Don't Fill Up on Just the Bread!

John 6:1-21

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

Jesus takes five loaves and two fish, gives thanks, and has the disciples start serving out a bread course and appetizers!  At which point the people back then do exactly what you and I do today… they completely filled up on the bread and apps and had 12 doggie baskets of leftovers to boot!  Jesus’ answer to people who are hungry is simple… you feed ‘em!  An absolutely beautiful answer and if you went home today with your belly filled with the idea like the 5000 were with bread... that Jesus feeds people for no other reason than that they were hungry, you’d be good!  

But Jesus did have more planned than just bread and apps.  Its true, most people, then and now, fill up on the bread and apps and end up missing out on the little amuse-bouche… Jesus’ complimentary little bite he was offering.  But if you have a little room today, I’d be happy to give it to you now.  Do you have some room?  It’s small.  It’s free!  Yes?  Good!  This free little bite is Jesus’ reminder to us that when we take the time to notice and are thankful for WHAT WE HAVE rather than obsessing, lamenting, and whinging over what WE DON’T HAVE… incredible things ALWAYS happen out of that spirit of thankfulness!  Was I right?  A small delicious bite, right?      

Now then, you’ve had the bread and apps.  You were good enough to make room for that little amuse-bouche as well, but to be honest, I’m really hoping that today, YOU might still have room for what I believe is the actual main course Jesus wanted to serve back then to those thousands and right now to you and me.  Again, don’t get me wrong, the apps are excellent.  Feeding people simply because they are hungry (chef’s kiss!) perfect.  The complimentary taste reminding us of the power of thankfulness and generosity over the weakness of selfishness and scarcity… delectable.  Just those two courses alone have been filling people up with great take-home messages for literally millennia so I don’t want to imply that there is anything at all wrong with them.  They are fantastic… its just that because they are so good, people almost always fill up before they have the chance to get to the main course.  But if you’ve saved some room… see what you think about this course!

When confronted with the problem of let’s say 15,000-ish hungry people, what did the disciples suggest?  Here in John’s Gospel Jesus tests the disciples by asking them where they could buy bread for all these people.  In the other Gospels, the disciples suggest that Jesus send them away to find food for themselves.  In both versions Jesus was setting them up to learn this main course lesson.  The disciples did as Jesus knew they would, and so the disciples suggested their era’s equivalent of telling the crowd they should get a job and buy their own food.  That they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and feed themselves.  That they should mount their horse, grab their gun, tip their hat to the little lady and the young-uns and ride off to rustle up some grub like the real, rugged, independent, beholden to no one, MEN, that God made them to be!  The disciples suggested that because THAT was all they knew.  THAT was the worldview they grew up in… THAT was the world view they were taught… THAT was the worldview they learned from childhood.  That was the worldview in which they lived their entire lives, without a second thought that there could EVER be another way to look at or live in the world.  

But here, in addition to Jesus showing the disciples that folks who follow Jesus feed people with no other consideration than that they are hungry and that a spirit of thanksgiving does miraculous things… Jesus was ALSO trying to teach the disciples that a worldview that sends people off to fend for themselves is NOT the worldview in which God had created humanity to live!  Instead, Jesus directly confronted, and clearly puts down THAT individualistic, go it alone, bootstrap pulling worldview as something NOT from God!  That’s what Jesus was doing when he said, “They need not go away.  YOU give them something to eat.” 

The solutions to the needs of this world, Jesus was trying to teach them, will NOT be found in sending people away to fend for themselves as individuals!  THAT is simply NOT how God created humans to live in this world!  NO!  The solution to ALL the needs of this world (not just hunger) are to be found in doing what Jesus had the people do on that hillside… gather people together, sit them down together, give thanks together for ALL of the abundant gifts we have together as a community, and then sharing all those gifts out in the same way that those loaves and fish were shared… generously, abundantly… some might even say recklessly!  Sharing them out as if you were CERTAIN from the beginning that no matter how much you give away, there will STILL be twelve baskets left over when you’re done!  I know.  I know.  Some will call that communism.  I know.  I know.  Some will call that socialism.  But what Jesus calls it is the WAY God created humanity to live abundantly as part of God’s creation!  What Jesus calls it is the TRUTH of what it is to live this life as a full fledged human being!  What Jesus calls it, is the worldview in which God created us to live, and to have life, and to have that gift of life which God has so generously given us… abundantly.  Amen. 

