After getting the awful news that his cousin John, the baptizer, had been killed, Jesus slipped away in a boat to a quiet place to grieve and pray and plan.* Seeing a great multitude make their way to where he was heading, a wave of compassion fell across his bow. Back to his healing work he went. A small town’s worth of sojourning seekers gathered near the illumined healer. It was getting on near supper, and being far from their villages, his students wanted to send everyone home. “You feed them!” said the teacher. Confused, as they looked down at food for only a handful, they shrugged their shoulders and described a scene of scarcity. “Bring it here to me,” he said.
Deep in the mountains of Haiti, thirteen years ago, healing came to me through a small and simple meal. I was visiting my close friend and colleague, Kim Montroll, who was spending a year immersed in that beautiful culture. She introduced me to the people of Lazil, her adopted home, as well as to one of the many gorgeous Haitian proverbs, “cooked food has no owner.” In Kreyol, it reads “manje kwit pa gen met.” I would hear many proverbs that week, but none more salient. It is as deeply rooted there as the landscape, an internal compass always pointing outward. Always feeding.
On a walk one day, an older man greeted us as only Haitians can: deeply textured and caring… not just for us, but for everyone we love. He insisted that we come for dinner. With grace and speed, fueled by wealthy hearts, he and his wife began their work. Kim translated as they buzzed about. While the man scaled a coconut tree with a rope and machete, his wife was busy preparing our table and tending to eggs boiling in a pan. Sitting on his handcrafted chairs, I looked down at food for which I was not at all hungry. Kim said with a smile, “eat it.” Through her tears that quickly visited me, she added, “this was their dinner.” Ignoring scarcity’s stare, and smiling with radiant abundance, our hosts watched proudly as we ate. Never before, or since, have I had a greater meal. And never will I forget it.
Holding those few baskets of food, Jesus lifts his face to the heavens, blesses and breaks them, and gives them away. As is always the case, he is freely giving life, keeping it moving, making it flow. Everyone eats. And there was plenty more than enough. In the giving away, an abundance rises and spills over. I feel certain that those healed children of God never had a greater meal before or after that. And never did they forget it.
*Matthew 14:13-21 (The Message)
–Jim Marsh, Jr., Bread of Life Church
