Sermon - Trinity VII 20204 - Mark 8:1-9

The Multiplication of Loaves, Daniel Halle, 1664

God blesses small things

1. We are small when faced with the big challenges of the world

2. God works through small and ordinary things

3. God blesses small things to address big problems

In some ways radio, television, and the internet has made the world seem smaller. Although, it’s not actually smaller, it’s just closer and more visible to us. Thus, in other ways the world appears to be even larger and the problems insurmountable. When you see a photograph from space of our planet, you feel smaller than an ant. How could you ever expect to resolve the problems faced internationally, let alone in the city next door? You’re so small, the problems are so big, who are you to do anything about it?

This is the conundrum which the disciples faced. A great crowd of 4,000 men (not counting women and children) had gathered to see Jesus perform miracles and listen to Him teach. Jesus explained the situation: “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” The disciples further clarify their problem: “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?” There’s no food here to be harvested, no markets to shop at, it’s a desolate place.

That said, the disciples weren’t going to starve. Jesus asked what they had, and they had seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. This would’ve been plenty to feed the twelve apostles and Jesus, more than enough really. But not even close to enough to feed thousands of people! The meager resources of the disciples were apparently too small to resolve their rather big problem.

Keep in mind that this is now at least the second time they’ve been in this kind of situation. Back in Lent we read John 6, earlier in Jesus’ ministry, where Jesus fed the five thousand with five loaves and two fish. So presumably the disciples knew that Jesus could feed all of these people if He desired to, but if it was up to them they were up the proverbial creek without a paddle. They were too small and inconsequential to fix this problem; it appeared to be too much for them to handle.

Nevertheless, God worked through the small inconsequential disciples and their meager rations to feed the crowd of thousands. Jesus “directed the crowd to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd. And they had a few small fish. And having blessed them, he said that these also should be set before them. And they ate and were satisfied. And they took up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full.” It’s notable that Jesus Himself didn’t walk around and hand out food, but rather Jesus worked through the disciples in order to feed the people. So while the almighty God was responsible for the miracle, the ordinary disciples were Jesus’ hands who delivered the miracle.

All of this gives proof to the fact that God blesses small things and indeed even works through small and ordinary means. The Triune God cares for His people, even when they find themselves in desolate places. It’s worth recognizing the contrast here with Muhammadism, Islam. Every year Muslims have a huge required pilgrimage to Mecca in the desert of Saudi Arabia, and this year 1,300 died due to the heat, which is a common every year occurrence. The false Muslim god Allah sends his people to die in the desert, while the true God has compassion on His people and preserves them when they voluntarily go into the desert.

The Muslim authorities tend to shrug off these thousands of deaths, since what’s 1,300 when there’s millions of people at their pilgrimage. But Jesus cares about His people, doesn’t shrug off their sufferings, even if His people are apparently insignificant in the whole scheme of things. The true God cares about normal, average, nobodies whom the world otherwise neglects. It is this same love for the small that drove our Lord Jesus to the cross, where He who is the Lord of creation died for each and every ordinary sinner. From the unwanted child in the womb to the forgotten grandparent in the nursing home, God has compassion on them all and died even for the smallest of these.

Not only does God exalt those of low estate and fill the hungry with good things, He even blesses the small and ordinary works of these small and ordinary people. The seven loaves of bread and few small fish were given thanks for and blessed by the Lord Jesus. The little things the disciples had were sufficient, even if they were small.

It’s counterintuitive today, but truly the greatest work in this life is the smallest and most ordinary work, because that is the work ordained by God, even before the Fall into sin. “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed… The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” I don’t know what Adam’s work consisted of before the Fall, but apparently there was labor to be done, and this ordinary work was set before Adam in order to maintain this garden of paradise. 

Work still exists today, and work is still good because it has been ordained by God, yet it has been subjected to the curse of sin: To Adam God said: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In spite of the besetting difficulty of work today, work has not been abolished, but it is still of imminent value and significance, and God still works through it. God has still placed you into this world to work it and keep it, even if sin makes that more difficult and unpleasant.

Know this: God works through your simple and ordinary lives in order to address and influence big things. So this small congregation located in a small town maybe seems insignificant, because we’re not like some big church in some big city, or even like the big church that we used to be a few decades ago. But in spite of our evident smallness, God works great and powerful things through this congregation. His transformative Word is proclaimed and souls are saved, His medicine of immortality is fed to hungry souls, babies are baptized, children and adults catechized, and the dying are commended to God. Even one small soul saved is enough to make the whole thing huge.

The same is true about your lives. This world isn’t truly changed by the trillions of dollars spent in Washington, but by the ordinary household living lives which glorify God. Faithful husbands and wives, hardworking fathers and mothers, loving children and grandparents, humble Christians performing simple tasks of everyday labor have the most profound impact on the world around them. Even, and especially, if it seems like you have such a small and minor role to play, God promises to bless your faithfulness. Your normalness and smallness are a feature, not a bug, not something to be depressed about, because God works through it to do great things.

Christians are a small people, that’s just how it is. It makes sense, afterall. Jesus, who was by all means a nobody from nowheresville, who called uneducated small people to follow Him, whose capstone event was the most ordinary thing imaginable: dying, turned out to have accomplished the most miraculous thing: resurrection from the dead and victory over sin and satan. God blesses the small things, and uses them to influence the eternal things.