The Wall of Insecurity

This sermon was the first in a series on the walls that we build around ourselves and our churches that impede our ability to fulfill our mission of spreading the gospel. This sermon was delivered on September 11, 2011.

Exodus 3:1-22 (NAB)

1)      Meanwhile Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. Leading the flock across the desert, he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

2)      There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in fire flaming out of a bush. As he looked on, he was surprised to see that the bush, though on fire, was not consumed.

3)      So Moses decided, “I must go over to look at this remarkable sight, and see why the bush is not burned.”

4)      When the Lord saw him coming over to look at it more closely, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!” He answered, “Here I am.”

5)      God said, “Come no nearer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

6)      I am the God of your father,” he continued, “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

7)      But the Lord said, “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry of complaint against their slave drivers, so I know well what they are suffering.

8)      Therefore I have come down to rescue them from the hands of the Egyptians and lead them out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the country of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

9)      So indeed the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have truly noted that the Egyptians are oppressing them.

10)   Come, now! I will send you to Pharaoh to lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

11)   But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and lead the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12)   He answered, “I will be with you; and this shall be your proof that it is I who have sent you: when you bring my people, you will worship God on this very mountain.”

13)   “But,” said Moses to God, “when I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ if they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what am I to tell them?”

14)   God replied, “I am who am.” Then he added, “This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you.”

15)   God spoke further to Moses, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever; this is my title for all generations.

16)   Go and assemble the elders of the Israelites, and tell them: The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me and said: I am concerned about you and about the way you are being treated in Egypt;

17)   So I have decided to lead you up out of the misery of Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.

18)   Thus they will heed your message. Then you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him: The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent us word. Permit us, then, to go a three days’ journey in the desert, that we may offer sacrifice to the LORD, our God.

19)   Yet I know that the king of Egypt will not allow you to go unless he is forced.

20)   I will stretch out my hand, therefore, and smite Egypt by doing all kinds of wondrous deeds there. After that he will send you away.

21)   I will even make the Egyptians so well-disposed toward this people that, when you leave, you will not go empty-handed.

22)   Every woman shall ask her neighbor and her house guest for silver and gold articles and for clothing to put on your sons and daughters. Thus you will despoil the Egyptians.”

THE WALL OF INSECURITY

Over the next few weeks, we are going to be participating in a sermon series. This series will not just be something that we are doing here at St. Paul’s and Grace, but Pastor Skip will be leading Otterbein through the same series and when he is here, he will continue in this series as well. In addition to this, Pastor Jon Bausman at Aldersgate will be working through this series as well. These four churches will be walking down this journey together and I hope that you come to be encouraged by the words which will be spoken over the next couple of weeks.

So to start off I have a question for you. Have you ever thought about the purpose of walls? Walls define space; they identify an area and most likely say something about how that area is designated to be used. In our homes there are walls that define where we cook, dine, sleep, relax, park the car, shower, study, etc… Walls say something about what’s supposed to happen in a certain area and what isn’t. We don’t sleep in the kitchen, nor do we cook in the bathroom! Have you even noticed how older homes often have more walls than many newer homes? Designated areas in an older home are much more defined and structured, where the kitchen, dining room and living room each have four walls like a box. Whereas, in many newer homes there may be no walls separating the kitchen, dining room, and living room, creating more of a free flowing and open environment where the cook and the family and guests can all intermingle as dinner is being prepared! There’s more disclosure and it provides a greater opportunity for personal exchange and relationship building.

Friends, there are walls that our society has built that are much more serious than the walls in our homes. These are walls that divide people, drawing a definite line between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the under privileged, the free and the oppressed, the educated and the less fortunate. These types of social walls create sides and define who’s in and who’s out!

On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan spoke to the people of West Berlin at the base of the Brandenburg Gate, near the Berlin Wall. Due to the amplification system being used, the President’s words could also be heard on the Eastern side of the wall, the communist-controlled side. The address Reagan delivered that day is considered by many to have affirmed the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism. On Nov. 9-11, 1989, the people of a free Berlin tore down that wall. Of all his speeches, Ronald Reagan’s “tear down that wall,” address may well become the “Great Communicator’s” best remembered.

