Six Years Ago Today

Matthew 14:13-21

Now when Jesus heard about the beheading of John the Baptist, 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 on 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.

It was on this date, August 6th, 2017… six years ago to this very day, that I read this same lesson on my first Sunday as the new Rector and Pastor of Christ Church Episcopal and Trinity Lutheran Church.  Trying to pull up the memories from that day was a bit of a challenge this week.  After all, that was “B.C.”… before Covid, and among the many things that Covid did was to mess with our concept of time, but I do remember that first Sunday included putting up a big tent.  

Way back then in that very first sermon, I told you that the miracle we hear about in this lesson wasn’t just done for the wow factor… even though it was a wow-worthy miracle for sure!  This miracle was done to jump start the disciples.  To get THEM to DO something!  To give the people something to eat.  To bring the people LIFE!  The disciples wanted to send the crowd home, tell them to drive through McDonalds, get some sushi from BigY, order a pizza… whatever, because there was absolutely, positively, NO WAY they could feed this crowd.  But into their panic Jesus calmly said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”  That, I told you six years ago today, was OUR challenge from Jesus as well.  To give the thousands of people around us here in South County something to eat.  Some, I said were were belly hungry for sure.  Others were hungry to know God’s unconditional love, hungry to be included, hungry for justice, hungry for deeper relationships, for community, for a connection with the Divine, for deeper meaning… hungry for LIFE!  Our temptation, I told you, would be to give into the fear of how overwhelming that task looked and tell those folks to “go somewhere else to be fed” but that Jesus was telling us “They don’t need to go away; YOU give them something to eat.”  

Maybe it was because that was my very first Sunday, but from six years later, it looks to me like you've done just that!  You've looked around time after time to find our five loaves and two fish… asked Jesus to bless those bits and gave them something to eat!  We took two Ministry Development Grants and three Thrivent Grants and from those we’ve now fed hundreds and hundreds of hikers on the Appalachian Trail.  Fed them with hot dogs and hamburgers, but also with an enthusiastic, all inclusive, and generous welcome all while also feeding our volunteers with love, compassion, and joy!  We took generous memorial gifts from Jim McGraw, Patrick Burns, Hope Swanson, and Michael Platt and another generous grant and powered our church with the Sun!  A gift that keep multiplying with every sunny day!  We updated the 1866 welcome statement (which was really good already) and set out our now famous rainbow chairs, started Beer and Hymns, started Sheffield Pride, started Silent Movie Night, and Broadway Cabaret… which, by the way, is right now multiplying into an opportunity for one of our stars to do a one woman show with Barrington Stage next summer!  

And let’s not forget how, during the pandemic, we went about connecting families who were hungry, with families who wanted to help, through The Marketplace’s Thursday Family Meal offering… and with that connection Feeding Sheffield was brought to life.  If you want a literal loaves and fishes story… there you go!  Out of that program grew the Lich Gate Concert Series and with the end of Covid, the Parish Fair was resurrected into new life as the Berkstock Food & Music Festival.  We’ve remodeled the Grey Cottage and now that both apartments are rented we will be seeing about $40,000 a year in income from that property that will pay off our debt and multiply our endowment which will multiply how we can keep on “giving folks something to eat” in ways we have yet to imagine, well into the future.  

We need to keep reminding each other of all the miracles we’ve seen done in our presence in these past six years.  The temptation to be overwhelmed by the continuing hungers all around us and say “It can’t be done.  It just won’t work.  We don’t have the money for that.  We don’t have the people for that”… that temptation is always present.  That is why our challenge for our next half a dozen years together is to constantly remind each other that this miracle of bringing abundant life to those who are hungry… We’ve seen it happen time and time again.  We’ve seen simple, small bits blessed and transformed into life giving food that has the power to feed every sort of hunger… and with leftovers to spare!  So if you are wondering... THAT is what we’ll be up to in the next half dozen years… continuing to give those around us something to eat.  Amen.