• II Samuel 11:1-15

Favored since his youth by the Lord and known for his bravery, David’s conniving starts his downfall.  He sends his army out to battle while he stays safely at home in Jerusalem.  His wandering eye lands on a beautiful woman, Bathsheba.  Although she is married, King David summons her and seduces her.  He then directs that her husband, Uriah, be sent to the front lines and instructs his officers, “draw back then from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”

• Psalm 14

The psalmist mocks the individual who boasts that he can act with impunity, saying “there is no God.”  He then warns any society or nation that “plots against the poor.”  He concludes with a confident assertion that “the Lord will restore.”

OR

• II Kings 4:42-44

The custom was to bring the first tenth of the harvest to the Lord, presenting it to the priests and prophets.  On this occasion, the prophet Elisha instructs the donor to take it instead “to the people and let them eat.”  The donor objects, but the Lord’s prophet insists: “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.'”  Which is exactly what happened.

• Psalm 145:10-19

The psalmist blesses the Lord: “the eyes of all look to You in hope/You give them their food in due season.”  The Lord is just and generous, “opening Your hand/and sating to their pleasure all living things.”

• Ephesians 3:14-21

The writer of Ephesians offers an inspiring doxology/intercession for the recipients of his letter: “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend… the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge….”  And, to be ready because now God will be “able to accomplish [in you] far more than we can ask or imagine…”

• John 6:1-21

(The story of feeding over 5,000 people with the episode that follows immediately when Jesus comes to his disciples over troubled waters and utters a crucial message is the only such incident that is found in all four gospels.  We can infer, therefore, its centrality to the preaching/teaching in the early church.)  John quickly sets the place and time– the shore of the Lake of Galilee at Passover.  Jesus sees the large crowds gathering and asks Philip, Where are we going to buy enough to feed all these people?  Philip estimates that not even half-a-year’s earnings would be adequate.  Another disciple, Andrew, reports that he has seen a young boy in the crowd with five loaves of bread and two fish.  Jesus instructs all to sit.  After they settle down, Jesus blesses God and begins to distribute the food.  After everyone has eaten all they want, he instructs that the leftovers be gathered up.  The leftovers fill twelves baskets!  The crowd immediately recognize that they have witnessed/participated in a miracle!  They want to make Jesus their “King.”  But, Jesus flees.  That same night, the disciples got back in their boat and set for Capernaum.  About three of four miles out into the lake, “they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat and they were terrified.”  But Jesus said, “It is I; do not be afraid.”  They reached their destination.

Consider again Heidegger’s request to re-imagine ourselves, one another, the big questions in life as well as daily living quite differently than we have, especially  in the West.  We imagine that we can “master” life with our own concepts and flatter ourselves that these constructs actually match the completeness of existence and any notions about transcendence, including gods or the biblical God.   Imagine, instead, that we are “recipients” of gift, the gift of existence in all its splendor, awe, its glory, which resists human fantasies of domination.  Instead of “defining” we “describe.”  We explore ourselves and the entire common experience we share with all others and all creation with enthusiasm.  But we know that all our exploring and imagining will reach some point/ledge/boundary where our capacities will be exceeded.  When we reach that point, we “see” a new “horizon,” which Jean-Luc Marion describes this way:

“I think of the gift as a kind of issue reaching to the most extreme limits, that should be described and be thought and neither explained nor comprehended, but simply thought– in a very radical way.  I suggest that, in order to achieve description, if any is possible, of the gift, we can be led to open for the first time to a new horizon, much wider than those of objectivity and being, the horizon of giveness.” (God, The Gift and Postmodernism, p.61)

The number of 0ver 5,000 people fed with “twelve baskets” of leftovers is meant to stagger our imaginations, to transport us to that point described by Marion.  It is meant to alert us to the magnanimity of a Gift and the generosity of the Giver, which  exceeds our imaginations. 

“The presence of Christ,” Marion writes, “and therefore that also of the Father, discloses itself by a gift: it can therefore only be recognized by a blessing.  A presence, which gives itself by grace and identifies itself with this gift, can therefore be seen only in being received, and be received only in blessing.” (Prolegomena to Charity, p.129)

If we arrive at this “horizon of giveness,” the biblical narratives make complete sense on their own terms as the record of God’s unrelenting generosity, from the origin of creation and  to the present, and our ‘blessed’ status of “recipient.”  How do we reach this “horizon of giveness?”  Heidegger writes:

“...the purest form of acknowledgment is simply the acceptance of the gift, assuming it, acquiescing in it, yielding to its demands.  Acceptance, then is the most original form of thanks.” (Quoted in Robyn Horner, Rethinking God as Gift, note 76, p.37)

The perspective at the “horizon of giveness” links Gift, Giver and recipient in a distinctive relationship, which Robyn Horner describes this way: “Faith can only be faith, as much faith in the gift as faith in God.”

Now it is clearer why John links the incident of the feeding of many more than 5,000, counting women and children,  with the episode with the disciples in the boat on their way to Capernaum.  Out of nowhere–literally– Jesus appears.  Gift/God’s gift/God as Gift/Christ as God’s Gift –appears out of nowhere, surpassing all human expectation and explanation, approaches us and reveals the identity of the Giver/Gift– “It is I; do not be afraid.”

Accepting  life as “gift” and ourselves as recipients changes our perspective.  Living life as if it is filled and overflows inspires the opposite of living as if life is meager and must be “mastered.”  Understanding myself to be a “recipient” and identifying the Giver and the Gift redefines how I see myself, others and, indeed, all creation.  And, accepting the “blessing” of this generosity makes us generous in turn; both the prophet Elisha and the Anointed One, Jesus, insist there will always be more than enough where there is generosity.

“…I pray,” the writer to the Ephesians, writes, “that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”