Written for the “Worship and the Arts for the Child in All of Us” portion of tomorrow’s church service.
Based on Matthew 14.
A Little Fish
I am a fish from the Sea of Galilee.
I am a small fish, ten inches long and a weight of only half a pound. I am the smallest in my school. My brothers and sisters are much larger than I am. Faster, too, even though we were all born at the very same time. I’m not fast at all, and I can’t always keep up with the other fish in my school. I am usually left straggling at the very back, unprotected and vulnerable to anything in the Sea that might hurt me.
My brothers and sisters tell me I’m useless. Too small to be any good.
All my life I thought they were right – that I’d never be worth anything.
Until today.
My family has lived in this Sea for a long time, for generations and generations.
It’s been a quiet life, mostly. For generations, we have shared this sea with the fishermen. They are good to us, only fishing for what they need to feed their own families. They never take more of us than they need. And that’s good, I guess. I understand it. Circle of life and all that.
Because I’m so slow, I always guessed I’d be a part of the Circle of Life sooner rather than later.
And I was, because today I was caught by a little boy.
I am slower than most fish, but I am usually fast enough to hide when I see a net coming my way, but today I was distracted.
I saw a man on a boat today. Not a fisherman – he didn’t have a net or a pole with him. That was strange, so I stopped following my brothers and sisters and watched him for awhile. He didn’t do anything – he wasn’t moving much at all. He was just sitting there, quietly watching the gentle waves as they rocked against his boat.
I saw him sit up quickly, and I looked to see what he was looking at – a large crowd had gathered on the shore. I watched as the man sighed, then smiled, and began to row towards the crowd.
As I watched him row away, I felt the net of the little boy circle around me.
Caught.
After the boy caught me, he wrapped me up in a piece of parchment and tucked me into his bag. After awhile, he took me down to where the crowd was, and I could hear a man talking. I could see, just barely from my place in the boy’s bag that the man was the same man I’d seen sitting so strangely quiet in the boat this morning.
There were thousands of people in the crowd, and they were hungry.
“We will feed them,” the man said. ‘With what?’ I wondered.
Some of the people with him began asking the people in the crowd if they had any food they could offer, and the little boy who caught me reached into his bag and handed me to them.
I’m so little, I thought. I can’t feed all these people. I’m not enough. I’ve never been enough.
The men who took me put me in a basket with another fish and five loaves of bread. I could tell by the way they looked at each other that they knew I wouldn’t be enough, too.
But they handed me to the man and he held us up, giving thanks for all that God had provided. While he gave thanks, I prayed that God would forgive me for not having enough to give.
The basket I was in with the other fish and the bread was passed around the crowd, and every time a new hand took the basket, I held my breath and waited to be used up. But I found that, even as each person took their fill, I still had more to give.
I still had so much more to give.
Even after the basket had been passed around to all five thousand people, there was still so much left of me still to give. Twelve baskets full were left! God had transformed me into something so much greater than I ever dreamed I could be just twenty-four hours ago.
I never thought I’d be worth much to anybody – I was so small I would have fed only the smallest child a meager meal. But God made me much more than that.
I fed five thousand people today.
