Now when Jesus heard John had
been killed, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
When he went ashore, he saw a
great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
When it was evening, the
disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now
late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food
for themselves.”
Jesus said to them, “They need
not go away; you give them something to eat.”
They replied, “We have nothing
here but five loaves and two fish.”
And he said, “Bring them here
to me.”
Then he ordered the crowds to
sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to
heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and
the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they
took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those
who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
***
I don’t know if you’ve heard
the term, “h-angry,” when a person’s hunger makes them angry, but I get h-angry
sometimes, when with low blood sugar and lack of awareness, I snip at the next
person to talk. And if I were a disciple, I would be awfully worried about a
whole field of 5,000 families of h-angry people. Food, water, shelter, and temperature
are some of our most basic needs, and this group was about to be without many
of them as night was beginning to fall in that deserted place. My own stomach
would be rumbling and I would totally be the one asking, “Jesus, um, there’s a
lot of people here, and they are going to get hungry,” in my head I would have
already taken it to the ‘enth degree. They are going to get hungry, and
thirsty, and then tired, and we don’t have anything. AKA I am hungry, and
thirsty, and tired, and the disciples themselves don’t have enough to share
amongst them. So when Jesus says, “You give them something to eat,” I would’ve
gotten h-angry at him. “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” Fix
that Jesus. So I probably would have had to be the one to go get the loaves and
the fish, one so I could look directly at my need, hungry and carrying five
loaves and two fish, my mouth salivating and secondly, I would have had to
carry them so I could be sure of their transformation. Because that's what
happens, what I would have forgot all about in my h-anger, is to ask to God
what God wants me to do. I would have skipped right past the trust that God is
bigger than dinner, or my lack of it, at that second. That God is thinking not
just in terms of my belly, but 5,000 families bellies. That there is an answer,
maybe many, and I just have to stop being afraid long enough to hear it. I have
to stop thinking of fear and worst case scenarios long enough to let creativity
seep in. And this is the way we function and Jesus knows it.
A few months ago, the Mission
Committee leadership of Backpack and Open Door were wondering about how they
might need to limit their programs which feeds children. There neither seemed to
be the financial backing nor volunteer effort enough to run the programs. It
was a sad and scary place to be, and those who lead knew how precarious was the
spot between having enough and having not. They were looking at Jesus saying,
“This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so
that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” And Jesus
asked them not to look the hunger, but to look for where there was bread and
fish. They brought and gathered together what they had, Larry Cassidy, who did
a fabulous job previously running the Open Door Program felt his health was
improved enough to return, other names came up as people to ask to write grants
and be the Backpack Coordinator. Financial support also began to come through.
In this time, the Mission Committee remains astonished and thankful as they
watched Jesus look up to heaven, give thanks, bless the bread and break it. I
look forward to next school year, when they find 5,000 days of children’s
bellies full, and assessing their program they took up what was left over of the
broken pieces, twelve baskets full. This year backpack counted the food they
hauled to schools by the ton, and Open Door was figuring out how to give away
the extra bread to the Bread of Life Food Bank.
I was likewise talking to a
friend in the car the other day, she had been listening to a parenting book
which talked about how our fears for our children are so often our own fears
manifested. My friend explained that instead of parenting as, “You have to get
this grade at school, because I said so,” that what really was going on was the
parent’s own fear. Instead to understand what is really going on is, “When my
kid slacks off at school, I worry that he or she will not be self-sufficient as
an adult, and being self-sufficient ourselves is a constant concern for their
dad and I.” To recognize the fear is our own and often a projection of our own
worries, our own h-angry. So how might that parent be reminded to go get and
look at the bread and the fish that were already there. What if they were able
to be reassured that their kid was really good at the creative arts, and well
beyond their peers socially. And that they and their spouse had a supportive
family close by and though their kids didn’t have as much as other kids, they
had enough to fill them belly full. I can imagine the parent bringing these
skills and sustenance back to Jesus, and Jesus ordered them to sit down on the
grass. Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish, looking up to heaven, and
blessing and breaking the loaves, and giving them to the disciples of parents,
and the parent-disciples witnessing their family’s small gifts and substance
feeding the crowds.
