One of life’s most frustrating experiences is not having enough.  "Enough of what," you might ask?  Enough of anything and everything.  I doubt if there is anyone here who feels they have enough money.  However much money we have, we always seem to want more.  I just came across an article online about how much certain famous people make each minute.  Tiger Woods is currently making $171 per minute, 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day.  With what he makes each minute he could buy four dozen of the Nike Platinum golf balls he used to win last year's Masters tournament.  But that is probably not considered enough for a competitor like Tiger because he makes way less than some other celebrities.

Oprah Winfrey, for example, makes $428 a minute.  Steven Spielberg makes $632 a minute.  However celebrities such as these can’t compare with certain business people like Bill Gates, who makes over 10 times as much as Spielberg--$6,659 each minute.  Compare that with what the median income American makes—8 cents a minute—and it is easy to see why we do not feel that we have enough money.  Yet what you and I make is way beyond what the average human being around the globe makes, which is the slightest fraction of a penny per minute.  About the only thing we have in common with everyone above and below us on the income scale is that we would all like to be making more.  Whatever we have, it just never seems to be enough.

But if we could ever get to the place where we had enough money, we would probably not have enough time.  Many times more money brings more demands upon our time.  We then wish we had more time to golf or garden or read or ride our motorcycle.  Either we wish we had more quality time to spend with our kids, or our kids are driving us nuts and we wish we had more time off from the domestic demands placed upon us by parenthood.  Who could not use a little more time for themselves?

Some people are frustrated because they do not have enough education or enough experience.  Others are frustrated because they do not have enough talent or enough opportunity.  Then there are the basic human needs, like having enough to eat.  Have you every been on vacation, trying to put some miles on the odometer while everyone else is crabbing about how hungry they are.  Crab, crab, crab until you get to Bob Evans and the waitress brings your eggs and potatoes and sausage.  All of a sudden, everyone is happy.

In our text for this morning Jesus is concerned about the hunger experienced by his more needy followers.  Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick.  Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.  The Jewish Passover Feast was near.  When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?"  He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do (verses 1-6).

Today we find yet another example of Jesus using a boat to transport him across the Sea of Galilee so as to find some relief from the crowds pressing in upon him for his healing power.  But the crowds are so insistent upon being with him that they journey the long way around the shore and meet up with him on a mountainside where he went after disembarking from his boat.  In Matthew’s account of this story, the crowd numbers 5,000 men, besides women and children (Matthew 14:21).  All told, the crowd probably exceeds 10,000 people.  As an aside, excepting for the resurrection, Christ’s multiplication of the loaves is the only miracle recounted in all four Gospels.

10,000 souls have made a long impromptu trip around the sea and up a mountainside.  They are probably already famished and there are no towns or grocery stores nearby. Jesus asks, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?"  But he asks it with his tongue in his cheek because he already knows how his frustrated disciples are going to answer. Philip answered him, "Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!" (Verse 7).

Never mind that the nearest place to buy bread is miles away and would probably not have enough in stock to feed 10,000 people even if it could be transported to the site, never mind all that because it would take 8 months wages to buy it.  Now let’s see, the median wage earner in America makes 8 cents per minute, times 60 minutes, times… that would amount to about $28,060 for the average American and two or three times as much for most of us here.  But Jesus doesn’t deal on a cash basis—he doesn’t have any money.  His disciples have given up everything to follow him.  To put it mildly, they do not have enough to meet the need.

Well, they have got to have something.  Let’s find out what that is and maybe we can make it stretch to meet the need.  Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up.  "Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will that go among so many?" (Verses 8-9).  A little boy has had the foresight to bring along his lunch pail.  In it are five small barley loaves, or rolls if you will, and two small fish probably about the size of sardines and commonly netted in the Sea of Galilee and then pickled.

Bread is the staff of life.  In biblical times, before there were Heinen’s grocery stores with myriad choices of food, bread was such a staple food that the word for bread was also the generic term for food in general.  That is why bread and its ingredients and the way that it is made are used as so many images in both Testaments of Scripture.  Every Sunday we gather for worship we mention bread in the Lord’s Prayer ("Give us this day our daily bread…").  Daryl Koning and I will be leading a day retreat here at the church on September 23 where, among other things, I will be demonstrating how to make bread from scratch—from grinding the grain to sampling the finished product.

