The Gift of Multiplication

The lectionary readings for this Sunday spoke of two miracles of multiplication where many were fed with little. Elisha in the Hebrew Scriptures (2 Kings 4:42-44) and Jesus in the Christian Scriptures (John 6:1-15)were able to do much with little. The offering of one small gift was able to be transformed into enough to feed a multitude.

Fr. John Connors, the pastor at my parish, gave a wonderful sermon on the beauty of multiplication. God can take each of our gifts humbly given and create something wonderful out of them. By ourselves, we cannot feed the hungry of our world, but we can all contribute something to our local foodbank, and together all those somethings can feed a whole lot of people. By ourselves, we cannot tell everyone of the love of Christ, but we can each tell one or two people who can in turn spread the good news to one or two more, thereby creating a ripple effect that can change many lives. By ourselves, we cannot stop war and violence, but we can pray and work for peace in our own little corner of the world. If everyone did the same in their own families and neighborhoods, imagine how different our world could be. By ourselves, we are very small, but God can use us in ways we can hardly envision if we only turn our lives and our gifts over to him.

And there lies the challenge. We tend to try to do it ourselves. We get very independent. Even if we acknowledge that our gifts do come from God (and this is a very big step in the right direction!), we may then attempt to use them without turning over our efforts to God first. In the "Our Father," the prayer Jesus himself taught us to say, we state "thy will be done." Not my will, God, your will. It is easy to forget that. We may have wonderful ideas of what to do with our gifts and there is nothing wrong with that. But, if those plans are not what God had planned for us to do with our gifts, we will never reach the potential God created us for. Yes, God can multiply our efforts and work wonders with us but only if we let him.