Three times a day the rabbis prayed Psalm 145. They did so because of the verse which stands at its theological center. You open wide your hand, and satisfy the needs of every living creature. Satisfy the desire of every living thing, another version has it. Sufficient contentedness, says another. The meaning is clear and bold: God pours out from God's hands all that creatures need, all that creatures want.

The world is nourished because of God's grace, because of God's good desire for it, because of God's gift of it and to it. Out of God's hands pour life and sustenance to all creatures, including us, God's people.

This church today is full of food. Not surprising, really. Appropriate. Being Lutherans, we like to mix eating with praying, feeding with praising. Food is physical: proteins and such that we need. And food is symbolic: standing for life and well-being. Food for the soul, we say.

When we ask God to send us people who might be nourished here at Faith, we don't differentiate too much between the physical and the symbolic.

It is an open secret that when the church council convenes, or when we gather to study the Bible after worship, there is always a jar of Jelly Belly jelly beans on the table.

When we gather for coffee after worship, we feed people. We've been thinking about adding bagels before worship, too.

The person who invented Faith Kitchen wanted the church to do something for the people of the community. She didn't know exactly what. But she did know that she wanted the main thing about it to be food.

First, food restores and energizes our bodies and minds. So we cook and eat and enjoy our creaturely senses. It is an occasion to find things delicious.

Second, food is a visible sign of God's abundant provision for us. So we give thanks. We say grace at meals. Before Jesus broke the bread at his last supper, and before he distributed bread to the 5000, he gave thanks. Perhaps he said the customary blessing of his time and people: “Blessed are you, O God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from heaven.” All food is food from God.

And third, food reminds us that for many people food is hard to come by. So we have an obligation to feed people. It is one of the criteria God will use to separate the sheep from the goats. The assignment is specific. We are not only called to be generally generous, but specifically to feed those who are hungry.

In the kitchen downstairs is a pile of food. It is for Tuesday's Faith Kitchen Cookout, which I hope you will all come to. Come to eat, not to work (unless you want to). This is a party. Faith Kitchen turns out to be a celebration of these three things: the pleasure of food shared by many, of God's abundant provision, and of our part in working for God's kingdom in which all will eat, as it says in today's Gospel lesson--that all everyone will eat all they want. Each meal is a wonder.

Food is prominent in the Gospel of John, where Jesus begins his ministry by changing water into wine. For John, eating is very much tied together with belief and eternal life. The story today is the beginning of a long presentation about bread and life, which continues in our readings for the next three Sundays.

Today's portion is a story about feeding. The story appears, more or less in the same way, in each of the four Gospels and twice in two of them. It was clearly important for the early Christian communities.

What is remarkable about this version of the story is that nothing happens. Nothing out of this world happens. When Jesus heals a sick boy, that's unusual. When Jesus turns water to wine, that's unusual. But when Jesus feeds some people, that's not unusual. That is, eating is not unusual. Someone at the event might have told his neighbor: I went to hear this guy Jesus. He said some great stuff. We had dinner while he talked. He served the dinner, too.

The story is about what Jesus wants to do. Unlike in the other Gospels, Jesus is not moved here by his compassion. No one had been complaining that they were hungry. No murmurs from the crowd. No restlessness. Nothing even from the disciples. There is no excitement among the crowd. This is not a group of people caught up in the mystery of the feeding. It's not like a bunch of baseball fans waiting to see if a pitcher can pull off a no-hitter. Will these 5000 people really be fed by five loaves and two tiny fish? In the story, at least, no one seems to care.

The story is less about the magic than about the man. It is Jesus who suggests the meal, it is Jesus who distributes it. John wants a miracle story. Jesus just wants people to eat.

It would be great to conclude from this story that God always provides. But can we say that when we see that people are not always provided for? People in Eritrea are starving because there has been no rain. People in Palestine because there are no jobs. People on the streets of Boston because they have nowhere to live.

We don't always get what we want. Our needs, in spite of psalm 145, are not always satisfied. Our contentment is not always sufficient. People are out of work, out of prospects, out of sorts. We don't know what's going on now or what's going to happen tomorrow. Things seem fragile. Relationships are broken, or never made. When we get what we want it turns out that's not what we want. Or who we want.

Jesus wants to feed us. Through whatever means possible. God's desire is that we are always satisfied. That we are sufficiently content. It is what we are made for. Jesus wants to feed us and protect us and keep us in eternal life, abundant life. I am the bread of life, we'll hear Jesus say next week. Jesus wants good life for us.

But then what can we say about the frustration of God's desire? If Jesus wants to feed us, is it evil when people starve? If Jesus wants the good life for us, is it evil when people suffer? What is it when the world does not conform to God's best hopes? When creation is corrupted. Not whose fault is it, not what will eventually become of it, but how are we to live in it now?

What we call miracles in the Gospel of John-the wine to water, the healings, the feeding of the 5000--John calls signs. Signs of God's hopes revealed. Signs of God's interest.

We think of miracles as aberrations of the natural. As breaks in the natural world. Distortions of it. But it seems to me that miracles are more a matter of course. Of God's course. When people are healed, or fed, or made sufficiently content, that is the natural course. That is the preferred course. When they are not, that is the distortion. That evil continues to exist and, for a time at least, prevail--that is the distortion.

We see in the feeding and the healing and the restoring and the comforting of Jesus the world that God had in mind for creation. A miracle is where God's hopes are clearly present and active. Where God's desire shows plainly through the customary grime. A miracle is a glimpse of the way things are. A clear view of God's wide open hand.