Miracles on Sale

Last week’s reading was focused on how Jesus fed the 5000, walked on water, and his disciples sailed to Capernaum. The crowd that was mentioned at the beginning had seen all these miracles. They still had the taste of the bread in their mouths when they realized that they needed to follow Jesus. 

But the people of Jesus’ time are not fools. They are people with wisdom and experience, and if they know one thing, it is to watch out for con artists. Jesus is not the only person roaming around, proclaiming to be sent by God to save the world and amass followers. This happens so frequently that his presence is often initially seen as an annoyance more than a sign of the impossible made possible. They want to follow Jesus; they want to know why he is there. But they will not be made fools of by following someone who turns out to be a sham.

How do you prove someone is Emmanuel, “God with us”? What is the test you use? Is there a riddle to solve or a feat of strength? They ask him when he arrived, hoping to get his history. This is a small land; you can find out someone’s family and friends very easily. When he evades that question, they then ask him to prove he is who he says he is. 

I actually think that the followers had a point. Since Jesus was the one claiming to everyone that he had miracles and wonders available, the world-savvy option would be to ask how he will convince them, perhaps by letting them produce enough bread for a small town as well! I will not begrudge anyone who sees something physically impossible happen and be wary about how it was performed. 

We can take Jesus’ rebuke of them two ways. One is dismissing them. Oh, you poor silly people. You aren’t listening. You are too busy being fed to see the Son of God before you! How naive. And for some, this is how it is interpreted. They didn’t get it, so they don’t get salvation. Oh well, better luck next time.

Or I wonder if we can take it in a different direction. Jesus is not rebuking the crowd for their suspicion. He is telling them they aren’t thinking big enough. They have access to every miracle and feat of physics-defying act available, and they ask him to repeat the bread and fish from yesterday. No, for Jesus, he wants them to break free from those limitations.

Over July while I was committed to doing as little as intellectually stimulating as possible, I came across old archive videos on YouTube. These were from the 50’s and showed what they thought the homes of tomorrow would look like. In an ancient future of the 2000’s they pictured kitchens that could cook specific individualised meals on demand, with little to no waste. They imagined office tables that could easily be flipped over to be poker tables with the touch of a button. Tables and countertops could be elevated or lowered to your perfect height. Some things that are familiar to us now like doorbells and telephones with cameras, so you see each others faces, driveways with de-icing technology so you never shovel snow, and home entertainment systems that look like a nice speaker set many of you have at home now.

I love seeing these videos because they show us so much about the people of the time. You can see what their priorities are, what they value and dismiss, and how it compares to 70 years later. Some things they would have never conceived, like Bluetooth wireless technology and internet exploding. The idea of you carrying a computer stronger than the one used to send astronauts to the moon, that it sits in your pocket, and all we do is complain it isn’t downloading a 90-minute movie fast enough, was simply beyond their scope.

What you do see in those videos is that the women are always the ones in the kitchen. The men are in the office, then playing poker. It is all nuclear families and gender norms that stay very boxed into one image of what is ideal. You will get your kitchen that is so easy to use anyone can use it. But of course, it is still the only place for a woman. 

This wasn’t even reflective of the time, let alone our present. But it was an ideal. A group of marketers and researchers and writers got together and said, what is our ideal world. And they created one where the snow melts off the driveway, but women won’t be able to be employed once they are married, and that queer people don’t exist. Don’t even get me started on how everyone is able-bodied and white. 

I know this is not how everyone in this context believed. Just as I know we can’t shrink the entire belief system of the ancient near east into a few paragraphs of gospel. But I ask us think about what we would have said if we were in that room. We are told to imagine a future with unlimited potential technology, no boundaries, or rules to confine our imaginations. What could the ideal future look like?

Is it that everyone has food? Wonderful, go for it! Now all are fed. Now what.

The followers of Jesus had never encountered a person like Jesus before. One who says that the rules of the day do not matter. Where if you were a king or a peasant, a fisher, or a seamstress. Orphan or widow, from any corner of the world. You get the opportunity to not just survive but thrive. To dream, to imagine something amazing and nonsensical. Jesus is selling the miracle of a limitless love, hope, and dreams for all. Jesus will cover the bill in liberating us even from death. Jesus paid for it and liberated us from the tyranny of “but that is the way it has always been done before.”

Today is Emancipation Sunday, where in Canada we celebrate the eradication of slavery in Canada and across the British Empire. This was made possible with the dedication and work of thousands of people who were enslaved, or escaped slavery, and the white allies who also saw it for what it was, cruel human trafficking that was antithetical to the very concepts of Christianity. Even at that time we had people who insisted they didn’t know how to envision a world without unpaid human labour. A world where people across races and ethnicities could work alongside each other in peace, respecting each other as complete equals. And while we absolutely still have a way to go, the way our society is running now is simply inconceivable to someone 200 years ago. But it was a part of the dream, the dream they worked towards just as we work towards that dream together of one where no one is disadvantaged because of race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality, disability, social class. Compared to 2 centuries ago it is so close we can taste it. We can dream it. God’s kingdom being built here and now. 

This dream is not fanciful. It is not delusional. It will just take all of us working together as the hands and feet of God’s church, living into the vision Christ has for us all. Whoever comes to be will never be hungry. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Whoever believes that this can be possible can make this possible. Forget an electric kitchen or de-icing driveways. Go bigger than manna from heaven. Jesus has the miracle for us all, ready to go. One where you, I, and everyone in God’s creation can find peace, love, and joy. One where we can look back and in amazement and wonder, because we have gone farther into building the kingdom of heaven than we ever could have imagined before. 

Amen.