Enough Bread

2 Kings 4:42-44

Special thanks to Elizabeth Hagan for her help with this one!

Even if you haven’t checked a calendar lately, it wouldn’t be too tough to know that the holidays are coming up. Yesterday, five different people asked me what my plans for Thanksgiving are—it seems like everybody is gearing up for the big week ahead. In my family, and probably in yours, too, the annual tradition involves a tremendously excessive amount of food; annual practices like going around the table and everybody saying what they are thankful for, an activity during which we all try to outdo each other with the sappiest comment; and, of course, the big blessing, generally said (at great length) by my grandfather.

I think most families include some kind of prayer of thanks on Thanksgiving—it’s definitely an American tradition. And even if you don’t practice a faith or happen to have a loquacious grandfather like I do, it’s not too hard to come up with something. Just think (and feel free to say any of these along with me): you could go with, “God is great. God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. By His hands we all are fed. Give us Lord our daily bread.” Or, you could sing grace—there’s the Johnny Appleseed song—anybody know it? “The Lord is good to me and so I thank the Lord for giving me things I need. The sun and the rain and apple seed . . . The Lord is good to me.”

Or, there’s the prayer that all respectful non-prayers like to say if they are called upon to pray in public, or, sometimes, grouchy children who are mad that their mom asked them to bless the food when it’s clearly not their turn tonight: “Dear God. Thank you for the food. Amen.”

Then, you could always go with the prayer made famous by the 1990s movie, My Girl. “Rub and a dub dub. Thanks for the grub. Yay God!” And, if you ever went to Catholic school or grew up in a Catholic household you would know this one: “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.”

Whatever our particular meal time blessing prayer tradition is, there is one thing that all these prayers have in common: they flow off of our tongues without much thought, don’t they? They are comforting rituals that we use once a year at Thanksgiving, or maybe more often if we’re really spiritual. They are rituals of giving thanks.

Our story today from 2 Kings is also about a thanksgiving ritual. Welcome back, again, to stories of Elisha the prophet. You’ll recall that we’re in week four of exploring 2 Kings chapter 4, and today we have a very short story that comes on the heels of a rather dramatic event last week. Remember last week when I had the task of constructing an entire sermon around in incidence of food poisoning?!?

Ah, the things they never prepare you for in seminary….

Today we revisit the prophet Elisha to see what he’s up to next. Remember he saved a widow from losing her children to debt collectors, predicted that a childless woman would actually have a child, then brought that child back to life after he got really sick and died, and saved the group of prophets from serious food poisoning. We know for sure by reading this far that Elisha is: quite a prophet. Today the text takes us beyond that story to a story that sounds like an extension of the feeding story from last week, but the two events are probably unrelated.

A man from a nearby town came to the camp of the prophets bringing food. This wasn’t really an incidence of a neighbor doing some cooking and wondering if the prophets were hungry so throwing in an extra casserole to share. No, the man in this story was completing a thanksgiving ritual. He was undoubtedly following the law about tithing that we can read in the first part of Deuteronomy chapter 26, where the Hebrew people were commanded to take a portion of the first fruits of the harvest and actually bring them to the priests as offering. The text says: “And you and the Levites and the aliens among you shall rejoice in the good things the Lord your God has given to you and your household.” The law included very specific directions about how to perform this thanksgiving, in which one would tell the story of God’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt and then God’s leading into the Promised Land. You can read all the specific directions in Deuteronomy but I just want to say that this Thanksgiving ritual is much longer and more involved than your mom forcing you to say the God is Great prayer.

Now, Elisha was not a priest, but scholars think that there was probably no distinction between priest and prophet at this point. The reality was a nearby farmer needed to make his regular offering of the first fruits of the harvest, and the company of prophets was very close by. It made perfect sense that he would bring his offering to Elisha the prophet.

Our translation of the text tells us that the offering was 20 loaves of barley bread and “fresh ears of grain.” Translation here is a little murky, and different English translations mention apples or even, in the King James Version, “full ears of corn.” It seems that someone was getting creative with the English translation, because, while it’s a nice thought—those prophets eating fresh sweet corn dripping with butter or warm apple cobbler with ice cream on top—unfortunately neither apples nor corn existed in the Middle East at this time.

What the original text intends, it seems, is to say that the offering was the best—the first fruits—of the garden land—the farm. And that means that in addition to the 20 loaves of bread made from barley grain, the man who showed up probably had some apricots with him—which would have been a common local crop. When the offering had been given to Elisha, the story goes on as Elisha the prophet instructs his servant to distribute the food to the group of 100 prophets. Very much like other miraculous feeding stories in the Bible, the servant protests, knowing there’s not enough to go around. Elisha instructs him to distribute the food anyway and promises there will be enough—and even leftovers. And then it happens: everyone eats until they are full and there are, indeed, leftovers.

It’s another story reminding us of the power of the prophet Elisha to speak the word of God and create miraculous events in Yahweh’s name. If you and I were members of the company of prophets that day, not only would we be feeling pretty full after a great meal, but we would also know for sure that our new leader had a direct line to God, and lots of power because of it.

