Taking on the Mind of Jesus

God's peace be with you. In the Gospel of Mark, there is the incident of Jesus feeding the five thousand. It says there that just like people in the world today, they were like sheep without a shepherd, seemingly with no one guiding them and caring for them. Into this situation, Jesus comes together with his disciples. He intends to care for the people and involve His disciples in doing so.

So Jesus began to teach the vast crowd many things. In this Gospel passage, Jesus is also teaching us some important basic mindsets that we need to have if we are to participate in caring for the flock. We need to overcome our human way of thinking so that we can put on God's mind.

First, we see Jesus teaching the people. He was giving spiritual and pastoral care. But what were the disciples concerned about? Material food! Now, yes it was already very late and they were in a deserted place with no food. So it was reasonable for the disciples to be concerned about the needs of the people. Very commendable, very thoughtful of them. But that is not how Jesus thinks.

Once, when his disciples begged him to eat, he said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” When the opportunity is there, nothing should stand in the way of proclaiming the Gospel and teaching the people. Certainly not physical hunger. Satisfying the hunger of the soul is of far greater importance than satisfying the hunger of the body.

Jesus, of course, is compassionate. He in fact, offered his very life for us. So there is no question about his concern for our needs, both physical and spiritual. But there are times when we think we know more than he does as to what is appropriate in a particular time or situation. We might think it is lacking in compassion to allow people to go hungry, even just for a while, when it is precisely through compassion to want to feed the soul rather than just the body.

Second, Jesus gives instructions to his disciples. Give them some food yourselves. As his instruments, we will hear these instructions many times - God works through us! Jesus formed this group of disciples precisely to be able to pass on the work to them. At some point, we simply need to be the ones out there working in the name of Jesus. However, the disciples looked to what they had and decided they did not have the resources to accomplish what Jesus wanted done. Isn't that so much like us?

We do not have enough workers. We do not have enough money. The challenges are too formidable. The work is beyond our capability. That is not possible. We need to know that Jesus will not tell us to do something that we, under His anointing and the empowerment of the Spirit, cannot do. It may seem that we cannot do it, and that is very natural because we who are weak human flesh are being tasked to do the very work of God. But that is what happens when we think with our human minds and look to our human resources we bulk and we end up not doing what God wants.

This brings us to the third point. We do fall short. On our own we will fail. But if we truly do God's work according to the direction of Jesus, then the Holy Spirit will empower us. And we know God can work miracles. Nothing is impossible for him. And Jesus already said that if we have paid the size of a mustard seed then nothing will be impossible for us. Why? Because we are doing God's work! Because we are mere instruments.

The problem is when the instruments think they know better than the master. What needs to happen is for us to just offer to God what we have, however small or inadequate that this might be. The disciples brought five loaves and two fish to Jesus and he performed a miracle. With this small resource, He fed 5000 men and many more women and children with them.

With God, nothing is impossible and it is our privilege to be instruments of his will for the life of the world. God bless you.