Lent is a time for self-denial. Some people give up things, like chocolate or alcohol. Others give up time; time that they would otherwise spend on themselves in order to spend it on other people. Sometimes, this is characterised as taking something up for Lent; but I disagree. If you do something for someone else, instead of spending the time on yourself, in my book, you’re giving something up. What’s more, depending upon what you do, it can be far more valuable than just giving up, say, chocolate, which benefits your waistline and deprives of work those who would otherwise have been employed in making the bar of chocolate – or whatever. To the objection that just one bar of chocolate foregone a day would make little difference to Cadbury’s, just think of the effect on Cadbury’s if everybody gave up chocolate for Lent.

So, I try to give up time over Lent, by visiting someone I know, elderly or infirm, living an isolated life, starved of company. We can all think of someone like that; and very often, they’re folk we wouldn’t choose to visit, for a portfolio of reasons; which is why they’re lonely and bored and would love you to visit them, but are too proud to ask. It’s against that background that I want to say a few words about today’s Gospel reading; the Feeding of the Five Thousand, as recorded by Saint John.

Did it happen? The problem with miracles is that it’s hard to believe they happened. But, Christians believe that the Resurrection happened; and I have argued elsewhere that there is incontrovertible proof that it did. And the Resurrection was a miracle; so why not the others? Of course, stories lose nothing in the telling and the Feeding of the Five Thousand wasn’t written down for many years after it happened. So we can expect some exaggeration; but something like it happened. But, speculating about it misses the point. The Feeding of the Five Thousand is a story about God’s nature, as revealed in Jesus Christ; and because we are made in the image of God and Jesus Christ dwells within each of us, it’s a story about us, as well. Because Jesus dwells within each one of us, when we read about his actions in the Gospels, we are looking into a mirror and seeing who we are and what we’re capable of; and what we should aspire to. The trouble is that we don’t always – or even often – take as much notice as we should of the image it reflects.

Five thousand people are sitting on a hill-side, far from home, the café, or the pub. They’re hungry; they’re people in need. Jesus meets their need by an act of charity; and charity, I remind you, means love. He does so by providing them with more than enough food to meet their need, so that, at the end, there is more left over than he started with. Five barley-loaves and two fishes proved to be enough to feed five thousand; and after they had eaten their fill, twelve baskets of bread were left over. Theologians extract from this story a wealth of interesting theology. They link it with the Passover, with the Last Supper, with Jesus as the Bread of Life and so on. But scripture isn’t just for theologians. It’s for people in the pew who care about their daily lives and how to lead them so as to be better Christians. So, how does this story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand help us do that? Let’s just analyse the story for a moment. It consists of the following elements. First of all, there’s surprise; surprise that five loaves and two fishes are going to be enough to assuage the hunger of five thousand people. Secondly, there’s charity in the meeting of the need of the multitude for food. And finally, there’s surplus. Following the act of charity, there’s more food left over than there was at the outset.

Surprise – charity – surplus. Hang on to those as I take you back to the Lenten practice of giving up time rather than chocolates or alcohol to visit the isolated, the lonely and the bored. First comes the pleasant surprise when you telephone him or her – let’s settle for ‘her’ - to enquire whether it would be convenient to call. Quite unexpected. Out of the blue. She’s contemplating yet another day stretching ahead, stuck in the house with no one to talk to, and only the television for company. The ’phone goes; she answers and, lo and behold, someone out there has remembered she exists; has recognised her need for company; is treating her as someone who matters, rather than someone that society has forgotten. A surprise.

Next comes the act of charity, of Christian love; your visit, which meets her need for company, for feeling that she still matters. It doesn’t matter if the conversation is a might stilted. What does matter is that you’re there, sitting in her sitting room or by her bed, giving her your time and your attention. Charity. And when you leave, is it over? Well, for you it is, but not for her. Your visit will linger and grow in her memory; it will be re-lived over the lonely times ahead, comforting and sustaining her and re-assuring her that she matters. In time, the memory will assume a greater importance than your visit. The memory is the surplus, the twelve baskets left over of your act of charity in spending a few minutes in her company, meeting her need. The lesson of the Feeding of the Five Thousand for us is that when we do an unexpected act of Christian charity, it always amounts to more afterwards, than it does at the time. The surplus.