Mark 6:32-44
Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS
March 15, 2026
A lovely, crisp fall day in 2021. You may remember that back in 2021 many of us had all our best meetings outdoors, whether that was on a walk or at a picnic table. Because….? COVID, that’s right.
So I’m on this walk-and-talk meeting and the person I was with mentioned to me that they hadn’t sat down for a meal with other humans since March of 2020, about a year and a half before. As a person who was living and working in the same space as my spouse and kids (who were also going to school in our living room), this blew my mind. I hadn’t had a meal ALONE in a year and a half, but this other person (who lived alone) hadn’t had a meal WITH anyone else. Our experiences of the pandemic were so different.
Different as they were, I will guess that most of us missed out on some important meals during this time. Birthday parties cancelled or moved to Zoom. Weddings where no cake was served. Funerals without the funeral meal. And of course, Christmases and Thanksgivings alone or with immediate family only. I remember how we set my mom up on a tripod so she could “join us” for Thanksgiving on Facetime. Such a strange meal. But we all did what we thought best to gather in the ways we could.
Those of you who were here during that time might remember having Drive Through Communion? I’ll never forget the joy I felt, seeing your masked faces as I passed the elements through your car windows. For many of you, it was the first time I had seen you outside of a Zoom box in months. And when we got a little more organized and understood more about the virus, we gathered for Communion on the Lawn. Do you remember that? I can still remember us all, sitting in lawn chairs carefully spaced at intervals, grinning like mad because we were TOGETHER. Not necessarily gathered around the table in the sanctuary, but gathered together at Christ’s table nonetheless. It was such a joy to share that holy meal in the same physical space again after months away.
The pandemic taught us many lessons. More lessons than most of us wanted to learn, I’d say. Do you remember how tiring it was learning all those new things? My word.
But one lesson that has stuck with many of us, I think, was how important it is for humans to gather together for a meal. So many times since then, I’ve gathered at tables with friends, loved ones, strangers, looked around and thought, “I don’t think I’ll ever take this simple thing for granted again. At least, I hope I don’t.”
Jesus knew the power of gathering together for a meal. I suppose this is why one of our sacraments involves eating together. We remember that Christ gathered at that table with his followers, just like they had so many times before. He took the daily bread there on the table - and the cup containing nothing more than every day wine - blessed it and shared it with his friends. As he did so, he commanded them to remember. Remember this meal. Remember this moment. Remember what it’s like for us to be together here.
This comes as no surprise because the Way of Jesus is an embodied faith. In the beginning, God created human bodies. The prophets proclaimed justice and liberation and healing for human bodies. At the core of our faith is a story about God loving the world so much that God took on human flesh and entered the world through the body of a young woman laboring and sweating to bring a tiny human body into the world.
Jesus’s public ministry began with his human body being held in the arms of his cousin as John baptized him in the Jordan River. After, he went away to a wilderness place where his human body was pushed and challenged. His first miracle happened on the dance floor at a wedding - human bodies dancing and swirling and looking for something to drink.
And, of course, when Jesus gathered at that final meal with his followers he washed the feet attached to their human bodies. And then passed the bread and wine to fill their human bellies.
It’s easy to imagine that, in that moment, the disciples remembered the story we heard from Mark this morning. The Last Supper is a direct echo of the Feeding of the 5000:
[Jesus] directed the disciples to seat all the people in groups as though they were having a banquet on the green grass. (I can’t help but think of our Communion on the Lawn here.) They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. [Jesus] took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them, broke the loaves into pieces, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. Everyone ate until [their human bodies] were full.
Over the years, people have listened to this story and wondered, “How did this miracle work, exactly?” Like all the best miracles, we’re not given a behind-the-scenes tour. One of my favorite explanations is that Jesus gathered up the five loaves and two fish that the disciples had, blessed it, and shared it. This, of course, was not nearly enough food to feed all those people. But luckily, the people in the crowd had more to share. They took out Goldfish crackers and granola bars and beef jerky sticks and apples and passed them around, along with the loaves and fish. A little bag of Chex mix here, a warmish-but-still-okay cheese stick there, and, eventually everyone had enough.
Of course, that’s only one interpretation. You may have other theories that you prefer. Or you may not be interested in the details at all. After all, stories don’t have to have factually happened in order to be deeply true and resonant.
