About Bread + Fish

I'm in a class rightly called John, because it is a study of the fourth gospel. There is so much I like about John. I love how John writes I think. I like the emotions I get while reading this book. I love that John feels free to be confusing or that the Lord feels free to.

I was reading today about the feeding of the five thousand. Now since chapter 5 an entire year has passed and Jesus is once again being an obedient Jew and showing up to the feast. However, Jesus knows the evil, unrighteous priests and sanhedrin aren't going to feed the people's spiritual hunger, so he takes them to a mountain.

I noticed this about Jesus. Jesus wanted to teach the men who had traveled to Jerusalem spiritual things, but he knew that the men needed to eat or they wouldn't hear a word he'd teach them. Just like Jesus always was doing probably, he tests Phillips faith, and asks him how they should feed these people. Philip fails this test, and mumbles something about how much it will cost.

I can almost see the look of frustration/disappointment/yet perfect, patient, love as he glanced past Philip to an approaching Andrew. Now if you know anything about Andrew you know that he was always bringing people to Jesus. (What a great testimony by the way) Now I saw something today that I have never seen before. I imagined in my mind that Jesus was about to make manna fall from the heavens, and water spring forth from the ground, but....There was a boy behind Andrew who he wanted to talk to first.

Now you can read about this miracle in all four gospels but only John mentions the boy. The word paidarion is a double-diminutive meaning literally a "a very small boy". The same word is used to describe the probably pickled fish, and barley bread (barely by the way was considered grain fit for beasts).

I like to think that this boy pleaded with Andrew if he could please give Jesus his fish and bread. I think the boy had the faith of Joshua as he ran up to Jesus. Jesus probably embraced this poor, pathetic-looking, little boy, and I think he winked at him and whispered in his ear "watch this son"

This tells me several things. First that this boy had a good father. A father who was a good Jew and attended the feasts he was supposed too. Also, a father or mother that knew to let his boy run to Jesus with whatever he had and see if he'll take it. My friends....He'll take it everytime. How many of us have so much more than bread or fish, lets see what he'll do with it. amen?

About Social Responsibility

When I hear the words social responsibility I think of situations in which I or anyone would do the right thing. For example if I hit a dog with my car I would try to find the owner. If I saw a house on fire I would call 911. However, this realm of responsibility is also about other areas....areas like shopping for example. For a while now I have been on a kick of being socially responsible shopper. If you asked me what responsibile shopping was last year I would have told you whatever place saves me the most money. Is this true? If thats the case I should get everything I need at Walmart, rumor has it they will sell babies, cars, and houses soon at discount prices. The following is from a paper my friend Amber wrote.

"The thing about Wal-Mart though—which should not be forgotten—is that it’s the largest, most successful company in history, and the world’s largest employer. It has a market share close to 30 percent of numerous industries in the world’s most powerful economy (ours). The main objection to Wal-Mart (well, mine anyway) is not only that it’s predictably ruthless, but that it acts with the impunity granted it by its power.

Walmart (in response to intense public criticism of late, including a memo pulbished by the New York Times) Unlike other companies which respond to public criticism by actually improving policies, or at least promising to address them, Wal-Mart just goes about business as usual and tries to make what it’s doing sound better. Instead of actually increasing employee benefits, it pays for commercials with happy employees and yellow smiley faces. Instead of recognizing that Wal-Mart sets wage trends, executives publicly support raising the minimum wage, while keeping their own wages low. Instead of responding to concerns that Wal-Mart has an unfair advantage over its competitors, it hires former political campaign managers to clean up its image.

Of course, the reason that Wal-Mart does this is that cleaning up its image is a lot cheaper than cleaning up its practices, and executives have confidence that people will settle for a little sweeping under the rug, and keep coming back for the low prices. For whatever reason, it seems we keep falling for it, and it won’t change until we stop. So, if you care about the well-being of workers, if you don’t like the concentration of power in a single corporation, if you don’t think returns to shareholders must be the sole dictator of business decisions, then exercise your right in a free economy and spend your money elsewhere. Now is a good time to start. "

If your like me your probably thinking "every business is corrupt, so why not go to the corrupt one that gets me the cheapest milk and donuts". I understand. I suggest checking these sites www.responsibleshopper.org. and www.business-humanrights.org. They might be of help in this busy shopping frenzy the next few weeks.