The Fullness of God

Since I grew up in a poor household, I rarely had the luxury of feeling full.  Even the substantial meals in college left me a bit unsatisfied.  In grad school, I ate honey and saltines and not much else!  Early marriage?  Forget it!  It’s been only in recent times that I’ve felt full at the end of a meal.  Sometimes I bemoan the loss of my “starving poet” days…but not for long.  The scripture readings we’ll look at today acknowledge the constant hunger of humanity for “enough” God.

The brief story recounted in II Kings 4:42-44 is one of four miracles which certified Elisha as a worthy successor to Elijah.  Here, a huge crowd is fed to satisfaction with a few barley loaves and a handful of other grain.  Some commentators will say that this demonstrates God’s abundance in a time of scarcity (Kristin Saldine) and others will add that this is another parable of life in the midst of death (Terence E. Fretheim).  The servant (world-view) sees the inadequacy of the resources, but Elisha (God’s Person) continues to pronounce the abundancy of God.  Will there be enough of God to go ’round?

Paul’s team offer the same message to the Ephesian disciples, not as a miracle story but as a blessing.  “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.” (3:18-19)  This is really a benediction, although in context it appears in the middle part of the Ephesian letter.  We continue to picture God as generously concerned about our well-being, enough to overflow the capacities of our souls.

John’s Gospel remembrance, 6:1-14, is the classic story of the Feeding of the Multitude.  The crowd kept following Jesus around; they’d seen the marvels of wholeness bestowed on others, and now they wanted this for themselves.  Jesus recognized their hunger and decided to provide Holy Food.  Here we have the hyperbole of the smallest of provisions–five cheap barley loaves and a couple of fish–and a huge crowd, five thousand.  But still everyone had as much as they wanted, until satisfied!  Once again, the Vision of Abundance proved the skeptics too limited in their world-view.  Will there be enough of God to go ’round?

The readings for some weeks are filled with Challenge, but this set of lessons has to do with Hope–a welcome relief in the midst of worldly chaos.  A shrinking world rightly has concern about inequity and unequal distribution:  my mailbox brings me handfuls of worthy appeals every day!  It’s good for me to hear that God has dealt charitably with those overwhelmed by scarcity in previous crises, thus to project that God will be present to contemporary needs.  Will there be enough of God to go ’round?

God Bless Us, Every One                 Horace Brown King

My musing on scripture readings assigned to the upcoming weekend can be found every Tuesday at this spot on Facebook; or at horacebrownking.com