I'm Not Being Fed!

My wife made a comment today that I found to be pretty profound. She said, "We in the United States are as obese spiritually as we are physically." The comment brought me up short. I was blown away by the truth and the implications of the statement.

I have heard Christians in churches say so many times that they did not want to be in a church anymore, because they simply were not being fed. NOT BEING FED?!?! A statement like that speaks volumes on the kind of Christianity that person lives. The fact that so many Christians in the US have made that statement or have heard it spoken says quite a bit about our consumer, Western faith (or lack thereof) as well. You or me personally being fed in a church body is simply not the point. I am sorry to be so blunt about this, but as the pastor of a church, if you are a believer in my congregation, I don't care if you are not "feeling fed". The responsibility for your imagined malnourishment is with you, not me. Besides, a person who makes a comment like that is the person who is sitting in a pew every week feeding, receiving, and growing fat from consumption and inactivity.

In Matthew's account of the Feeding of the Five Thousand The disciples come to Jesus and tell him that the people are hungry. Jesus tells them, with a bit of a tone, it seems, "You give them something to eat." In John's account of the same story, Jesus tests the disciples by telling them to go buy food for the people. I find it interesting that they were unable to feed the people at all, and Jesus knew that. He is the Bread of Life. Only He was able to feed them, and only He is able to feed us now. It is also interesting that the Apostles did every kind of miracle that Jesus did on earth. One of them, Peter, even walked on water. The only miracle they did not do like Jesus was the feeding of a multitude. I believe that Jesus was asking them to do something outside of their capabilities, precisely to have them realize their limitations. Yet, in a way, they did feed the multitudes. They fed them in their celebrations of the Lord's Supper. They fed the multitudes with the Body of Christ. The point is that the people were not fed by the efforts of some pastor. The people are fed by Christ, himself.

I believe one of the main lessons of this story is often missed because of a misreading of the passages. Jesus constantly calls us to take up our crosses and follow Him. When we read this story, unfortunately many of us identify with the multitude. We see ourselves as part of the faceless mass of humanity, hungry and worn down. However, the Gospels make it quite clear throughout that Jesus calls us out of that. He wants us to be like Him. We are to be the disciples. As believers and disciples, how are we fed? We get our fill by doing the work of distributing the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ. There is always abundance! When we are finished there is enough left for each of us to have a basket! When we do the work of the Kingdom, it comes back to us.

Anyone who complains of not being fed in a church is useless in the work of the Kingdom. This is not to say that all churches are plugged in to the movement of the Spirit. Many are missing the boat. But, it is when we are actively participating in the advancement of the Kingdom through the sharing of the person of Jesus that we are filled to overflowing. Let's all stop sitting in our spiritual recliners and run the race that God has set before us! Anything else is gluttony.