There lying in a kitchen cupboard they sit accusing me.
I’ve realised that the time has come to throw them all away because it won’t work properly anyway any more.
About a dozen small packets. Orange in colour. Each stamped with a best before date that is now about two years out of date anyway.
I must have struggled to get them in the first place. And yet they sit there unused.
My guess is that I won’t be the only person to have such a collection lying doing nothing in a cupboard.
It is my Emergency Pandemic Yeast Stash.
That’s right. We all had ways of coping with the first days of the pandemic a few years ago.
Some things were in short supply.
And as soon as you know that something is in short supply, that’s the thing you want most of all.
In the first days of the pandemic bread was in short supply – not because people had stopped making bread but because those who were worried took a couple more loaves.
No problem – I know how to make bread. I have a breadmaker. All I need is flour.
And then the flour started to run out – not because there wasn’t enough flour to feed everyone in the land but because everyone who could bake felt more reassured if it was in their own kitchen cupboard than in the shop down the road. And suddenly there was no flour to be had.
And once you’ve got the flour you need something to make it rise. And then the packets of yeast started to run out.
You know – there’s a whole encyclopaedic entry in Wikipedia all about what happened to home baking during the pandemic. It is one of those things that people are going to study in years to come.
People will write PhD’s on the spread of banana-bread recipes on the Southside of Glasgow during lockdown.
There will be studies done on the resurgence of sour dough as a metaphor for coping in difficult times.
But it is probably time to let my Emergency Pandemic Stash go the way of all flesh. It is out of date. And I need to throw it away.
I quite like making bread, but my little stash of old yeast tells me that I’ve not done it in quite a while. Scarcity made making bread seem incredibly important. But that time is past.
In this morning’s gospel there is also scarcity. The big story is the multiplication of loaves and fishes. Clearly there is a lack of food that the disciples ask Jesus to address. We’ll come onto that in a minute.
But not before noting that other things were scarce too.
Jesus had a large crown following him because they thought that he could give them something and what they were hoping for was more than an unexpected sandwich.
It is tempting to spiritualise it all and to suggest that they were looking for a spiritual teacher who spoke with authenticity and that perhaps there was a scarcity of people who did.
Well there’s pretty much always been a shortage of people who spoke with spiritual authenticity and anyway, the gospel writer is clear about why they were all pursuing him. They were following him because of the signs that he was doing for the sick.
In an age and a place devoid of modern universal healthcare it isn’t difficult to see why people were pursuing him.
If you go looking for commentary on this gospel passage, pretty soon you’ll get into a discussion about miracles.
Was the miracle of the multiplications of the loaves and the fishes like a magic trick or was it a social phenomenon?
Was it that there was suddenly more food than people had brought with them. Or was it that the sharing of the wee boy’s barley loaves and fishes prompted everyone present to share what they had.
Does it matter what kind of miracle a miracle is?
I’m not convinced that it does.
During the pandemic, despite all the chaos most supply chains held up and notwithstanding some shortages caused by people stashing away extra loaves and fishes in the freezer and you know, that feels like the miraculous to me.
Not everyone has enough in this country even though this country has enough.
I want to see the end to food poverty in my lifetime. Will there be enough people who desire that in public life to make it so?
Even the desire to make it so is evidence of miracle.
Do people need to chase religious leaders across the fields looking for healthcare in the land that we live in. No – and thank God they don’t.
Is the NHS perfect?
No.
Is the common, heartfelt and persistent desire to provide healthcare free at the point of need for everyone in this land a miracle? You bet.
We would live in the age of miracles if only we had the grace to recognise them all around us.
When a twelve-step group organises to help someone find a way back to sobriety there is miracle.
When musicians band together to provide music that is balm to the soul, there is miracle.
When artists provoke and surprise there is miracle.
When educators educate, when activists get the rest of us to take action, when human kindness makes us cry…
Does it every matter what kind of miracle a miracle is? Our God is a God of abundance anyway.
There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper room of bliss.
Ah yes, the upper room.
Many have come to the story of the loaves and fishes and seen in it the same shape as the meal in the upper room that happened on the last night of Jesus’s life – the same meal we share here. Jesus took the bread, broke it and gave thanks for it and distributed.
And grace and love broke out. Broke out not just in the room he was in but in every room and in every place that the Eucharist has ever been shared in.
Today is no different.
As the bread is shared today, join with Jesus in givng thanks. Give thanks for the miracles around you. They may be things that other people wouldn’t see as miracles at all. Indeed, it is very likely that they won’t be.
Life can be tough. Living isn’t always easy.
But rejoice – God is good. And meets us with enough for today. There is no shortage of grace.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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