One of the nuisances of travel in Europe is watching your wallet wherever you go. The gypsies are everywhere, and they are gifted pickpockets. On our first day in Florence, Rhett and I were walking through the San Lorenzo market when all at once an older teenage boy came flying past us. Then even faster an older man, who turned out to be a plainclothes policeman, quickly caught him, tackled him to the pavement, pulled a gun on him and made him cough up the wallet he had just pilfered from an unsuspecting tourist. When we were visiting CBF missionaries to the gypsies in Budapest a few weeks earlier, Ralph and Tammi Stocks told us about the stories gypsies tell that justify their thievery. One goes like this: When God created the world, God made two kinds of people, gypsies and gadjo—that’s all non-gypsies, of course. When God was ready to send the two peoples down to earth from heaven, God gave each of them equal treasure, but only the gadjo received a sack to carry it in. So the gadjo said to the gypsy, Why don’t you just put your treasure in with mine, and when we get to earth, we will divide it up again? The gypsy agreed, but the gadjo double-crossed him and refused to return his treasure. So now gypsies do not really steal from the gadjo; they are only trying to recover their rightful share.

Now hold that thought and look again at the Bible story that is the polar opposite.

Jesus heads for the lake and gets into a boat by himself to get away, probably to mull things over in his head, to rest and pray. Kind of a mini-sabbatical, don’t you know?! But, unlike you, the people won’t leave Jesus alone. He’s just been teaching them in parables and making them think about God and their lives in ways no one else ever had. They can’t get enough; so, forgetting everything else, they run around the lake and wait for him to come ashore. And when he does, he doesn’t act like I probably would have if you did that to me. He doesn’t think, What’s the matter with these people? Don’t they understand I’m all preached out?

No, Jesus had compassion on the crowd, Matthew tells us. And this is the beginning of the whole answer to things. He cares for these people. He sees their needs and cannot look away, will not turn away, does not run away. Here we see the perfect unity of his divinity and humanity all at once before he does another thing. He is God-like in his lovingkindness. The only thing that heals and cures the world of its ills in the end is … not perfect prudence, is … not moral purity, is … not correct doctrine; it is engaged love. It is … not political agility, is … not military might, is … not even breathtaking beauty; it is … active compassion.

Engaged love or active compassion is the ability to sense what it is like to live inside the skin of someone else. And just that is what leads God to put on the uniform of the flesh. God will not care for us from a distance. God will not pity us from afar; God will love us up close and personal. God will get involved with us. The one who is most different from us becomes like one of us in order to bridge the distance so that each will have what we need and all of us will be content.

Give the disciples credit at first. They see a problem. The crowd is hungry and the hour is late. Maybe they heard their own stomachs grumbling, but let’s not quibble: they see the need of others and come to Jesus.

This is the first thing Christians need to learn: we have to come to see the needs of the world, the hungers of those around us. One of the great benefits of travel outside the United States is seeing the way other people live. The way we live is not normal. We are comfortably cocooned. Now, I didn’t spend my time away in some of the most remote and destitute places, but even the small inconveniences remind you just how spoiled we are. It’s hard to believe, for instance, that in western Europe you still can’t find many people drying their laundry in electric dryers. But when you consider that 65 percent of the world has never made a telephone call, doesn’t it make your lust for that newest model cell phone lose some luster? And when you know that 40 percent of the world does not have access to electricity, doesn’t the complaint of triple-digit power bills seem trite? Do you realize that Americans spend more on cosmetics, and Europeans more on ice cream, than it would cost to provide schooling and sanitation for the two billion people who currently go without them?

So once you see the need and realize how hungry other people are, what do you do about it? Look at what the disciples say to Jesus. Their solution is for Jesus to send the people away to buy food for themselves. Personal responsibility, right? Let them take care of themselves. We’ll take care of ourselves. Then everything will be fine. Instead, Jesus says, You give them something to eat.

We disciples answer in our typical way: But, Lord, we have nothing but…. Nothing but. Nothing but. In this case it was five loaves and two small fish. Nothing but that. but that was something, that nothing but, compared to the nothing at all that the crowds had.

