Jesus’s students feed thousands of people.

Mark 6.35-44, Matthew 14.15-21, Luke 9.12-17, John 6.5-13.

This story is basically Jesus’s riff on a similar situation with Elisha ben Šafat:

2 Kings 4.1-7 KWL

1 A woman, one of the women of “the sons of prophets,” cried out to Elisha

to say, “Your slave, my man, died. You know your slave respected the LORD.

He was a debtor, and a collector is coming to take two of my children as slaves.”

2 Elisha told her, “What can I do for you? Tell me. What do you have in your house?”

She said, “Your slave has nothing in her house but a pot of oil.”

3 Elisha said, “Go ask all your neighbors outside for pots for yourself.

Empty pots. Not just a few!

4 Come in the house and shut the door behind you and your children.

Pour oil into all these pots. Set aside the full pots.”

5 She went with this, and shut the door behind her and her children.

They came to her with pots, and she poured.

6 When the pots were filled, she told her children, “Bring me another!”

They told her, “There are no more pots.” The oil held out.

7 She came to tell the God’s-man of this. He said, “Go sell the oil.

Be freed of your debt. You and your children can live on what’s left over.”

God multiplied oil to bail out this prophet; God can likewise multiply food to feed the big crowd who’d accumulated to listen to Jesus’s teaching.

Usually this story’s titled, “How Jesus fed 5,000 people.” Obviously ’cause people don’t bother to pay close attention to the text. Or they remember it from Jesus movies: Jesus puts the bread and fish in a basket, lifts it to the sky, prays, lowers the basket… and now it’s magically overflowing with food. They think of that instead of reading the bible.

Jesus came up with the idea to feed the crowd from what food his students had on them. Jn 6.6 In part to show his kids Elisha-style miracles are still doable; in part to show them God’s kingdom doesn’t suffer from the limitations of this world; in part to show them they could do this. ’Cause he told his students—read it again!—“You give them something to eat.” Then Jesus made them give the people something to eat. And that’s where the miracle took place.

Seriously. Read the story. Double-check it in other translations.

God must be our first resort. Never our last.

Let me reiterate: There’s nothing at all wrong with asking God for things. Jesus teaches us to do so in the Lord’s Prayer: It’s all prayer requests. (Even the parts Christians claim are “praise before the requests.” Asking that God’s name be blessed, his kingdom come, his will be done, are meant to be stuff we want.) When we need something, God expects us and invites us to turn to him for help.

In contrast, our culture encourages us to be independent. Do for ourselves, then ask for help. And you wanna avoid asking for help as long as possible. The world isn’t kind. They don’t help you without first asking, “What’s in it for me?” Strings get attached. They expect cash, or a quid pro quo… or at least a pizza.

As a result, a lot of Christians only turn to God when we need help with big things. The stuff we can’t handle. The stuff we need help with—and other people aren’t willing to give it, so in desperation we turn to God as a last resort. Or a long shot. A “hail-Mary,” as it’s called in football. (And that saying implies they still haven’t turned to God yet: They’re calling on Mary first!)

Pagans in particular. When things are going fine, they tend to ignore God. When things are dire, suddenly they “get religion” and try to bargain with God. And to many pagans’ surprise—’cause we’d never offer ’em grace on those terms—God regularly takes ’em up on it, and brings ’em into his kingdom as a result. How many testimonies have you heard where people came to Jesus because of a crisis?

But even Christians have a bad habit of only calling upon God when it’s a crisis. God was a last resort when we were pagans; God’s still the last person we turn to when we’re totally stuck.

When we’re shopping for phones, we don’t pray. When we’re buying a house (assuming we’re not so wealthy, such transactions are no big deal) we pray a ton. When we have an ache or pain, we pop an aspirin and go on. When it’s cancer, we’re calling the elders of our church to lay hands on us. Jm 5.14

Heck, I’ve heard Christians teach this. In church. “When there’s no one else to turn to, you have God.” Isn’t that nice? He’s our safety net.

He doesn’t wanna be our safety net. He wants to be our support. He wants to carry us. Help us. Love us. Provide for us. Our first resort.