Sermon

The Twelth Sunday after Pentecost (RCL, Year A, Proper 13)
August 3, 2008

The Reverend Kay Johnson

This morning's Gospel is one of the church's central stories. The story of the feeding of the 5,000 is told in all the Gospels, and Matthew and Mark tell the story twice. No one knows for sure why. (Maybe it happened twice.) We can conclude that it was an important story to the early Christian community - one that they told over and over to one another, long before anyone got around to writing it down.

And 'feeding stories" are, in fact, part of our tradition -- the tradition we inherited from Israel -- from early on. “Ho” says God, in Isaiah, “come, buy and eat -- without money and without price Come to the waters, come to the place of abundance.” And the implication is that we are talking about real food here, not only spiritual food. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that the promise is for food that is both physical and spiritual -- as human beings are both physical and spiritual.

God feeds us, and will feed us, the Bible says, and that's what happens in the deserted place. Crowds of hungry people (5,000 men, we're told, not even counting the riff raff - the women and the children) -- and there turns out to be enough for them eat. All eat and are filled -- and there are even left-overs! -- twelve baskets full!

God has been bread for God's people ever since they became God's people in the exodus from Egypt. Hebrew and Christian Scripture are informed by stories of God's feeding -- both literal and metaphorical -- the bread of heaven, the bread of freedom, the bread of affliction, the bread of Life.

And we don't just tell that story, we act it out every Sunday. "I am the bread of life," Jesus says in John's Gospel, and we do here in the Eucharist exactly what Matthew says Jesus did in the deserted place. At the end of the Gospel reading. we hear - he took the five loaves and the two fish -- he blessed the loaves -- he broke them -- and he gave them to the disciples -- He took, he blessed, he broke, he gave.

...we make Eucharist with exactly those same four actions described in Matthew: we prepare the table -- which is taking the bread and the other offerings -- we bless the bread in the Eucharistic prayer -- and then we break it -- and then we share it. “This bread, this cup, given for you.”

So there's a very tight and intense continuity between what we do here on Sunday mornings and what Jesus did in that deserted place in Palestine 2,000 years ago, and what God has been doing for God's people for as long as they have existed. The Eucharist tells the story of God, and when we participate in the Eucharist, we are living out the on-going story. That's what it means to be the church - to continue the story - to be the people of God, just as certainly and just as literally as the hungry people in that lonely place were, or as the contrariwise, fussing, but nevertheless on-going people of Israel were even long before that as they wandered in the wildernesses of North Africa, homesick for where they had been, frightened of where they were going.

The Book of Common Prayer tells us that Holy Eucharist is “the principal act of Christian worship,” because communion not only tells us who we are - it makes us, again, who we are - recreates us. In a sense, we are "born again" every Sunday. We become, once more: the people who are fed by Jesus. And the people who share the gifts of God. I once heard a priest say that there is only one thing that would bar you from communion -- and that’s if there is anyone you are not willing to stand beside.

We are the people who are fed, and we are the people who share. A theologian named Monika Hellwig says this: "The mark of salvation is not a feeling of exhilaration or serenity, but the serious practise of universal (non-exclusive) charity."

The mark of salvation is not a feeling of exhilaration or serenity, but the serious practise of universal (non-exclusive) charity.

That's a communal definition of salvation -- a horizontal one. Salvation -- wholeness -- wellness -- has to do not with how I am feeling, but with my relation to my neighbors -- "the serious practise of universal charity." Love -- love-in-action -- for everyone I encounter. If I am "saved," I cannot put anyone down. I cannot consider anyone scum. (Think about that: no one is scum. No one is "no good." If I am "saved" I cannot consider my needs as more important than anyone else's needs. I have a right to food -- but so does everyone else. I deserve a job -- or an education -- or rest -- but so does everyone else. That is easy to say, but hard to practise. But it is what we are called to.

The basic thing that makes sharing is hard is that we fear not having enough. If I share my bike with you, I can’t ride it all the time. If I share the cake with you, I might not get as much as I want. There is a theological response to that fear -- and it is also simply a true a factual response -- because God is true, God is a fact -- and that response is, that when you share...amazingly...what you get is more than you had before. When you share your bike, you get someone to play with. When you share your cake, you’re no longer just eating cake...you’re having a party.