We may not have all the details, but what we do know is that, if the disciples had done it their way, this story wouldn’t have happened at all. Their initial plan was to send the people away and let them fend for themselves. Anyone who’s planned an event knows it’s much easier to end just before the dinner hour and let people go off on their own to find a meal. So much easier than taking RSVPs and gathering up a list of dietary restrictions and finding a caterer and paying for those meals and cleaning up after the meal and on and on. So I can’t say I blame them for their impulse. It’s dinnertime. People are hungry. Let them go so they can find something to eat.
But Jesus has other plans. And he’s not pulling any punches here. He makes it plain: “You give them something to eat.”
Jesus was fully confident that this giant crowd could figure it out, if given the opportunity. Perhaps the miracle wasn’t some magic Jesus did behind the curtain. Perhaps the miracle was Jesus believing in the people’s capacity to care for each other. Perhaps the miracle was the power of community that Jesus could see and name. Perhaps the miracle was a teacher who knew his students were ready to rise to the challenge.
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Last week in Adult Sunday School we read a line from our Lenten Devotional that I haven’t stopped thinking about. Rev. Jill Duffield said, “Memorize Jesus’ life and emulate it.” [1]
If Jesus believes in us, maybe we should, too.
If Jesus believes we have the power to take care of each other, maybe we can believe it, too.
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About a month ago, when things were really awful in Minnesota, I read an article online called “Seven reasons why hosting a silly little potluck (or game night, or porch hang, or book club, or group hike) is essential to defeating fascism.” In this article, Milwaukee-based organizer Garrett Bucks writes about his answer to the question “what do we DO?”
He says:
My answer is predictable and, I fear, often disappointing. It doesn’t offer a hero’s path. At first blush it doesn’t match the urgency of the moment. That question (“what do I do?”), leaves so much unsaid (I’m frightened! I feel powerless!)....We long for an invite to the secret meeting where every perfect activist step is laid out before us like a treasure map. We crave, whether we admit it or not, “one simple trick,” that will reverse all the ways fascism makes us feel impossibly tiny. [2]
There is no simple trick. There is only slowly and steadily building and sustaining community. Stopping to talk to a neighbor while out walking the dog. Hosting a potluck or puzzle night or coffee in the driveway. Visiting with other parents while our kids play on the playground. There are bowling leagues and D&D campaigns and mahjong gatherings. There is no simple trick. There is only community built when we all sit down on the lawn, take a few snacks from our bags, bless them and pass them around.
Lest you think: BUT THIS IS NOT ENOUGH! THE WORLD IS ON FIRE!
You are correct. This is not enough. The world is on fire.
And: none of the things that will quiet the flames are possible without community that is built one potluck, one movie night, one sing along at a time.
Bucks explains,
If you ask activists in Minneapolis how they’ve actually spent the past few weeks, you’ll hear about sets of actions that are either incredibly intuitive or that can be taught in relatively short workshops. There’s nothing particularly tricky about learning the SALUTE format for reporting ICE activity. You don’t need a doctorate in social movement theory to organize a food delivery spreadsheet. We all know, intuitively, how to blow a whistle.
What is time consuming, however, is vetting strangers who want to join a Signal group, knowing which nonprofits can offer fiscal sponsorship for a mutual aid campaign, which churches or businesses have room for an emergency meeting, and who on your block is more flexible during the day or the night. The people who have been most effective in Minneapolis…aren’t the big talkers with the loudest megaphones. They are those who already knew their neighbors, who could be key connectors when, on a dime, an entire city raised their hands looking for something useful to do. [2]
Jesus knew this, too. When the day grew long, when the people got hungry, the disciples’ first instinct was to make things simple: send them home, let them find their own food. Those of us who are introverts FEEL THIS IN OUR BONES, am I right?
But Jesus saw another way forward. “You find them something to eat,” he said.
Host a silly little potluck. Get together with strangers and sing songs of love and liberation. Take a granola bar out of your purse and share it with the person next to you in line.
The miracle of the loaves and fishes is still calling us and convicting us.
We get there together or never get there at all.
NOTES:
[1] Duffiled, Jill. Lent in Plain Sight. P. 58
[2] https://thewhitepages.net/p/seven-reasons-why-hosting-a-silly
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