Pennies

The other day I was behind a kid when he was paying for something in a store. I was sort of in a hurry and all of the sudden I saw my worst nightmare; pennies. This kid is holding up a line of ten people and has the audacity, the gumption, the nerve to pull out a bag of pennies. Right when I think this situation could get no worse, the words no one wanted to hear come from this kid’s mouth, “Can you tell me how much I have?” Are you kidding me, is this for real? I look around impatiently for another line but even with this snot-nosed bag of pennies I am still in the shortest line available. “This kid doesn’t even know how much he has. I could be in my car by now. My boss is going to kill me for being late, again!” The thoughts keep pouring through my mind as I contemplate taking some of the pennies and assisting the all too patient clerk with the counting process. There is a good chance this kid won’t have enough. What is he going to do then? Is he going to go put whatever he is trying to buy back on the shelf? Does he have any idea how embarrassed he will be? Something just dawned on me. Remember when Jesus told us we needed faith like a child? What if this is a picture of how God wants our faith to be?

Jesus stood on a hill teaching the crowds again. Only this time He went a little long and these guys hadn’t had a thing to eat (they obviously were not Baptists). So Jesus looks toward the town then looks at the large crowd. He looks back toward the town then looks at the setting sun. He thinks, “There is no way they are going to make it back before dark.” (When Jesus says there is no way, you can rest assured there is no way.) Then the disciples come to Him and tell Him that He needs to send the people home.

I know what you are thinking, “Thank goodness the disciples are there.” But hang on I haven’t finished the story yet. Jesus asks the disciples where they can get enough food for the crowd which was five-thousand men, that doesn’t include women and children. Well, the disciples do the apostles version of the holy huddle and come up with the usual solution, notta, nilch, nothing. Philip spoke up and told Jesus eight months worth of wages wouldn’t feed all these folks.

Thank goodness for people like Philip. I mean here is a situation where the disciples have the opportunity to show their faith in Jesus and Philip responds with, “Are you crazy?” I don’t know where the church would be today without people like Philip to pull courageous risk takers back into reality.

Anyway, luckily for us Andrew spoke up. The first four words out of his mouth are, “Here is a boy.” Can you see the look on Philip’s face? I’ve seen a look like that many times (and made it a time or two).  But Andrew isn’t finished he goes on to say, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish.” The other disciples are looking at him like they want to say, “What are you thinking, buddy, we have five-thousand plus people to feed and you bring a boy and a sack lunch!” He must have seen the looks on their faces because the next few words from Andrew say a lot, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Now Andrew is thinking like a typical disciple, doubt until you have some proof! Did you see what happened? Two words changed Andrew’s statement to a question? It is the same two words that get them (and me) all too many times, “but how”. Andrew was doing so well. He took the lunch from the kid. He brought it to Jesus knowing full well that it was not enough. He was on the absolute brink of risk when those two little faith killers popped out, “but how”.

So here are Jesus’ disciples in a moment so important that all four Gospel writers were inspired to record it, and the only person with a semblance of faith is a kid with a bag of pennies. “What?” “Where did that come from?” “You mean a bag lunch, right?” No, I mean a bag of pennies. “What in the world does a kid with some pennies standing in line at Wal-Mart have to do with Jesus’ feeding the five-thousand?” I’m glad you asked, I was about to bust if I didn’t get to tell you. Keep reading and I’ll explain.

Let’s back up a little. Jesus is asking for some food and the disciples are bumping their heads together trying to scrounge up an answer. Meanwhile, there is a small boy in the crowd who sees the commotion, looks down at a few small pieces of bread and some fish, and thinks, “I wonder if He can tell me how much I have?” So he takes it up the hill to give it to Jesus but before he gets to him Andrew steps in the way. The boy gives his lunch to Andrew and probably says something like, “I don’t know if it is enough but here is all I have.” if not in words then at least in actions.

That kid in front of me in line had the same attitude when he walked up to the clerk and dumped all the pennies he had on the counter then waits for the response. He is not thinking what will happen if the clerk says, “I’m sorry, you don’t have enough.” He isn’t thinking about the walk to put the item back either. He isn’t even the least bit embarrassed by the line or the huffs of impatience forming behind him (mainly coming from me). He has taken the risk, he has exposed his faith, and he has put everything he has on the counter.

That’s exactly what God wants from me. To simply give Him all I have, to put it all on the counter. It doesn’t matter whether it is enough or not. Those are the “but how” feelings that creep in and say, “It’s not enough.”, “You will look foolish.”, or “That is not realistic.” Right now you’re saying, “Having faith doesn’t mean I have to look foolish does it?” The truth is having faith will always require taking risks. Soren Keirkegaard said, “Without risk there is no faith.”

The best part of the story is this, the small sack lunch finally made it into the hands of Jesus and Jesus made it enough (in fact, more than enough). That is also the best part of our story. We are not placing our pennies on the counter of some unknown clerk. Look closely, can you recognize the man behind the counter? I know you must recognize His patience. We are putting our pennies in the hands of Jesus Christ. When we put our faith in the one who made us, whether we know it or not, and especially when the risk is great, He will make it enough. Look closely again, does the boy look like you, does he look like me? Is our faith bigger than our bag of pennies?