The problem of our world is no different now: not the lack of resources but the concentration of them in such a way that a few have a lot and others have nothing. In our story the disciples really have only a little something; in the story of our day and time, we disciples really have a lot. It is immoral for us to fall back on reasoning like, Lord, we have nothing but …. But we do anyway, don’t we? We think we have to get our share of the few resources out there instead of share the few resources we’ve already got.

Think about your own personal resources and the way you tend to them. Most of you already know that God’s plan for taking care of the needs of the world can be solved by the voluntary giving of God’s people. The tithe is one biblical standard for that. There are others. The tithe is not even a New Testament principle, not because it doesn’t apply anymore but because it is only a starting point! But what percentage of your income do you give on an intentional and deliberate basis? I don’t even mean just to the church. I mean to ventures that would relieve hunger and poverty and misery in the world. A study has shown that if the 225 richest people in the world gave only 4 percent of their income to attack poverty in the world, it would be enough to end it completely: to provide adequate shelter, food, education and health care for entire world. Amazing! We have reached a time of prosperity and technology in the world that we can really do it if we want to.

Great. That’s just what those billionaires ought to do, we say. They are really the problem. But, listen, Jesus says to us, You give them something to eat. God holds each of us accountable for what we have, even if it is nothing but—nothing but fives loaves and two small fish.

Jesus is himself the supreme example here. He gave his one body and his blood to be broken and spilled for you and me, to become the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation. God blessed it and made it the means of redemption for all. And now the language of this passage tells us that when we bring our gifts to Jesus, they become Eucharistic offerings, too, for the feeding and healing of the world.

We need a change of perspective from one of lack to one of plenty. We are always thinking how little we have instead of how much. No matter how little we really do have, we can offer it to the Lord for the sake of the world, not keep it to ourselves for own sake.

And that has to do with more than money. Some of you think you have nothing much to offer the world in talents or giftedness. All you see in yourself are fives loaves and two fish. You don’t see how you can be part of a feast of plenty when you give yourself to the Lord for the needs of others.

One of my favorite memories from this summer sabbatical with my son is last Saturday night at the U2 concert in Rome. It was an experience that far transcended the music or the mass hysteria of a mob in a stadium with loud speakers and lots of lights. Not only are these guys good, but they are good. They are humble and committed to using their fame to address Jesus’ agenda of tending to the least of these among us. Lead singer Bono has been working for years on debt relief for African countries based upon the biblical idea of sabbaticals and jubilees. Before the idea was even on the radar screen, he began to talk with politicians and visit Africa in order to get attention focused there. At last we had a breakthrough at the recent G8 summit when these countries pledged to completely cancel the debts of the countries that are best governed and most capable of using the break for the welfare of all their people.

And who is Bono anyway? He plays rock and roll, for heaven’s sake! He’s a kid from a working-class family in Dublin. How can that kid grow up to affect the fate of millions? He gave himself to the Lord, and the Lord multiplied his gifts for the sake of the world.

Now, how does this help cure things? In our minds, we all say yes, the Jesus story of feeding five thousand is a nice miracle, but we haven’t ever seen real miracles of multiplication like that. If you give one bag of food, you can expect this one bag of food to feed only a limited number of people. We can’t rely on miracles.

Really? Why not? Is Jesus not alive and at work in our world now? Is he not a resurrected presence more capable now of reaching everywhere at once since he is no longer limited to one dress of skin? Is the God who in the beginning made something from nothing not now able to make more from less?

There will come a time in the kingdom of heaven when things will be set right, when there will always be leftovers and no one will be able to say, But, Lord, we have nothing but … We will all have plenty.

Those who want to know the life that is to come now, those who want to experience the miracle of God’s abundance, need to get to work obeying Jesus now. Giving themselves every day to the Lord and giving their gifts, too. Right now. That means you and me. Today.

So which story to do believe more: the gypsy version of nothing but, or the gospel version of good and plenty? You give them something to eat, Jesus says. Yes, Lord, here, take something of ours. We have plenty. And when we do, we always will. So will the world.