Sitting in Public

¹ After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. ² A large crowd kept following him because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³ Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴ Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. ⁵ When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰ Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place, so they sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹ Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. ¹² When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴ When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

John 6:1-14 (NRSVue)

The lectionary’s gospel text this week, often titled “The Feeding of the 5,000,” is a well-known gospel story. In addition to its inclusion in all four canonical gospels, it is frequently included in children’s bibles, preached on Sunday mornings, memorialized in mosaics and stained glass, and highlighted in local mission drives. Jesus miraculously turns five loaves and two fish into enough food to feed more than 5,000 people with twelve baskets of leftovers. It’s the story everyone wants to hear when anxieties are high. Amid great political turmoil and heightened social angst in the US, I was relieved to learn this was the gospel lesson for this week. This is a feel-good story, a heart warmer, a much-needed positive news segment. This was going to be easy to write about. Or so I thought.

I don’t know about you, but I have taken it for granted that this is a story about feeding the hungry. People are hungry. Jesus feeds them. There are leftovers. I always thought food was the central theme. But as I reread the text in preparation to write this blog post, I began to question that assumption. This gospel story isn’t just about feeding hungry people. If we are willing to pay attention, other aspects of this story demand our attention.

Aside from locating Jesus in Galilee, the first detail we get in the story is that a large crowd followed Jesus because “they saw the signs he was doing for the sick” (v. 2). In other words, the story doesn’t begin with food. It begins with healthcare. By healing their ailments, Jesus assured the accessibility of healthcare to those in need. Jesus does not ask for their insurance or inquire about their preexisting conditions. He doesn’t require that they have a job or force them to pay a high deductible. He simply attends to and cares for their maladies.  

The next verse tells us that Jesus went up the mountain and sat down with his disciples (v. 3). Even more, later in the story, Jesus tells the disciples to “make the people sit down” (v. 10). Did you catch that? Jesus sits. In public. And then he invites the people to sit. Five thousand people sitting down in the grass in public. This isn’t a concert or a ticketed event. It isn’t a civic celebration or a public festival. Jesus’s invitation is an invitation to sit and rest, and the whereabouts don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that they are on a mountainside in a public space without a reason. He encourages the people to recline and catch their breath, to rest and restore.

Cities across the United States have enacted laws that prohibit people from sitting in public places, including in the grass, as Jesus, his disciples, and the large crowd did on a mountainside in Galilee. Moreover, these contemporary city ordinances, often referred to as “sit/lie” laws, go as far as to criminalize people for resting in public places, such as sidewalks, steps, parks, etc. For example, San Francisco voters approved an ordinance in 2010 that restricted when individuals could sit or lie on city sidewalks. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty published in its 2019 report Housing Not Handcuffs that 55% of the US cities it surveyed prohibited sitting or lying down in public. That is a staggering number. It is illegal to sit in more than half of the surveyed cities.

In addition to sitting in public, states are also beginning to ban sleeping in public. The state of Kentucky recently passed the “Safer Kentucky Act,” which does more than ban sleeping outside, it penalizes it, making sleeping in public a class B misdemeanor with a fine of $250 for repeat offenses. Jesus doesn’t ban reclining in public, though. He encourages it, supports it, and even participates in it. In the wake of the recent US Supreme Court decision that allows cities to ban people from sleeping in public spaces, this is an important detail. Followers of Jesus would do well to take note.

Food is finally mentioned in the fifth verse of our passage. Jesus turns to Philip and asks him, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Philip’s reply is particularly important. Philip is acutely aware of the injustices of the economic and commercial practices of his cultural context, especially as they relate to the food supply. “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough for each of them to get a little,” he tells Jesus. A single denarius is generally compared to a day’s wage in the ancient world. Two hundred days of labor, or more than half of a year’s salary, is not enough to feed the crowd. This story highlights the exorbitant cost of basic foods. It clearly depicts the struggles of the people to procure their daily bread. 

As Jesus distributes the loaves and fish, Jesus gives each person in the crowd as much as they wanted (v. 11). Contemporary Jesus-followers seem to grasp, at least superficially, that feeding the poor is a good thing. Many churches operate food banks and/or volunteer at soup kitchens. But these programs often come with stipulations. A soup kitchen, for example, might only serve a patron who stands in a long line and follows all the rules and a food pantry might limit the items a patron can choose. This stands in stark contrast to Jesus’s willingness to give each person as much as they wanted. Unlike the excessively-priced civic markets, Jesus feeds the people by multiplying the available resources and by distributing them justly. 

Eager to get to the miracle, interpreters often skip over this part of the storyline, but it is too important to overlook. The story carefully juxtaposes two conflicting economies. In one economy—the commercial economy—the cost of bread is roughly the cost of two hundred days of work. Basic goods are only available for the few who can afford them, for those who participate in the extortionary markets. In the other economy—the economy of Jesus—bread is a shared resource. Purchased resources in juxtaposition with shared ones. A model of scarcity in opposition to a model of abundance. A model that funnels wealth and resources toward the top versus a model that redistributes them. 

When we take into account the extortionary cost of bread, maybe we discover new meaning in the saying “one sows and another reaps” (John 4:37). When we pay attention to the scarcity of staple foods, we might hear something different when Jesus proclaims, “for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). In the midst of our own context–where a global pandemic has exposed a problematic labor economy, heightened economic instability, and put on display an inequitable healthcare system– this story is a good place to start. 

The final verse of the passage (v. 14) gives us yet another hint that John is doing more than telling us a story about a miracle or the importance of feeding the poor. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who has come into the world.” Prophets aren’t in the business of patting us on the back or telling us what we already know. Prophets are in the business of describing the world as they see it. They speak truth to power. They tell it like it is. They unsettle and disturb. They urge us to turn toward a new way of thinking and acting.

Don’t get me wrong: feeding people is imperative. Jesus is clear on this. In the synoptic gospels’ version of this story, Jesus commands his disciples to feed the hungry: “you give them something to eat” (Mark 6:37; Matthew 14:16; Luke 10:13). But, as US cities increasingly criminalize homelessness, highlighting other aspects of this story is needed. The popular title for this gospel story misses other aspects of the story that are timely for our contemporary context. Following Jesus requires more than serving in a soup kitchen or starting a local food bank. Following Jesus requires making healthcare accessible. It requires encouraging, supporting, and inviting people to sit in public. It requires speaking truth to power. It requires rewriting laws. This gospel story is not so easy after all.