Sometimes we in the church have allowed the walls to divide us and them. The walls of the church building become this buffer between the reality of a hurting imperfect world and our dream of personal wholeness and safety. We bunker down within these walls in an effort to withdraw from the pain of the world, when Jesus calls us to follow him into the very center of human hurt, embracing the very cross on which Jesus died. Sometimes we’ve become so infatuated with our walls that we go as far as to call the building (these walls of bricks and mortar) “the church”! Sisters and brothers, the facility where we meet, as stunningly beautiful as it is, is not the church… it’s where the church meets, where disciples are made and inspired, so that we would go out into the community and BE the church. You and I are the church, we are the church together and if what we do inside these walls never impacts and transforms the community in which we live; then my friends, we are no longer the church! For the primary purpose of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Therefore, when we are actively being the church beyond the walls of where the church meets, then we are living Christ’s greater vision of making disciples of Jesus Christ. And, if we’re making disciples of Jesus Christ, then the church embodies what it means to be the hope of the world!

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be looking at the different walls that we build up in our lives and in our church. To tear down these walls, we need first to understand what they are and how they are built. We will be looking at the walls of prejudice, insecurity, fear, oppression, complacency, and others. During this time, we will be challenged to put our faith into action and begin to seriously consider how we can make a difference in our very own back yard…in the city of York.

Today, we start off with our first wall. I think, however, that in doing so, we also need to look at the larger significance of this day. September 11, 2011. I am willing to bet that if I asked you what you were doing at this exact moment, ten years ago, you each would be able to tell me in explicit detail what you were doing, how your day changed due to the events around you, and how these past ten years were changed because of that day that we remember today.

My story isn’t all that exciting. I was a senior in college. Tuesday mornings I would get up and get ready for class. I had a class at 9:30. A close friend lived in the room right next to me and he also had a class at that same time in the same building. So, we would walk together. I knocked on his door and went in and found him on his computer. He grew up in Queens, his parents own a business in Manhattan and he had got an email from his dad telling him about the first plane. Bucknell did not allow television in the dorm rooms, so we were unaware of everything that was going on. Planes had hit the towers before, so we thought that it was a small private plane, and as sad as it was, it wasn’t something that caught our attention that much. We got to class and everything was normal. Class ended at 11am, at which point we would meet up again and head down to the student center for lunch. When we got there, we were surprised by how many people were there, gathered, in front of the television. It was at that point, we realized what had happened.

We ran back to the dorm to get our other two friends, who like normal college guys, were just getting out of bed. My uncle at that time, worked at the Pentagon. So, my first concern was talking to my family to see if he was ok. I talked to my parents, but no one was able to contact him as of that time. It wasn’t until late in the evening that we finally had confirmation that he was ok.

I was lucky; I didn’t know any of the thousands of people who lost their lives that day. Yet, I remember sitting in one of my classes. We didn’t do classwork that day; rather, the professors used the opportunity to talk about what was going on. I will never forget my one professor, an economist, and his reaction. He had taught a number of individuals who went on to work at the World Trade Center. He kept in touch with many of them. As we were sitting in his class, he started crying a little, realizing that it was very possible that some of them were among those who died. It was a day, none of us will ever forget, of that I am sure.

There is something else I remember doing that day, though. There wasn’t a whole lot that we could do at Bucknell to help, except for one thing. We could give blood. A bloodmobile was set up, and the line to give blood was long. It seemed as if everyone came that day to do the one thing that could be done. I tried to give, but I couldn’t. My junior year was spent abroad and, while having been in Argentina and Chile would not have been a problem. However, my second semester I spent in Barbados, and during that time, I took a week and went to Venezuela. Because of that, the Red Cross could not accept my blood.

My story is nothing heroic, but it is probably very common. I am sure that anyone here could tell me with just as much detail, what they did that day. That day we were left affected, we were changed, and our lives were altered in literally hundreds if not thousands of ways. I also remember what happened over the following weeks and months. I have to say, if there was anything positive to come out of that horrific day it was the unification of people all across this great land, it was our ability to band together, despite our differences to respond. Sometimes that response was someone putting on camouflage, and grabbing a gun and enlisting. Sometimes that response was the thousands of first responders all across the country that left their homes and travelled to New York or Washington or Shanksville to help in any way they could. Sometimes that response was a line of college students waiting to give blood. Sometimes that response was walking outside and talking to those neighbors who moved in two months ago, the ones that play their music too loud and don’t cut their grass often enough. And sometimes, that response was sitting down in a quiet room, and praying, praying to God to help us understand, help us cope, help us heal.

