Betty the Basket

(You may wish to invent a fun voice for Betty or Bartholomew.)

Ever since the day I was woven together, I’ve been good at carrying other people’s burdens. I’ve carried their smelly dirty laundry, their pickings from the harvest…I’ve even carried their babies from time to time! You could say I’ve got a handle on things. Oh. I’m so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Betty the Basket. Yep, I’ve carried just about everything at one time or another…but do you know what was the most exciting thing I ever held? It was five loaves and two fish! You don’t think that’s very exciting? Well, let me tell you what happened. I was helping my friend, a boy, and his family. They were all going to see Jesus who everyone said was a great miracle worker. He could do amazing things! I wasn’t so sure if I believed all the wonderful things I’d heard about Jesus, but I was glad they were taking me with them to see him. I was carrying five loaves and two fish for the family, because we didn’t know how long we would be there, and they might get hungry. Well, it took a really long time for Jesus to arrive! Everyone was getting impatient…and they were looking at me with hungry eyes and their mouths were watering…it made me anxious, five thousand greedy hungry people staring at me…I was a real basket case! One of Jesus’s followers was walking around asking for food. I was so surprised when the boy said we could give our food. After all, as the Basket I knew I should protect the food for our family. That’s what a good basket does! But the boy really wanted to give our food to Jesus. He gave me to Jesus, and before I knew it, I was hoisted into the air! Normally I would have been scared, I mean I could have toppled over, but I felt so safe in Jesus’s hands. I heard him talking, “Father, I thank you for this basket of food.” Wait a second…he was talking to God! About me! I felt so special to be lifted up before God…and Jesus said, “Bless this food and multiply it, that it may glorify your name.” What was Jesus talking about? Jesus handed me to one of the followers who carried me out into the crowd. As people started to take bread and fish out of me, I wondered, would there be enough for everybody? But the funniest thing happened…I felt that I wasn’t getting lighter…I was getting heavier! There was more bread and fish in me! It was just like Jesus said…the food was multiplied! Everyone ate as much as they wanted…and yet somehow I was never empty! At the end, I was still full of broken pieces of bread, and 11 of my friends, other baskets, were full too! I was amazed that Jesus could take our little gift and multiply it so that everyone was full. I know now that whatever you give to Jesus, he can multiply it and everyone will be fed. Let’s thank God for that.

Thank you God for multiplying what we give to you. Amen.