[ https://soundcloud.com/tigerowl/pentecost8-2014 ]
JESUS MAFA. Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48287 [retrieved August 4, 2014].
Have you ever seen a hungry
mob of 35,000 teenagers descend upon a downtown on a weekday night when all of
the businesses have closed at 4:30 pm or 5 pm?
Trust me, It’s not a pretty picture.
Have you ever heard of a Mc Donald’s or Burger King running out of
food? Fancy restaurants suddenly
becoming reservations only or not admitting guests because, shhhh, they were
all teenagers….. IT’s a stunning fate in
the midst of the market economy of the century changing year of 2000.
Though the planners had
conversations with the convention planners and hotel planning staff, prior to
the arrival of the first 35,000, these business people of St. Louis were
thoroughly unprepared. The information that is shared when the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America books a Youth
Assembly starts with the fact that they don’t count rooms or beds, they
count the pillows, for our youth groups are assigned four and five to a room. This is a distinct variable in entertaining
youth, in terms of how many a city and their hotels can entertain, the spirited
hungry hoards of youth that the ELCA can bring to a city.
The twin towered Marriott hotel I was assigned
to, assured me as Hotel Pastor in Charge, that they were ready. I knew early in the day when the buses of
youth began to arrive and they were having trouble getting all their rooms
checked in that we were in serious trouble.
I didn’t think it could get worse.
But it did. After the evening
program at Edward Jones Dome, home of the St. Louis Rams, the church youth of
the ELCA excited by the music and the presentations at the event Titled
“Dancing at the Crossroads” trouped back to the cluster of hotels in downtown
St. Louis and to buses for the suburban locations. Back at the hotel I asked the management
staff if they were prepared for our youth to return and order evening
snacks. They responded in the
affirmative, but in the hour and a half after the final event at the Dome, the
snack bar was empty the grills and restaurants were out of food and the youth
were moaning that there was nothing available to eat……Fortunately we did have a
band in our hotel which continued to entertain the hungry, moaning, energized
youth until our mandatory midnight in your rooms curfew.
I know the fears expressed by
the disciples in our lesson for the day.
In the middle of a city across the street from the St. Louis Cardinals
this Marriott Hotel had become a “deserted place, and the hour is now late;”
and I could only “send the crowds away to pray and to their bedrooms, so that
they could get rest and in the morning go into the villages and buy food for
themselves." Ultimately I knew that
these youth of America were not going to starve to death, though many of them
voiced that concern. Perhaps I didn’t
have enough faith, but I’m not sure that I would have heard Jesus words when in
scripture Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them
something to eat." The moans of the
600 youth in ‘my hotel’ would have drowned him out.
Did you notice the subtle
difference in what the words say in scripture and the way we talk about the
miracles of Jesus? Almost universally we
say that Jesus fed the 5000 or 3000, the number changes from Gospel to Gospel
or even chapter to chapter. It was a
working of the spirit that was important to the early life of the church, thus
the story is a shared experience. In
today’s lesson: 14:16 Jesus said to them,
"They need not go away; you give them something to eat." 14:17 They replied, "We have nothing
here but five loaves and two fish."
14:18 And he said, "Bring them here to me."
Please note who does the
feeding. Jesus says that the people do
not need to go away. Jesus instructs the
disciples to feed the people, YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT. While the disciples plead that they have
limited resources, 5 loaves and 2 fish, Jesus follows with a simple
instruction, “Bring them here to me.”
Like any dinner party he invites the guest to take their seats, he says
grace and blesses the food, and instructs the disciples to act as their waiters
and distribute the food.
There are at least two
lessons here. First there is recognition
of how to both see a need and address it. For Jesus when he sees the sick, he heals. When he sees the
ignorant, he teaches. When he sees the demon-possessed, he exorcises. When Jesus sees disciples noting a need, he
challenges them to go to work: “You do something.” (Or, more specifically,
“feed the hungry.”) Quite rightly it
would have been easier if Jesus had just sent them away, but they were the ones
who recognized the need, and Jesus was, in one way instructing them that,
should they see a need, then the task is not to pass the need on to someone
else, but survey your own needs and address the need.
Were the disciples looking for
a feeding method that did not involve a great deal of work on their part? There certainly could have been other ways of
feeding the hungry that didn’t involve so much work by the disciples. Jesus
could have miraculously made the people’s hunger pains disappear. If Jesus was
going to miraculously make food appear – why not have it appear in the stomachs
– no work for the disciples and no garbage to clean up. Jesus could have waved
his hand and the magic words, “Colonel Sanders,” and every family would have
their own bucket of chicken right in front of them.
Have you ever thought about
how much work it would be to distribute food to 5000 men, besides women and
children – and then to clean up the mess? How significant is it that there were
12 disciples and 12 baskets of garbage picked up at the end? Was Jesus teaching at every step along the
way? Was this a way for one more lesson
on the observation and the practice of being a Jesus follower? Was Jesus just demonstrating that it is
possible to use what seem to be meager resources to address the problems that
face the Christian Community? For Jesus
being a disciple was more than being a learner, but a worker. In the end after sending the disciples out
into a boat after the leftovers are gathered, he did exactly as the disciples
had suggested at the beginning of the parable, “Jesus sent the multitudes
away.”
Two learnings from within the
lessons and parables: 1: No one leader does it all. Rev. Silas D. Daugherty, Rev. Paul S. Wagner,
Pastor Robert J. Mayer, Pastor Daniel Shook, Pastor William Heisley, and Pastor
David Shaheen did not lead this congregation alone. Each of them has people who worked alongside
of them. They were not only disciples of
the congregation, but of the Christ who redeemed them and died for them. Some of those partners in ministry were the
ones who signed the charter in 1921, but some of the partners in ministry are
the people sitting next to you in the pews.
How many of you have played any role in the life of this congregation
beyond just sitting, singing and praying on Sunday morning. Don’t be bashful. Disciples are not bashful people; they are
the ones who say loudly and proudly that they are a child of God and a disciple
of Christ. They are the ones who say to
others I belong… to Christ Lutheran Church.
They are the ones who invite others to join them at Christ Lutheran
Church.
As this congregations takes
the initial steps toward new leadership, no that you are not the first ones to
do that, even in this location of God’s outpost for feeding those who are
hungry for the food and the word. But
you are the ones who are to be called upon to introduce your new leader to your
friends, families and neighbors.
Lesson 2: No leader
accomplishes the ministry of the Gospel without the support of the members of
the congregation. We made commitments in
the vacancy to fund a new furnace for ministry in this building. We agreed to reduce our debt load. We will agree to support financially a change
in leadership in the congregation. And
all through these years we have said that we support the work of the Community
Outreach Corporation which uses our building for many of their services. You see nothing stops. The ministry of the gospel continues even
during the vacancy all by the grace of God and your support. None of that stops. It just gets more interesting, to us all by
the Grace of God. AMEN.
Thanks to Brian Stoffregen.