However you responded that day, the beauty was that we were one people. After two hundred years of History, this great land became one. For that day, in most cases, it didn’t matter what your color of skin was, it didn’t matter what language you speak, and it didn’t matter your age, your hometown, your political persuasion. It didn’t matter; we were all one and the same. What a beautiful thing that was.

We each reacted and we each responded in important ways, some of those ways were easier than others, but in most cases, those responses would not have happened had those planes never have crashed. Good can come out of evil. God can make miracles out of total despair.

But, after a while, things went back to normal. We started to build our walls back up. We stopped talking to our neighbors. We started seeing our political persuasions as more important than the needs of those around us. We started blaming everyone for everything again. The walls went back up.

With the tumbling walls of the Trade Towers, we started to remember our insecurity and we started building up all kinds of walls to preserve our freedoms.

Moses has had the same journey. He fled to the desert for his life, and he has built a good life there. In doing so, he built walls between where he was and the good life he left behind. He built up walls of distance, anonymity, and time. And those walls served their purpose for forty years!!!!! But one day, Moses takes out his father-in-laws flock. And that day, those walls come crumbling down.

When God shows up in a burning bush to call Moses out of the safe place he has been living, he turns into a bundle of insecurity. The Lord is calling Moses back to the cause that got him in trouble in the first place. The Lord is calling Moses back to seek freedom for his people. But, Moses doesn’t want to move out of his life, and he hides behind the wall of insecurity.

So now we come to the part of the scripture where we see God give Moses his mission, his call. God doesn’t just tell Moses to go do this. He explains the need to Moses and gives Moses the chance to get behind it. He tells Moses about the suffering of the people of Israel and how he has heard this suffering and is going to act on their behalf. When God calls us he prepares us for this by making the need known to us. He gets excited about making a difference. He fills us with a passion for that which he sends us to. If he is calling us to mission work, he fills us with a passion for the lost. If he is calling us to ministries of compassion and justice, he fills us with a passion for the poor and the weak. If he is calling us to work with children, he fills us with a passion for the young.

A few years ago a movie came out called Amazing Grace. The movie is about William Wilberforce and his crusade in 18^th century Britain to end the slave trade.  William felt that God called him to this mission and he worked at it year after year of failure and frustration. He almost died because the mission he was on made him so sick. And many of those who he worked with including a black former slave minister, Equiano, died before the mission was realized. It makes me wonder, does God call you to something that he won’t equip you for? I don’t believe so. I believe that God does equip us with every good gift we need to fulfill the mission he has called us to. Sometimes we might not see the results of what he is working through us, but at the same time, God doesn’t send us out there on our own just to watch us fail. God gave Moses the things he needed to lead the people of Israel. He gave William Wilberforce what he needed to put an end to the slave trade in Britain. He will give you what you need to do what he asks of you.

But we, like Moses, can argue with him about this. We can make excuses. We’re too old, we’re too young, we don’t know what we’re doing, nobody will take us seriously, we’ve already got too much going on in our lives with work and family, we cannot commit to something else, anyway that’s the pastor’s job, isn’t it? The list of excuses can go on and on. But if God is really calling us to a ministry, the excuses will not last. I have had to deal with God’s calling in ways that I could not have imagined. I have talked to a lot of other ministers about their calling. One thing I hear is that they fought and fought and fought against that calling. They talk about how God eventually wore them down and here they were in ministry. Their stories were always told as “don’t let this happen to you” stories. There is no pride in their struggle with God. It is not something that they are happy they did. They all wish they had given in to God’s will sooner. They wish they hadn’t spent so much time arguing with God.

But, sometimes, God calls us to other opportunities that are not traditional pastoral ministry. We may be called to ministry within our church, within our community, within our families. This ministry looks different for each of us. What is God calling for you to do? Don’t believe for a second that God is done with you. He still has a use for each of us. And don’t believe that he only calls some of his children to ministry. We are all called to lives to lives of ministry in all we do. So what is God calling you to? How does he want you to serve him? How are you able to serve? Open yourself up to God’s call. Listen to see where he might send you. And when he calls, follow.

This is the hardest part. This is when that wall of insecurity is the hardest to scale over.

Moses realized that he had no option but to go where God led. He argued. He tried to keep that wall from falling down. He said, I can’t convince Israel that I was chosen. I can’t speak in public. I can’t convince the Pharaoh to let them go free. I am not the right person. Pick someone else. Pick anyone else. Pick anyone but me. Moses is insecure. He doesn’t believe he can do what God knows he can do.

