Variety: John 6v5-13
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming towards him, he said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?’ 6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, ‘It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!’
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up,
9 ‘Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’
10 Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, ‘Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.’ 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten. (John 6)
Richard Rohr encourages us to pray for a worldview of abundance instead of scarcity:
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey observed that one of the most universal patterns of highly effective people was that they had a worldview of abundance, while much of the world has a worldview of scarcity.
We tend to get these worldviews very young, and they underlie almost everything. I, myself, tend to have a worldview of scarcity, growing up as I did as a child of parents who were born in the Depression and the Kansas dust storms. A worldview of scarcity tells us to protect what we have, because there’s never enough to go around. It’s a competitive, win/lose worldview. It moves us toward anxiety, toward consumerism, and toward possessiveness, because we don’t want to lose what “little” we have—even if what we have is really more than enough.
But there’s another worldview, the worldview of abundance. Sooner or later, we have to choose it, because it doesn’t come naturally. I’m convinced that it’s the worldview of the gospel. It’s a big world out there. There are a lot of options and opportunities. There’s always another creative way to look at things. Let’s be honest. Do we remember to look at life that way?
Most people are afraid that they don’t have enough. Of course, if we’re dependent upon a finite source—one limited amount of money, one limited intellect, one limited life—it’s easy to look at life in terms of scarcity, convincing ourselves that there isn’t enough. There isn’t enough of goodness. There isn’t even enough of God.
The worldview of abundance depends upon us recognizing that we are in touch with an Infinite Source. If we’ve never made contact with our Infinite Source, we will be stingy, even selfish. We will guard and hoard the portion we have. This affects much of our politics and policies in this country. We’re always afraid that someone else is taking what we have earned, as if we had earned it entirely by ourselves. Most of it has been given to us, yes, by our work, but also by grace and freedom, and the choices of many other people, almost despite ourselves.
Jesus represents the worldview of abundance in every one of his multiplication miracles and stories. There’s always the making of much out of little and there are always baskets left over. That’s the only possible message: There’s plenty! If we learn to be creative, if we learn to be imaginative, if we learn to be a little less selfish, there’s always another way to look at it and another way to make sure all are fed.
Maybe a worldview of abundance is something we’ll only fully experience when we learn to draw upon an Infinite Source. If the Source is Infinite, we are infinite. If our source is finite, of course we are finite too.