Lastly, I think about our
church. After summer, upon summer of preaching to pews with numbers in the
twenties, thirties and on a good day forties, when they seat a hundred and
twenty, it always makes summer feel like a strain. Preaching to so few, so
spread out feels like trying to hold up the injured from seven rows in front.
Singing hymns also feels like an unrehearsed solo for those of us willing to
put ourselves out there louder than we would prefer, and those who prefer not,
just add to the void of silent space. Likewise, our number in worship during
the school year is down from an average of about 65 to now about 45, so I
imagine there will be summer days in the teens and twenties on the regular.
They are statistics I’ve been watching, and also been researching. Did you know
summer Sundays are when most visitors come to your church? Forget Easter and
Christmas, that multitude is probably going to come just twice a year, those
who come in summer, are more often looking for a church, but it is when we are
not at our best. So I and other suggested taking out some pews for the season.
There are statistics that say that when a sanctuary is about 70 percent full
visitors believe that the church is alive and that there is a place for them.
If it is 80 percent, visitors feel there will be no way to plug in. Conversely,
a sanctuary that is only 60 percent full looks empty and dying. Statistically
to a visitor, we have looked empty and dying most Sundays this year. Moreover,
I recently read that while roping off the pews helps the worship to feel and be
more participatory, that the act of roping them off does not change the empty
and dying feeling for those who visit and may in fact increase that feeling.
Essentially, we were also saying to our visitors, this is a deserted place, we
do not have food, go elsewhere. But when it was suggested to move pews out and
downstairs for a season, I watched all the fears come up. This church that is
usually so good at change, that is usually so good at, “hey, try it, we can see
for a few months and if it works it works if it doesn’t it doesn’t,” stopped at
fear. Stopped at h-anger. Stopped at scarcity. Who will move them, what about
people with mobility issues, what about funerals, what about, what about. And
what I saw was fear. Does this mean our church is dying? What I saw was
h-anger. I am mad my church is not what it was in the fifties. What I saw is people
scared of change. “When I have been having a hard time I liked sitting alone in
the back pew.” What I saw was a congregation that needed to be asked to carry
the bread and the fish because you see, when we are so spread out what we don’t
realize is that we are not injured at all, just too spread out to carry each
other in presence and in song, when we are so spread out we are missing our
bounty of watching and playing with kids in front us in pews or welcoming the
new summer visitors behind us all alone in the back pew. When we are so spread
out it is like 5,000 h-angry people and Jesus is asking us to bring the bread
and fish.
We are a congregation who has
bread and fish. In Worship alone we have bread and fish of Ginger Rembold
playing piano and others who share their musical gifts, we have people who can
sing, we have Linda Moxon’s Irises, we have lists to choose from for liturgists
and ushers and greeters, and nursery care providers, we have a group who helps
discuss the sermon scripture and critique the sermon during Lectionary Bible
Study, we have an adult Sunday School which meets during the summer, and
Vacation Bible School next week, we have people who bake bread for communion
and others who set it up, we usually have so many toddlers and early elementary
kids that it is hard to corral them, and we consider that a good thing.
Likewise, in more sparse days like today, we know them closely enough to know
that today their families are rafting, watching them play in their
all-star-baseball tournament, spending time with grandparents in Pendleton, or
in Sumpter, our youth are working in the fields with their families, and
spending time with their dad’s for Father’s Day. That knowing support is a
blessing, it is bread and fish. And this is just one area of the church, our
worship, which we fear will somehow become less if we take out a few back pews.
This bounty is not going to be negatively affected by a summer sitting closer
together. It could in fact be increased!
Jesus is reminding us that
instead of staring only at our fears, and coming up with other excuses, that we
are to gather our bounty and bring it forth, then to look up, and watch our
fear turn to blessing and that blessing be multiplied into abundant bounty. To
have trust that God has not left this place, nor each of us. That no matter if
it is me as a h-angry disciple, you as a parent-disciple, or we as a church of
disciples, that God is bigger than our rumbling bellies of fear, God has
multitudes of abundant blessing. Alleluia, Amen.