But, Moses discovered that as God called him to ministry, God provided his resources for him in ministry. God will do the same for you.

The Lord moves Moses into the security of his presence by lavishing his grace on him, and filling his heart to overflowing, so Moses can take his eyes off himself and put them on the needs of others, in the same way that Paul calls the Philippians to find a secure place in Christ through a Christ graced attitude, authority, and activism.

Moses has a long way to go, but he goes. He goes because God has moved Moses out of having no one but himself into a life built on the Lord as his life and his salvation.

We all suffer from this wall of insecurity. We suffer from it and yet we continue to build it up. It is shameful to us to show our own insecurity, but in reality, it should not be at all. Think of one of the greatest gifts that God can give. A baby, a newborn baby. You hold a newborn in your arms and marvel at this little ball of beauty and perfection.

Think about this new baby though. This new baby relies on parents and siblings and others for every need and want that it has. Parents supply those needs, and we do it with an internal joy because that is our job. We are happy when we can supply our babies with that which they need to survive and thrive.

Our relationship with Christ is the same, my friends. When we depend on God and go to him with our insecurities, he relishes that and supplies our needs. The loving parent of us all.

Today, as we remember the horrific events of ten years ago, let us remember too that God calls us to respond to Him by working together, by BEING the church in the community where we live, by LOVING those around us, by HELPING everyone we can, and by RESPONDING to Him and each other. In this way, we come to know that with him, anything is possible. Anything is possible when we live WITH others around us, and THROUGH Him and his call to each of us.

Open the Door to Reconciliation

This sermon was delivered on September 4, 2011 at St. Paul's UMC in York, Pennsylvania.

Matthew 18:15-20 (NAB)

1)      “If your brother sins [against you], go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have won over your brother.

2)      If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, so that ‘every fact may be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.’

3)      If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

4)      Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

5)      Again, [amen,] I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.

6)      For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

I must start out this morning by admitting I got a little nervous when I read the gospel reading this morning. I got nervous because the reading immediately brought to mind my own brother. It brought to mind not only my own brother, but rather the relationship that I have always had with my brother.

My brother, whose name is Adam, is younger than me by 18 months. I have learned over this time that 18 months of age difference between two brothers is the exact amount of time that is required to ensure a lifelong animosity. Incidentally, 18 months is also the amount of time it takes for either of us to acknowledge something we have done to one another, it is the amount of time it takes to apologize, and it is the amount of time it takes for the other to accept the apology and move on.

Long story short, when I read the gospel this morning, I heard it speaking directly to me. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever read a piece of scripture and realized that it was directed at you, and not only was it directed at you, but it was directed at you in a bad way, pointing out a flaw, an error, a mistake that you have made, or continue to make. And you realize that at that moment, you and God are on the same page about your flaw. You’ve known God has always thought so, but at that moment in time you realized that you were the one making the mistake, you were the one whose behavior needed to change. It is easy when we read scripture and can point out others who fall into those categories. But it is something else entirely when we see ourselves in that way.

Truth be told, we don’t like it at all. In fact, I would be lying if I said that it doesn’t bother us. I would be lying if I said that when that happens we honestly accept our faults and attempt to change in order to be more in line with what God instructs. The truth is, most times we don’t. It is just too hard to change. It is just too hard to admit mistakes, especially when they are our own.

That happened to me recently. I don’t see my brother that often. Sometimes, I like it that way. I go months without seeing him at all. When we do talk, it is mostly through text messages. We rarely talk on the actual phone. It makes me uncomfortable to talk to him, and I bet it makes him uncomfortable to talk to me. The only time we talk is if we are in the same room or if Eimy or my mother makes us talk on the phone. And you know what, I hate that. I really hate that I have that type of a relationship with my own brother.

But, you see, it is His fault. I have always been willing to look past his defects. I have always been accepting of his differences. He’s the one that has never accepted me for who I am. He is the one who is being the one that won’t accept. He is the one who won’t open up. He is the one who won’t love me the way that I want to be loved.

I did see him recently. We got to talking, which after two or three minutes turned into the usual inquisition. The usual questions started. Why didn’t I finish my master’s degree like I had planned? Why, when I was looking for work, didn’t I follow through with the leads he had given me? Why wasn’t I working somewhere that I could make a better living and provide better for my kids? I guess it came down to the underlying question, the one that was never asked but was understood. Why wasn’t I more like him?

