There Is a Boy Here

Read‍

John 6:8-10 "Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 'Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?' Jesus said, 'Have the people sit down.' There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there)."

Think

In a crowd of thousands of people, one kid brought lunch.

Think about how strange that actually is. Everybody there was hungry. Every single adult on that hillside had walked out of their house that morning the same as him. And when the disciples went looking, the only food anybody could produce belonged to a kid.

Nobody knows his name. He gets one line in the entire Bible and then he disappears. What he had was five small barley loaves and two small fish, and both of those details are smaller than they sound in English.

Barley was the cheap grain, the one you ate if you could not afford wheat. And the word John uses for the fish is not the word for a nice piece of fish on a plate. It is closer to two little dried fish, the kind you would pack for a kid to snack on. This is not a picnic basket. This is one child's lunch, and not an impressive one.

Then read what Andrew says about it, because it might be the most relatable sentence in the passage. "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

Andrew brings it to Jesus and immediately apologizes for it.

He is not wrong. Five loaves against five thousand men is not a rounding error, it is nothing. Andrew can see that. He brings it anyway, and he cannot stop himself from adding the disclaimer, and if you have ever offered something and immediately explained why it probably will not matter, you know exactly what that feels like.

Now think about the kid.

He is standing in front of grown men who are discussing how impossible the situation is. He has the only food anybody has found. And nowhere in this story does anybody record him arguing, hesitating, or asking what happens to him if he gives away the only meal he brought.

He hands it over. That is the entire contribution. He did not multiply anything. He did not organize the crowd. He did not have a plan for what came next. He put what he had in the hands of Jesus and then stood there and watched.

That is worth sitting with, because most of us are waiting to have enough before we offer anything.

Maybe all you actually have is one friend you could invite. One conversation. One text you could send tonight. One seat in your car on a Wednesday. One prayer. One moment of being brave when it would be easier to stay quiet.

It is going to feel like five loaves against five thousand people. It is supposed to feel like that. Andrew felt it too and he was standing right next to Jesus.

And notice the very next thing Jesus says. He does not comment on how small the lunch is. He does not say it will have to do. He looks at five loaves and two fish and says, "Have the people sit down."

Sit them down. All of them. Get five thousand people comfortable on the grass, because dinner is happening.

Jesus made a seating arrangement based on a kid's lunch. He was not being polite about the size of the gift. He was already treating it as enough.

So what do you actually have in your hands right now that you have been calling too small to bother offering?

Apply

Offer the small thing – If the room is full on September 30, it is because a few hundred students each brought one person, which means One Night is built entirely out of contributions that look too small to matter on their own. Your part is one name. Write it down today, and do not trade it for a bigger plan or wait until you have a better one.

Pray

God, what I have feels embarrassing compared to what is needed. I keep waiting until I have something worth handing you. Help me stop apologizing for it and just give it to you. Do whatever you want with it. In Jesus' name. Amen.