Filled with the Fullness of God

Jesus during the years of his ministry spent a lot of time around the sea of Galilee.  Crowds of people would follow him, and on one occasion they followed him because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.  Jesus healed many who came to him because of illness or disease.

Whenever I read these wonderful stories of Jesus around the Galilean sea I think of the time when Carol and I visited Israel several years ago.  One of the places fixed in my memory is lunch with a rabbi friend on the beach by the sea of Galilee.  We ate fish from the sea and drank Israeli beer.  It was a wonderful experience.

In our gospel reading we are told about a time that Jesus was alongside the sea.  When the crowds followed him and gathered around he saw that they were hungry.  It was near the feast of the Passover so he had compassion on them and took bread, gave thanks, broke the bread and distributed it to them.  He then took the fish and shared it as well.  He fed their hunger.  

Part of our ministry today is to feed the physical and spiritual hunger of all people in need. We are able to feed their spiritual and physical hunger because we are fed ourselves and recognize the incredible gifts we have been given.  Among those gifts the greatest one is the relationships we enjoy in the midst of all the diversity of races, nations, and religions that make up the awesome mystery of human life. 

St. Paul wrote about this eloquently in his Letter to the Ephesians in commenting about our relationship with Christ.  “I pray that…you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.  I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Being filled with all the fullness of God in our lives in this 21^st Century has to do with our relationships.  How we interact across lines of national origin, ethnic background, economic or social standing, tells us how thankful we really are for all the gifts we have received.  Too often we separate ourselves from others by many defensive measures, some of which we are not even aware.  We also use devices that sometimes result in discrimination toward those who intrude into “our space.”  We miss much in life because we either refuse to accept the gifts offered or we have not been sensitized to recognize or accept them as gifts.  We can even turn against the gift bearers and reject them.  Jesus noted the prophets were killed.  There are prophets today who are also killed.

It was near the Jewish festival of Passover when Jesus responded to the crowds by sharing the loaves and fish.  Passover was and continues to be a time for remembering the drama of liberation, the journey through the wilderness and the provision of manna – just enough food to fill the people so they can continue through the wilderness to the land of promise.

There is more to this story than a miraculous account of feeding a hungry group of people with bread and fish.  There is more to it than the fact that twelve baskets of fragments were left after everyone had been fed.  The “more” of this story is about God’s all-encompassing love that is freely given.  Christ is waiting to feed us with enough food, both physical and spiritual, so we can live with a new vision of faith and compassion for others. 

Marcus Borg, biblical scholar and teacher has said, “The metaphorical use of hunger and thirst can be very powerful.  We hunger, often even when we are satisfied; we feel empty and long for something more, even though our stomachs may be full.  We thirst as if we live in an arid and desert wasteland, our throats dry like parchment.”

“In John’s gospel…Jesus refers to the story of manna in the wilderness and then speaks of himself as the true bread from heaven: ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never be hungry.’  Salvation is having one’s deepest hunger satisfied.”

God’s grace is among us.  Christ is present as we are fed in our weekly communion meal of bread and wine, the physical and spiritual nourishment we need to be “filled with the fullness of God.”  The ending of  Paul’s letter is a doxology, a word of praise and thanksgiving to God: “Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.  Amen.”