However, I bet if you asked him, you would get a different version of the story. You see, I left something out about our conversation. My brother did say something that took me by surprise. It is something that he has said before, but not that often. He is not the kind of person who wears his heart on his sleeve. He is very much a type A personality. He is very much like my father. My brother said to me, that he loved me to death. These questions, these inquisitions, were not made in disgust or in frustration but in an attempt to understand me better. In his own way, a way that sometimes seems foreign to me, he just wants to understand me better. He wants to love me in a way that he can and in a way that I can understand. As I look back on our relationship over the past year or so, I came to the realization that things have changed. We still converse via text message, but much of that has been started by me. He actually has called me a couple of times. He asked Eimy and the kids and I to go on vacation with him to Portland, somewhere neither of us had ever been. He had been seeking reconciliation, and me, in my own version of stupidity, couldn’t recognize it.

You see, reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel message this morning. It is a nice thought. Let’s reconcile our differences, but reconciliation is an action that is very hard to do in all reality. Think about it. Is there anything harder than confronting someone who has grieved you? Especially when it is someone you know well? It is so much easier for us to take our grievance to someone else – to talk about it to anyone else who will listen. Anyone else that is, except the one we ought to. But this is what the gospel is all about. It is about how we should behave if we are indeed going to call ourselves members of God’s family.

Let’s take a moment and look at what is going on in this straightforward gospel passage.

There are no secrets here. We don’t have to look too far beyond the images Jesus uses in order to understand what he is saying.

In addition, it is often helpful to look at what comes before and after the Sunday passage. The whole of chapter 18 talks about our behavior as God’s people. In verse 1, the disciples ask Jesus who the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is, and he says it is anyone who is like a little child. In fact, he says unless you become like a child, you cannot enter the kingdom. And worse, anyone who causes the downfall of a child would be better thrown into the sea and drowned.

Then he told the parable of the lost sheep. The good shepherd leaves the 99 and goes to find the one that is lost.

Today’s gospel follows directly after this parable. All of this concerns what our faith life should be like. Bottom line: we should look after one another and be honest with one another. But of course, that is not as easy as it sounds, and we know this. We often fail, even in the best of circumstances – or more accurately, in what we know should be the best of circumstances. But this is life. Gossip happens and people are wronged in many different ways. We all make poor choices at times. We are human; life here will never be perfect.

So this gospel talks about reconciliation. Reconciliation, because our actions have an impact not only on the one person we have wronged, but on the whole community. Because we are the people of God, what we do affects the whole.

A few years ago you may have started hearing about something called the “Butterfly Effect.” This idea supposes that everything on earth is interconnected. The name comes from the idea that if a butterfly flutters its wings in Japan, or York, or anywhere on earth, the air movement is affected on the other side of the world. It sounds a bit extreme, however, there is some truth to it. This is especially true in communities. We show that in the way we worship together. That’s why we baptize and confirm people within a community celebration. That is why we say the confession and pass the peace together. That is why we say, “We” believe in one God. That is why our hymns have a lot of “we” and “us” in them instead of “me” and “I”.

So, Jesus says, go to the one who wronged you. If that doesn’t work, go to the community. Now, more than one thing can happen. Going to the community means sharing perceptions. Maybe we’ve misunderstood what someone has done. The community could help us see our misperceptions – see things in a different light, so to speak. Maybe it turns out that we have not been wronged at all.

But if the other is at fault, he says, and if the community doesn’t seem to be able to help, treat this person as you would a Gentile or a tax collector. His disciples would understand that image immediately. A gentile or a tax collector was about as much of an outsider as you could be in Jesus’ culture. They could be pushed aside, they could be ignored.

Except, these same disciples had seen how Jesus treated gentiles and tax collectors.

Remember the story in Matthew about the Canaanite woman. Remember how Jesus was forced to go beyond the cultural boundary and extend his care and healing to a gentile? Jesus also called a tax collector to be in his closest circle of disciples.

So, evidently, we can’t put limits to our forgiveness either. We can’t say, “OK, fine, that didn’t work. I don’t have to do anything more.” Reconciliation means the door to forgiveness has to stay open. But there is more! When we wrong others, we must repent.

