousand people.  In some accounts, one disciple notes that more than six months' wages would be needed to buy enough bread to feed everyone.

Jesus blessed the food and began breaking it into pieces, and the Disciples began distributing the food to the people.  They may have started with five loaves of bread and two fish, but somehow, in the end, all had enough to eat until they were full.  Amazingly there were twelve baskets of leftovers, which is more food than they had when they started.

What happened that day was nothing short of a miracle, but what kind of miracle happened that day?  There are at least two ways to read the story of Jesus' feeding the multitude.³

The more popular interpretation of this story is that Jesus turned a small amount of food into an abundance of food.  A bag of groceries was miraculously transformed into a feast for thousands of people.

In an alternate interpretation of this story, the person who decided to share the five loaves and two fishes he brought with him started a trend.  Others, who had been hiding their provisions, were inspired to do likewise, and ultimately everyone had enough to eat.  People who once hoarded what they had out of fear that there would not be enough to go around would soon see that there was actually more than enough to go around, and they caught a glimpse of another way to live in the world.

The former reading describes a miracle that changed matter.
The latter reading describes a miracle that changed hearts.

The former reading shows us what Christ is capable of doing.
The latter reading shows us what the rest of us are capable of doing when we follow Christ's example of self-sacrificial love.

In either reading, in a time of perceived scarcity, there was more than enough.

One Gospel writer notes that it was a little boy who offered his provisions to Jesus and the Disciples.  I imagine that, when the boy heard the Disciples trying to figure out how to feed so many people, he piped up and said, to his parents' chagrin, "We have some food!"  Only a child would do something so foolish.  Any responsible adult would know the importance of providing for one's own before trying to take care of others.  Of course, were it not for this child's foolish innocence, the miracle might not have happened.  Jesus once said that the Kingdom of God belongs to the childlike.⁴  Perhaps only people with such naiveté can truly understand the ways of the Kingdom.

When I first learned about the less supernatural interpretation of this story, I didn't like it very much, because I didn't want to abandon everything supernatural about Jesus, as it seemed that so many people were doing.  Now, I'm starting to find this alternate reading more and more compelling.  We don't see many miracles that radically change matter nowadays, but stories of people who band together during trying times always warm my heart.  I think we need more stories like that in the world, stories that inspire us to look past our own self-interests to seek the common good.

In the 2003 film Bruce Almighty, God, as portrayed by Morgan Freeman, says,
A single mom who's working two jobs and still finds time to take her kid to soccer practice, that's a miracle.  A teenager who says "no" to drugs and "yes" to an education, that's a miracle.  People want Me to do everything for them.  But what they don't realize is they have the power.  You want to see a miracle, son?  Be the miracle.⁵

Jesus said that, with faith the size of a mustard seed, a person can move a mountain.  A person who wants to move a mountain needs faith to grab a shovel and start digging.  Perhaps others will be so inspired by her fervor that they will bring their own shovels and pickaxes and join her in her efforts.  Perhaps people who have access to demolition machines or dynamite will take notice and offer their help.  Who knows what is possible when a person takes a step in faith?

We are nearing the end of Lent, a season of repentance.  Jesus calls us to repent as the Kingdom of God has come near.⁶  The Greek word translated as "repentance" is metanoia, which describes a change of how a person thinks.⁷  Looking toward the Kingdom of God requires us to rethink everything, including how we believe the world should work and what we believe is possible.


Notes:

1. See Luke 9:1-6,10-17.
2. See also Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, and John 6:5-15.
3. William Barclay.  The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition.  1975, Westminster Press.  pp. 117-118
4. Luke 18:16
5. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315327/quotes
6. Mark 1:15
7. Wiktionary: Metanoia

The photograph of the mountain was taken by Habeeb Anju and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.