Preachers often spiritualize the story of the Feeding of the 5,000, but there is also a standard realistic interpretation in which most of the people who have come to hear Jesus, do have a small bit of food they’ve brought with them .. They bring it out to share, and the result is “plenty” for everyone. It’s an interpretation that’s embodied in a folk tale about “Stone Soup,“ in which soldiers come to the village, and the villagers all close their doors and hide their food, because they are very poor and have very little. But the soldiers are carrying a large pot with them, and they set it up in the middle of the town square, and fill it with water, and then collect some large stones and put the water on to boil> The villagers come out of their houses and ask, “what are you doing?” and the soldiers say “we’re making Stone Soup!” And the villagers say, “Stone Soup! What is that?? You can’t make soup from a stone.” But the soldiers say “indeed, you can...and it is very delicious. Ours will be ready quite soon. If only we had, though, a little bit of cabbage -- that would make it taste even better.” And one of the villagers says, “oh, I have some cabbage, I can give you some,” and runs and gets it. And the soldiers put it in the pot, and then one of them says, “now, a ham bone...just a ham bone -- that would make all the difference!.” And one of the villagers says, “oh, I have a ham bone...” and you can take it from there. At the end of the story, they all sit down together, and laugh, and sing..and eat. They have become a community. It is a miracle. As true a miracle as when God rains down manna in the wilderness.

Our God is a God of abundance. One of the themes of Scripture is abundant life... “I come that you may have life, and have it abundantly.” One of the themes of the planet is abundance...just look at all the green around us...all the corn and crabs we ate last Sunday...all that sunshine. There is enough food raised on this planet for everyone to have enough...the fact that some of us go hungry is a violation of God, and a violation of humanity, and a violation of nature.

In one of our three lectionary cycles (explain?) we read stories about feeding and sharing, about Jesus giving physical bread, Jesus being spiritual bread every single Sunday for all of August. One August in that lectionary year, my husband and I went out to buy corn at a roadside stand in Massachusetts, where we were living. When we got to the stand it was late in the day, and there were only 12 ears left. Just as we were paying for them, another customer pulled up. My first thought was, "oh, too bad she won't get any." Remember, I had been reading and thinking and praying about...and preaching on...God's feeding and sharing for several weeks. And nevertheless! my first thought still was: "Oh, too bad she won't get any." It took my husband...bless him...to say, “oh...well, she can have half of ours...”

Worldly patterns of thinking are very powerful. "First come, first served." "I can pay for this, so I can have it." "It's all right for me to have 12, and her to have none. I paid for it, and I got here first." Sharing does not come naturally in our world. Look at our national budget. But sharing is Scriptural. And sharing is what Christians need to work and struggle for. Sharing is what it means to be a Christian. We cannot come to the altar and eat God's food together and then go away from the altar forgetful of God's hungry world. And if it's not easy to figure out how to share with the world, or easy to be generous in our daily lives -- well, tough. It is the work that we have been given to do. We are called to create miracles -- just as the disciples were this morning.

In one sense, being a Christian is that - a state of being. We are baptized into Christ. We are Christ's. That's who we are. But as we talked about last week, it is also about growing. Growing, more and more, day by day, ever more deeply, into what it means be a Christian. Looking at, in all the motions of our life, how we are called to come closer to God. What we are being asked to do. What we are being asked not to do. Learning to share the corn. Learning to share everything that we have, everything that we are. All our resources. Our time, our talent, our money, our selves. Daring to look at the suffering world around us and to grow ever more deeply into our response to it - as the disciples grew in this morning's reading. When the disciples first see the hungry crowd, they say, "Send them away so that they can feed themselves." Jesus says, "No, you feed them" - and then Jesus give them the wherewithal to do it. Who or what is asking you for help right now? Who or what is asking you to share yourself? And what kind of "wherewithal" from God do you need in order to respond?