This is key. There are at least two groups in this church that not only believe this, but put it into practice daily. Do you know who they are? I don’t know if any of you have ever been a member of AA or NA. If you haven’t, that is ok. But if you have, you know that one of the 12 steps is acknowledging that your actions have impacted those around you. And not only acknowledging it, but apologizing for it and making amends for it.

Truth be told, one of the most important ministries that St. Paul’s does is providing a safe place for these groups to meet. However, it is also important to realize that we as a church have a lot to learn from them as well. Because they not only serve to teach us the value of reconciliation, but they also understand that it is in a group where this reconciliation makes the most impact.

And that is the point that Jesus ends with in today’s gospel. Wherever two are three are gathered in my name, I am there. There are more than two or three here this morning, can you feel His presence with us? I hope you can.

Anyone who has ever been in a meeting of NA or AA or any other of a dozen similar groups will tell you that Christ’s presence there is so apparent that everyone can feel it.

Faith is not something that you can do by yourself. It has to happen among a community. Whether it is a community like St. Pauls, or a community like NA or AA, or even a community of friends, our faith grows strong when it is shared.

If we want our life as a church to grow, we need to work constantly on our witness. Others must see us care for each other. They should hear us speak kindly of one another and they should see us forgive and ask forgiveness.

It is not always easy, and we won’t always do it. But as we try to live as we are called to live, we have only to remember that Jesus said, “Where two are three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.”

I hope that as you go about your lives this week you will keep in mind these words. I hope that you will look in your own life and forgive those who need your forgiveness. I hope that you will seek forgiveness with those who you may have wronged. I hope you will think of more ways that St. Pauls can be a beacon of faith in this community and find ways to show this. I hope that you will make a point to speak well of each other, to speak well of this church, to speak well of the ministries that we support. I hope you will make a point to support and learn from those ministries like NA and AA and the good that they do. I hope that you will make a point to welcome a member of Shekinah to our building and our community and give thanks that we are able to share the community of faith with such a wonderful congregation like Shekinah.

It is not going to be easy, I know for me. One thing I am going to do is talk to my brother. I am going to tell him that I love him to death too. I am going to make sure that he knows that I respect and admire him and I am going to tell him that in many ways he reminds me of my father. I see a lot of my father in him and for that I am thankful. I might not see him that often, but at least for now, I have realized I have a lot to learn from him, even though we have wronged each other so much in the past, we can move forward with the knowledge that if we ask for Christ to guide our love for each other, the road ahead will be a little easier and a lot brighter.

Amen!

Our calling INTO the Tumult.

Matthew 14:22-33 (NIV)

(22) Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.

(23) After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,

(24) but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

(25) During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.

(26) When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

(27) But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

(28) “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

(29) “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

(30) But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

(31) Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

(32) And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.

(33) Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

As is my custom, I always read over my sermon with Eimy the night before. I felt good about it last night, and I thought Eimy would too. At least I thought she would give me the benefit of the doubt. You see, yesterday Eimy celebrated a milestone. Seven years of marriage with me, and she hasn’t killed me yet. That is definitely longer than I had anticipated. I am not an easy person to live with. So I read through the sermon and looked at her and she was shaking her head, which is generally not a good sign. Too much, she says. It’s too risky. You are pointing out the 800 pound gorilla. Are you sure you want to do that? This is the first time I have gotten that reaction from her. Yet, I am going to try it. I am going to try it for a couple of reasons. This week has been a difficult week for me. There has been a lot going on in my mind. I have had some conversations with some people that made me think about things in a different light. I have been here for a little over a year now, and I really enjoy serving both Grace and St. Paul’s churches. I have learned a lot, I have made a lot of new friends, and I have really started to understand my calling in a way that makes it easier for me to grasp mentally. It is not an easy thing to understand a calling from God. It is not easy to make major changes to one’s life and the lives of one’s family based on a call that many times doesn’t feel concrete. No one gets a postcard from God saying here is what I want you to do. However, if understanding God’s call is difficult, acting upon it is sometimes near impossible, and that is what we are talking about today.

Any fan of literature will tell you how, throughout history, water has been used symbolically thousands of times. Across cultures, across languages, the use of water in stories has been used to mean a whole myriad of things. Generally, it symbolizes that which is difficult or dangerous. Indeed, it can be deadly. However, it has also been used to symbolize a major change of life, a rebirth, a symbol of changing one thing for another. It has also come to symbolize cleansing, literally cleansing that which is dirty, or figuratively cleansing a person, a spirit, a soul. In today’s story, each of these meanings can be seen.

