Revising the Loaves and Fishes Resume

I spent a stupid amount of time updating my resume this weekend.  I’m not sure why exactly because I love my job and have no intention of looking for another.  Still, every few years I like to take stock of where I’ve been professionally.  Somehow, the process of adding more recent accomplishments to those from years past has a way of helping me see the full journey from a distance.  I find myself turning details that seemed critically important 15 years ago into single, more general bullet points that take up far less space.  This wide-angle-lens vantage point of my career never fails to uncover interesting insights into who I have been and who I am becoming. 

I wonder what Jesus’ resume would look like at the beginning of his ministry, towards the end, and today.  I’m curious about what changes to it he might make if he were to take a step back, assess his own “been and becoming,” and revise accordingly.  I think today’s gospel has great insight into the evolution of his metaphorical CV. 

Entry Level Experience

Perhaps early on in his ministry, the “professional experience” part of his resume might list carpenter, teacher, and rabbi.  His “selected accomplishments” might include the number of baptisms he performed, scripture verses he interpreted, and disciples he engaged. 

But over time, perhaps after his run-ins with the religious and secular authorities of the day but before he is sentenced to death, I bet he would make some updates.  He might have dropped carpenter in favor of religious and social activist, teacher in please of miracle-worker, and rabbi instead healer.  His “selected accomplishments” might have become the number of people whose suffering he eased and the number and type of miracles he performed. 

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus transforms the five barley loaves and two fish into enough to feed an enormous crowd with baskets of food left over (John 6: 1-15).  Perhaps the number of people fed with such meager resources would become the featured item on his resume.  Certainly, the number of scripture verses interpreted would become a mere footnote to these more impressive achievements.  

C-Suite Credentials

The question I find most tantalizing though is this one:  What would Jesus’ resume look like after his time on earth?  Again, I think the featured items from before his death might become simple bullet points in this version to make room for more significant achievements and larger truths.

I would bet that religious and social activist, miracle-worker, and healer would take a back seat to the more significant accomplishments Jesus realized through those roles.  I think all of it worked together to create another, far greater achievement.  Perhaps he would have added a new title to his resume:  Savior of the World.  Pretty impressive, huh?  I’d hire him.

But just how do his teachings, healings, and miracles “save” us?  There are lots of codified answers to that question across countless religions and schools of thought.  For me though, the answer is suggested in today’s gospel reading.  Jesus showed us through his words and actions that abundance, not scarcity, is the default setting on Life.

Divine Abundance

He showed us that sin no longer needs to hold us back; God has already forgiven us, so unlimited forgiveness on our part is the only reasonable response. Put another way, forgiveness is not a scarce resource.  He taught us that unlimited compassion, even to an extravagant, illogical degree, is how we experience God in our own lives.  What we do for others has no cap or limitation.  He told us to worry less about rules and regulations and simply to love.  Love of God and neighbor has no ceiling or restriction.

What’s more, he demonstrated that even what we think of as the ultimate limitation, death, isn’t an obstacle at all.  Instead, it’s an invitation into a different, mysterious, deeper experience of God’s abundance.

For me, faith is about how one sees the world and our place within it.  The Christian faith boiled down to its lowest common denominator is about abundance.  Life is not a zero-sum enterprise.  What Jesus taught us in word and deed is that even when it doesn’t look like it, there is always enough.  And not just enough really . . . more.  Salvation for me is about recognizing and embracing this divine abundance.