Matthew 14:13-21
Now when Jesus heard this, 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.
Three years ago this Sunday was my very first Sunday at Christ Trinity and the Feeding of the Five Thousand was the Gospel story you and I started with together that day. In that sermon I told you that while the miracle was indeed amazing, AMAZING was not the point. Instead, the miracle was meant to be more like a sign in the road… an acted out parable to show the disciples how they were to be in the world going forward.
Just as it was for those original disciples, that sign for how to move forward is our calling too. Our calling is to “Give them something to eat!” Feed the people. That’s what I told you that very first Sunday. Our calling together is to feed the hungry… ALL the vast multitudes of people with hunger of every sort. Some, I said, would be “need a fish sandwich - belly hungry.” But many others were hungry beyond the belly. They were hungry to know God’s unconditional love for them, or hungry to be welcomed and included. Others were hungry for justice, peace, deeper relationships, authentic community, a sustainable planet, or deep meaning for their lives.
I told you back then that we too would be tempted like the original disciples to say, “HOW are we going to do ALL THAT!?” I told you back then we’d be tempted to look around and see a whole lot of NOTHING for us to work with to fill all those hungers! But I also told you then, that if we didn’t panic… If we took some time to look around, focus on what we DID have around us rather than what we lacked... If we thought together prayerfully, creatively, and maybe even think a little oddly… and if we too brought the little we did have and offered it to those who were hungry, we too, like those first disciples might just find that Jesus could work something amazing with the Christ Trinity equivalent of five loaves and two fish.
And I gotta tell ya! Apparently you all paid attention in church that day! You must have really listened to the sermon, and over the last three years, I’ll be danged if you didn’t go out and do it! Not just once either! You’ve done it over and over and over!
One of the times you all looked around you saw people hungry to be included, welcomed, told they are loved and a vital part of our community. You looked around to see if there were some loaves or fishes around and you found the church’s original welcome statement from 1866. Then you found some rainbow Adirondack chairs and some summer annuals in rainbow colors. Then we looked around and found some lobster and some rolls and in “genuine feeding the five thousand style” we ate seafood on the lawn together! The miracle though, wasn’t the lobster roll lunch (although we should totally do that again!)… no, the miracle was that when we looked around and put together what we could find and then offered that from the depths of our hearts to those who were hungry. It was blessed! People were fed! That hunger you saw for community, love and radically inclusive welcome was lavishly fed AND is STILL being fed to this day!
But wait, there’s more! Looking around we saw some generous families looking to use memorial money to do something meaningful for the church. From a long list of ideas, “Make Christ Trinity Solar Powered” was the one thing they all chose (without talking with each other mind you)! Their generosity inspired more generosity and the congregation decided that even though there wasn’t enough money to fund the whole project, we’d be thankful for what we had and offer it up to feed that hunger. Who knows, we thought, maybe Jesus can do something with this sort of loaves and fish?
Well, the next thing that happened was that to do the project we first needed a new roof under where the panels would go! This project was going to be even MORE expensive! But the NEXT thing that happened after the roof, was that we got a grant for $15,000 to pay it all off and we’ve been making electricity, collecting rebates and cashing National Grid’s checks ever since! Sunshine loaves and electric fish enough to power the church AND the Rectory!
But wait, there’s more! This Spring we took this calling back to it’s more literal roots and we started feeding hungry bellies, but in a brand new way. We didn’t have money, but when we looked around we found our community was aching to help with no way to do it! So we asked our whole community if they could look around and maybe find about $26 to sponsor a meal for a school family. (You know, come to think of it $26 would probably buy a couple of fish and and five loaves of bread these days… interesting….)
Anyway, out of that appeal came the miracle of our Sheffield feeding program. But wait, there’s more! Because of what the people in our church and our town did, by looking around and finding 26 bucks… today’s equivalent of five loaves and two fish… and offered that in love to our neighbors in need, others saw what we were doing and wanted to join in as well! Giant gifts came in from Sheffield neighbors. We got a grant from the Berkshire United Way and Berkshire Taconic Foundation. Our idea got borrowed and adapted by others to expand it further into South County... and you know what? Over the first ten weeks we did this... 4,786 servings of food were served to hungry bellies. Now, math is not my best subject, but by my calculations, that’s pretty darn close to 5000 and that seems pretty AMAZING to me!
May we continue to look around and see in which ways our neighbors are hungry. May we continue to think prayerfully, creatively, and a bit oddly (hey, it seems to be working!) and may we offer what we find, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, to our hungry neighbors and then may we watch God’s amazing miracles continue to happen all around us in the years to come. Amen.