Walking on the water. Jesus is walking on the water. This is a story that we have heard hundreds if not thousands of times throughout our life. It is one of the miracles that Jesus performs that we point out to non-believers. It is something we hold on to in our times of struggle, at those times when we feel our faith is weak. Our Lord walked across the water.

Many of you will remember the debate that came about a few years ago and to some extent still continues. The words, “under God” in our pledge of allegiance. We argued about whether this was an unfair or illegal imposition of religion into a secular, nonreligious America. Many may have heard some comment and defend “under God” as a phrase that didn’t refer to a Christian God or any other specific God but rather in a generic way. It is a reference to a God that one can make mean whatever they want it to mean. A recognition of a higher power. Now, I am not giving my own opinion about this particular debate, as my opinion is irrelevant today.

However, it brings up an interesting point. Do we understand God to be generic? If our God is generic, how can we recognize him? If you were to meet God on the street, would you recognize him? If you were to meet Jesus on the street, would you recognize him? If you could recognize him, how would you do that? Keep in mind that we really don’t know what Jesus actually looked like. The portraits that we have of him were painted hundreds of years after his death. While the artists’ intentions were good, their facts were not always that concrete. Most of our portraits show a European looking white male. There is one thing we do know about Jesus. He was NOT a European white male. So what we know about what Christ looked like is guided by what we know he DIDN’T look like. We don’t know what he DID look like.

Our scripture today tells of Jesus’ own disciples not recognizing him. They are afraid. Wouldn’t you be? They are in a boat, wind against them, driving far out to sea. At early dawn, they see a terrifying sight. A figure walking towards them on the sea!!!!! “It’s a ghost!” they exclaim. But then the figure speaks to them. “Take heart, it is I, don’t be afraid.” Yet, even then, they still weren’t sure that it was Jesus.

We know the rest of the story. Peter asks Jesus to command him out on the water as well. He does, Peter starts to walk and as long as his eyes are kept on Jesus, he is fine. However, the moment he realizes what he is doing, he begins to sink and Jesus must save him.

There is an old hymn many of you know by heart. It starts out, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me.” Jesus calls the disciples a lot. We start this great gospel story with him calling a group of very ordinary people to drop their fishing nets, to leave their families, to venture forth with him on a perilous sea called discipleship. “I will teach you to catch people,” he says. As the journey continues, we realize, he is now saying, “I am going to teach you to carry a cross.”

Jesus is calling the disciples and us in many ways. There is another old hymn that you know as well that says, “Jesus calls us o’er the tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea, in our joys and in our sorrows, ‘Christian come and follow me.”

But in today’s story, Jesus isn’t simply calling us over the tumult. He isn’t calling us out of the tumult. Today, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus calls Peter out of the boat and onto the waves. Jesus is calling him, and us, INTO the tumult.

We, as a people, have trouble with this. Not just us, but we, as a religion, have trouble with this. We journey about on our boats, thinking that we are on this journey that Christ has called us to. But then, the waves start getting rough. The wind starts howling around us. Sometimes, the boat is rocking, but the weather is still ok. We have a problem with rocking boats.

Years ago, when my mother was in high school, she enjoyed acting in the musicals that they would put on each year. One year the musical that they did was Guys and Dolls. There is a song in that play that no doubt is also familiar to many of you. “I dreamed last night I was on a boat to heaven.” The song goes on and there are some problems on the boat. But it’s ok, because the passengers know right from wrong. Each time the dreamer tried to make the passengers do something wrong, they warned him, “Sit Down, you’re rockin’ the boat!”

We don’t like rocking boats. We don’t like our own little world to be clouded with things that make us feel uneasy. Our intentions are good. After all, we are Christians, and since we are Christians, we know what God thinks. We know what God wants us to do. We know how to keep the boat from rocking.

But, in doing that, we miss something miraculous. When Peter was sinking, he called Jesus to save him. Jesus did, and helped him back into the boat. He stilled the wind and the waves. But think about it, if Peter had not ventured forth, had he not obeyed the call to walk on the water, then he never would have had the great opportunity to recognize the miraculous ability of Jesus and he never would have had the opportunity to be pulled from the raging waves and saved by Jesus.