It’s interesting to note here that when we read this story we might think of another story we know from reading our Bibles—a story from the Gospels. Anybody know what I am talking about? That’s right, we remember Jesus feeding the 5000 in the Gospel of John, where the same sort of events unfold. Everyone who was on the hillside in Galilee that day with Jesus would have known the story of Elisha the prophet we read today. They’d been taught the story of Elisha at Gilgal since they were children, to demonstrate what a compassionate leader the prophet was, qualities they would look for in the Messiah for whom they were waiting, and thus the questions that ran through the crowd fast and furious that day—who was this man Jesus? Could he possibly be as powerful as one of the ancient prophets like Elisha?

And so here we are, reading about what might have been a nice supernatural twist on a regular Thanksgiving ritual. It’s a pretty standard miracle story as miracle stories go, don’t you think? I mean, as far as I know, nobody in my family is a prophet—or the Messiah, for that matter—but I can tell you right now that there will be enough food to feed 100 hungry prophets this coming Thursday when my family gathers. No, I think there’s something a little deeper here than a tithing ritual or even a feeding miracle that we might consider as we head into our own week of ritualistic giving thanks.

Remember what’s going on when the farmer shows up with his offering and gives it to Elisha. There’s a terrible famine going on in the land. There is no way the farmer who brought in his nice little offering to Elisha was not feeling the effects of the famine first-hand. While he had clearly managed to produce some sort of crop, we can assume the harvest he collected was perhaps rather sparse compared to past years. So, while he was dutifully following the law by bringing the commanded offering to the prophet, I imagine that it may not have been as easy to make this offering this harvest as it might have been in past harvests. And isn’t it true that giving is very nice when we have a lot to give, but that it takes on depth and new meaning when times are hard? In other words, I would venture to guess that a thanks-giving ritual became much more to that farmer than just another thing he did without thinking twice. You can bet that he thought—he thought about the paltry yield of his crop and the workers on his farm that he still had to pay and whether he would be able to feed his family on what he’d grown that year, much less what would be left after he gave a portion away. I think it’s important to note here that because of the circumstances this ritual becomes so much more than just a ritual—it becomes an act of true generosity reflecting not only gratitude for gifts from God, but even more important: a tangible expression of reliance on God’s care and providence. It’s one thing to say you believe in living a life of generosity…it’s another thing to live like you believe it when it’s not the easiest option.

And then, remember, Elisha receives the offering of the farmer. He’s the prophet, whom we already know by now is super powerful. As a representative of Yahweh, he is entitled to receive an offering like this one and enjoy it. Despite his power and position as head prophet, it’s pretty safe to assume that Elisha did not receive a biweekly paycheck or qualify for health insurance coverage or participate in the Ministers and Missionaries Benefits Board of the American Baptist Convention. This is the way he got paid for doing his job, and we can assume that he probably had a family and household to feed as well, people who depended on him to provide for them. According to Levitical law, Elisha should keep the offering of the farmer as his own income and use it to feed his family. It’s curious, then, that instead, Elisha notes how hungry the company of the prophets is, and decides to give away what has been given to him. Just give it away. I can just imagine Elisha’s wife, who up until that point had had no ideas for dinner, seeing all the relief she felt at the delivery of the offering going out the window…. Elisha gave it all away.

And then, curiously, the giving continues, when the food selflessly given by the farmer and generously shared by Elisha is multiplied by the miraculous power of God, and everyone there has more than enough to eat. Generosity begets blessing begets more generosity and blessing and the cycle continues, it almost seems contagious.

In 1999, novelist Catherine Ryan Hyde published a book called Pay it Forward. The hero of her story is young Trevor McKinney, a 12-year-old whose imagination is sparked by an extra-credit assignment in Social Studies: “Think of an idea for world change, and put it into action.” Trevor’s idea is deceptively simple: do a good deed for three people, and in exchange, ask each of them to “pay it forward” to three more. “So nine people get helped. Then those people have to do twenty-seven…. Then it sort of spreads out,” he says. Even if you didn’t read the book, you might remember the movie by the same name starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. After the book and the movie came out, the idea of “paying it forward” kind of took on a life of its own. Now, ten years later, the novel’s author has founded the Pay it Forward Foundation, which gives grants to kids like Trevor who come up with projects in which they practice the principle of paying it forward—of living with the conviction that an act of kindness or generosity in one life will birth continued gratitude in the lives of those around you.

As we head into the week ahead, we’re invited to remember that this is the purpose and the gift of giving thanks. Not to gather around a big table and outdo each other with the most holy sounding thing you’re thankful this year, or even to stuff yourself so full that you can hardly move. No, giving thanks is a way of life that opens our hearts and helps us remember that we don’t own what we have, and that we are invited by our generous Creator to live our lives holding on loosely to the things we have so that the generosity of God can be replicated in our lives and become contagious in the lives of those who encounter us.

What would our world be like if we lived, every one of us, with studied generosity, open hands and open hearts, giving away what we have because it never belonged to us in the first place, and resting comfortably with reliance on God? Why, I think our world might start to look a little like Gilgal the day that farmer brought his offering of thanksgiving to the prophet Elisha: lives filled with tangible expressions of gratitude, and everyone, everyone, having more than enough.

This week, during all the rituals we’ll be practicing, I wonder if we might reflect even more deeply on how we live our lives every other week of the year, and consider how we might live even more, reflecting our conviction that we are cared for and loved deeply by Almighty God. And, in turn, we are deeply, wholly, lavishly grateful. May it be so.

Amen.