This little boy has bread and two sardines to boot.  But it is such a meager offering next to the magnitude of the need before them.  Jesus said, "Have the people sit down."  There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them.  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.  When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over.  Let nothing be wasted."  So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten (Verses 10-13).

This reminds me of an incident that is probably common to us all.  Have you ever seen kids fuss and fight over limited resources?  Maybe there is a brother and a sister and only one bowl of Sugar Smacks that they both want.  One of them has the bowl in hand and the other is jockeying to snatch it away.  As a parent you try to reach a fair and equitable solution where maybe they each get half a bowl, but it is all in vain.  However as a pastor, you can always play the religion card.  You say to your daughter, "Mary, what would Jesus do?"  And Mary says, "Oh Dad, Jesus would just make more.

That is what Jesus would do.  Jesus would miraculously make more than enough to meet everyone’s need.  Something miraculous happens when believers offer their meager resources to Jesus.  Jesus miraculously multiplies them and magnifies them until they are more than sufficient to accomplish his purposes.  Offering our humble gifts and imperfect talents and limited time to Jesus is "When Too Little Becomes More than Enough."  How does he do it?  We do not know.  That is why it is a miracle.

When I was in the Air Force taking New Testament Greek on the side and seeking a discharge to attend seminary, a well-meaning Major called me into his office to try and change my mind.  He said, "Lieutenant, you are making good money right now and able to afford a decent lifestyle—an apartment, a nice car, the works.  You’re telling me that you want to give up the paycheck and take on school bills.  How are you going to do it?"  And I had to admit that he was making a good point. I did not know how I was going to do it or make ends meet.

But back then I had this naive faith that if you offered what you had to Jesus, he would make it sufficient somehow.  Now here is the interesting thing.  Three and a half years after I was discharged from the Air Force I completed my fulltime seminary education without owing a single penny to anybody for that three and a half year stretch of life.  Plus, I actually had a little money left over in my pocket.  Jesus took what I had to offer going into to seminary, which was definitely too little I assure you, and he made it more than enough.

And here is the real kicker: having been the direct beneficiary of his grace and having personally witnessed his slight of hand, I still do not know how he did it.  I feel like I have watched Jesus take five rolls and two sardines and start fiddling around with it, tearing off a piece here, tossing a chunk there and gradually filling basket after basket and leaving me thinking, "How did he do that?"  I do not know how he did it.  It was a miracle that I know happened but I cannot explain how.

There are times when Jesus, through his body the church, asks us for our meager resources.  During the annual stewardship campaign he asks us for a financial contribution.  Some people do not make any Faith Promise at all because they think what they are able to give is not enough.  That is a big mistake.  First of all, nobody thinks their Faith Promise is big enough regardless of the size of their gift.  But the reason it is called a Faith Promise is because we have faith that Jesus is able to multiply and magnify our gifts until they are sufficient to accomplish his purposes.  That is why Jesus pointed out as a good example the gift of two copper coins that a woman gave out of her poverty.

We should never allow the felt sense of inadequacy keep us from doing what we can do.  Some folks do not feel comfortable visiting other folks in the hospital, and I will tell you why.  We feel impotent and powerless to make them better.  That can be an agonizingly frustrating feeling for most of us.  Nobody likes to feel that way, and so we simply do not visit our loved ones when they land in the hospital.  That is also a big mistake because we are failing our loved ones when the power of our presence is needed the most.

It may not be the power to heal them of their physical afflictions but it can bring them some measure of relief from their suffering, which is partially being alienated from familiar surroundings and faces.  Jesus can take the power of our presence and multiply its effects so that when our loved ones return to health and home, they never forget that we were there for them in their time of need.  Giving our meager resources to Jesus for his use is when "Too Little Becomes More than Enough."

There may be some here today who have been reading that little advertisement in our bulletin insert for a Coordinator of Youth Ministries and thinking, "Why do I feel a spiritual nudge to explore that opportunity?  I do not have enough education or experience.  All I have is a heart for young people and a desire to make the Lord a part of their lives and perhaps a gift for relating to age range.  Could that be enough?  What about my other obligations: my family and my job?  Would I have enough time?