The Day Has Already Come, Says the Lord!

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord. The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Most of our country, and indeed most of the world, is beyond stressed out when it comes to U.S. politics right now.  We are bombarded each day by promised horrors like rounding up millions of immigrants and putting them into camps, taking away health care, stripping hard-won rights from women, from minorities, and from the LGBTQ community.  We hear the plans to get rid of things like the Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts, Farm Crop Insurance, and the National Weather Service.  We see the Supreme Court giving itself the sole, unelected, unaccountable power to decide what is, and what is not, an official presidential act, and what can and can’t be delegated to the executive branch for administration.  We hear threats against people in the media, people in institutions of higher learning, and political rivals, and so when we hear Jeremiah passing on God’s anger about “shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture” it feels a whole lot more like a now-ish thing, than just some disconnected-from-reality, 2600 year old, bible thing.

  

The stakes are so high right now.  The threat of the end of our democracy is so very real right now.  So many of the proposed policies are literally anti-Christ, against the teachings of Christ, right now, that many of us… me at the top of that list… look at that lesson from Jeremiah and the first thing we do is to long for exactly what Jeremiah was longing for.  We want more than anything for it to be true that “The days are surely coming, says the Lord.”  That the solution is on the way!

And we don’t just WANT it… we genuinely NEED it.  We NEED it for our fellow humans who will be affected in very real, life or death ways.  We NEED it so that you and I, our friends, loved ones, and fellow human beings can simply be safe to live their lives fully and freely as the persons God made them to be… to be included among those who are able to genuinely and hopefully and continually reach toward the ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… to live in a place where we are allowed to differ on a million different things, but not on the ideal that liberty and justice should be for all, where all genuinely means ALL.    

The political angst is so high right now that we read Jeremiah’s words and long for exactly what God promised Jeremiah would be coming.  But in our angst we seem to forget… me at the top of the forgetful list… that what God promised, first through Jeremiah, and then by extension to all of us, HAS ALREADY BEEN GIVEN TO US!  The Day has ALREADY come, says the Lord!  Jesus has already HAD compassion, and continues to HAVE compassion on us because today we are, as people have always been, like sheep without a shepherd.  The truth today is that the Lord IS my Shepherd… not “will be” or “was”, but IS my Shepherd.  Every day we are tricked into believing that our only options for finding a Good Shepherd is among the political candidates we’ve been given.  It is a relentless campaign of bamboozlement and it works all too often on me, and even on the most level headed and intelligent people I know.

THAT is why we need to remind each other and the whole world, about the GOOD SHEPHERD we have already!  We need to tell each other that Good Shepherd’s desire is that WE SHALL NOT BE IN WANT and that God will get what God wants!  It’s GOD after all!  We need to remind each other that God desires all to have ENOUGH.  Enough like sheep get with green pastures and still water.  Enough like the people of the Exodus got with manna from the heavens.  Enough like the 5000 got with loaves and fishes.  God’s desire is that everyone have enough, not because anyone deserves it but simply because that's what God wants, and God will get what God wants because God is God!

 

Telling each other the story of the Good Shepherd who is already on the job will not magically change our country.  But it can change US.  It can change us from fearful beings with a narrow vision of our future possibilities, back into the Children of God that we are… a people who embrace the truth that with the Good Shepherd, there are actually infinite possibilities beyond our current political options and no matter what happens, the God who has never left God’s people before is not about to leave God’s people now!

The political stakes in our country right now could not be higher and our calling to love of neighbor demands we pay attention.  Faithfulness still includes being informed and giving our support and our votes to the candidates who we believe will best move our country toward the ways of living which Jesus modeled for us… the ways of love, compassion, radical inclusion, care for the least, lost, and last in society, care for the immigrant, healing for the sick, feeding of the hungry, care for creation and all the rest.  Faithfulness calls us to all of that… AND… AND… and… it also calls us also to never forget, that even in the midst of this almighty mess, God is at work!  That God has promised that no matter how the world might look or even be… that somehow, God will make sure that it is goodness and mercy that will persue us all the days of our lives.  Amen.