What If I Have Five Loaves And Two Fish, But I'm Not Jesus?

Bible study again. Yey!

A while back I made a post about 'Jesus Dying For Our Sins.' Explaining that people often miss the point, as they take it literally. Not understanding that it expresses an ideal.

See here: Memetic Christianity: Jesus Dying For All Mankind

With the "miracle of the fives loaves and two fish" we have a similar situation. The act expresses the ideal of generosity and sharing. Jesus can feed five thousand people with just five loaves and two fish because he's Jesus. He's the son of God. He could potentially feed everyone with just a single loaf. No one's starving when Jesus is around.

However, for regular people, out here in reality, things aren't that ideal. If we only have fives loaves and two fish we can't feed everyone. Try as we might some people are going to go hungry.

The point is though that we must try. We can't achieve the ideal, as Jesus did, but we can try to get as close to that ideal as possible.

As with the crucifixion story, where people often ask questions such as, "How could Jesus die for my sins when I wasn't even born?" Taking the story literally. Missing the point that it expresses the ideal of sacrifice. Here people think the point of the story is that Jesus can do magic tricks, and that we should all be impressed by this divine act of culinary conjuring.

Again, missing the point that it's meant to embody the concept of sharing, expressed to its utmost. It wouldn't quite express this perfected ideal if Jesus said, "Okay, I can feed a thousand of you lot by sharing out the food, but the other four thousand are going to have to starve." Like some well-meaning politician, weighing up the lives. Deciding who does and doesn't get the government funding.

So these New Testament stories are there to inspire, and are symbolic of ultimate goodness. The high north star of what it means to be good. With Jesus the image of Man in perfect form.

The point is not that we're meant to be impressed by the miracle, or that we have to believe that it actually happened. The point is that we should try to be as like Jesus as possible. (Though, yes, naturally we're going to fall some way short of creating food out of thin air.)

Back To Reality

This brings us back to reality with a bang, and returns us to the calculating politicians. Which we all must be to some extent in this imperfect world.

People will often label Christians hypocrites when they fail to follow the high standard set by Jesus. For instance, people on the left will criticise Christians that want border controls. Stating, "You're supposed to be a Christian, why are you turning away strangers? Hypocrite!"

Likewise, people further out on the right will accuse Christians of being weak because they're tied to such tenets.

"No wonder we have open borders, your religion says you must let all these people in!"

Arguing that people on the right should revert to some sort of Nietzschean blood and soil nationalism. Or at least a less Christian set of values.

Once again though, these criticisms only really stand up when taking the message of the New Testament to its literal extreme - and in a very simplified way at that.

Yes, Jesus would've let everyone cross the border. Jesus, being Jesus, could do that. He could feed and house all those people, and cure their demons. But we, somewhat less divine figures, have to make hard decisions.

One the one hand we should allow the stranger to enter. On the other that stranger may commit a crime against another innocent person. Or take up a home someone else might need. So in good conscience we have to try to navigate this world. We have to try to be generous to everyone, but do so within the constraints of circumstance ..and that isn't always easy. It takes a lot of thought and heartfelt consideration.

Sadly, it's not as simple as just bureaucratically following a rule. As much as it would be Christian to allow a stranger to enter, it would also be unchristian to not care about the negative consequences of such a decision.

So it's not that Christians can't advocate for border controls, just that they must feel it's the right thing to do in their hearts, and to feel the weight of the decision.

If you turn someone away with hate in your heart. Or carelessly, with no regard to their feeling or situation, that's unchristian.

If you turn someone away with genuine remorse that you can't help them, because you feel it's the right thing to do in that particular moment, that's different. It doesn't quite match the ideal that Jesus illustrates, but you are trying to get there. You do want to do good.

We should always strive to do better, of course, but at the same time a fish is a fish, and we're only human. We should believe in the high ideal that the story of the five loaves and two fish expresses, yet also acknowledge that it's unfair to expect people to perfectly embody this in an imperfect world.