What is a miracle? We call the feeding of the 5,000 a miracle because so few fish and so little bread was enough. The same feeding story we find in John 6 is the substance of 2 Kings 4. We have no answers for how this could be. . . except that we see the same miracles occurring in our world even today all the time. Where?
As strange and unbelievable as is seeing the multiplication of foods and a man walking on water toward a boat, we are witnesses to many individuals today who teach about the wonder and beauty of sea creatures and trees, who plant crops in regenerative ways, who inspire by their clarity of principle, who expend personal funds to gather solar power, and who make laws that change the fate of Earth and the course of history. These, too, are miracles.
What is it that causes people to undertake shifts in the status quo that result in miraculous goodness? As Ephesians puts it, “you are being rooted and grounded in love… that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love “that surpasses knowledge.” The Spirit so fills the everyday miracle workers among us with love that their discernment of the right path becomes an obvious course of action.
We are all called by the God who gives us our food in due season to respond with gratitude and joy, not resenting the need for us to make changes in how we live, but rejoicing in the vision it generates. There is food enough and what seems as insubstantial as water offers plenty of stability.
Melinda Quivik
Twin Cities, Minnesota
Melinda Quivik, an ELCA pastor (who served churches in Montana, Michigan, and Minnesota) and former professor of worship and preaching, is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal Liturgy, a writer, and a preaching mentor with Backstory Preaching at backstory-preaching.mn.com. Her most recent book, Worship at a Crossroads: Racism and Segregated Sundays, is a response to Lenny Duncan's Dear Church. She calls all churches to learn why worship ways differ in our various traditions as we seek to be more welcoming.