The Liturgy Nerd

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My Son Shared His Chips With Me

Today the scripture my pastor preached from was the miraculous feeding of the 5,000.  An iconic scripture, where we learn not just of the generosity of Jesus - but also of a little child.  I have often spoken of this scripture a lot with my wife.  As a former youth minister, one of her favorite questions to ask her youth when studying this scripture was, "So, where do you think all of the food came from?"

It's not out of the realm of possibility for the Lord to call the food to magically appear; food for 5,000 is nothing compared to feeding the whole nation of Israel as it walked the wilderness for 40 years.  The Lord also turned water into wine.  Where the Lord wants food, there's food.  That's pretty safe to say.

But ... what if the miracle here was getting people who would have otherwise kept their resources to themselves to share?  What if sharing was the real miracle?  Following the example of a 'youth' who gave his fish and bread, maybe others felt the need to give.  And not only was there food for 5,000 people that day, there were also leftovers.

Tonight at dinner, my son shared his chips with me.


I handed him a chip and he held it back out to me to take a bite out of.  So I took a bite ... And he laughed so hard.  And I laughed.  And he laughed some more.  It was made all the more wonderful because earlier today, while our pastor was preaching, I was wondering when my boy was going to learn to share.

Sharing sure is something.  And there are still plenty of chips to go around.