So many of us, too many of us, simply splash around in the safe shallows of our faith and because of that we have too few opportunities to test and deepen our faith. In today’s story we learn that if we want to be close to Jesus, we have to venture forth out on the sea, we have to prove his promises through trusting his promises, through risk and venture.

Let’s be honest for a moment. What is at the root of this story? One thing in particular. That thing is fear. Fear is the thing that rocks the boat. Fear is the thing that makes us think twice about asking Jesus to call us out of the boat onto the water. Fear is what holds us back in answering the call to come to Him. And fear is something that each and every one of us deals with daily, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. More than that, fear is something that this church, and every church struggles with every single day. We don’t talk about it openly. We feel we can’t talk about it openly because doing so forces us to put a name to that fear. Putting a name to that fear can open us up to criticism, to danger, to failure, to judgment. We have a hard time doing that.

We talk so much about the needs around us in this church and in this city. We discuss ways that we can act as individuals or as a church to counter some negative forces in our culture or in our community. Sometimes we attempt some of these things, and sometimes we don’t. It is all because of fear. We want to stay in the shallow water because if Jesus asks us to get out of the boat, at least we will only our legs wet, we won’t drown. Our faith is not deep enough to answer that call yet.

Let’s be specific. Let’s be specific not just to Grace or St. Paul’s, but let’s be specific to the USA, or to Pennsylvania, or to York. What are our fears? A few come to mind.

1)            Racism – We are afraid of people who don’t have the same color of skin as we do. We don’t say this out loud because it isn’t politically correct. But, let us admit it, we are afraid to interact with people whose skin tone is different than our own. We see it in how we are afraid to sit outside on the stoop of the church and greet passersby. We see it in how we are afraid to walk down the street and invite our neighbors to church. We might say it is because they might say no. And they might. But I posit the real fear that we have is that they might say yes. The fear is not fear of rejection, but rather the fear is a fear of acceptance. If they come to worship with us, we have to sit with them. That makes us uncomfortable, because they are different.

2)            Fear of the foreigners – We are afraid of those who come from different lands. We talk constantly about how we live in a free country. We are proud of this free country. We are proud of those who have fought to keep it a free country. We are proud that people around the world risk their lives to come here and live freely like us. Yet, when they come here, we ostracize them. We move to neighborhoods where we are less likely to have them as neighbors. We complain that they speak a different language. We complain that they listen to music that we can’t dance to. We speak the language of acceptance, but we live the lives of rejection. We fear that if too many more people come our society will change. We justify this fear by saying that it isn’t the people we dislike, it is that they want to change how we do things. But, let’s be honest, the reality is, we don’t want anyone telling us that we need to change. We don’t want any influences in our life, in our society, in our culture, that we don’t have any control over.

3)            Fear of different ideas – We fear those who disagree with us. When I was growing up, and no doubt it is the same for many of you. We had neighbors who might not have agreed with us politically. Maybe they put a banner up in their yard for a politician we were not going to vote for. What happened, they voted for their guy, we voted for ours, and we continued to be neighbors. Helping each other out, loaning a cup of sugar when one was needed, watering their flowers if they were out of town. Nowadays, I get the feeling that if my neighbor disagrees with me politically, he considers me an enemy. Look at the debates lately about national politics, or even state politics. With a proposed tax on companies that want to drill for natural gas, or with an inability for those we elect to put our society first and come to a decision and instead to try to make a point with a debate on a debt ceiling at the cost of an entire economy. A mentality of you are either my friend or my foe, there is no in between. If I am a Republican and you are a Democrat, we can’t be friends. How did we get to this?

These are just a few of the fears that we have that we don’t talk about. Well, today, we are talking about them. We are talking about them because we need to talk about them. It is about time that we stand up, take our feet and walk out of the boat, onto the waves and trust that our faith is deep enough and strong enough to hold us above the water. We know that, with our eyes on the living Christ, the one right next to us, we will not sink. And we know that, if and when we do start to worry, start to fear, and start to sink, all we need to do is yell out, “Jesus, Save Me!” and he will be right there, at our side, pulling us up from the deep, so once again we can stand eye to eye with Him and with each other. Because until we can do that, until we can have a faith that is strong enough to stop hating each other, we can’t answer that call.

Even more than that, until we have a faith strong enough that we can start really loving each other, we can’t answer the call.

"You give them something to eat!

This is the sermon that I delivered on July 31, 2011. The scripture is printed first for reference.

Matthew 14: 13-21 (NIV)

(13) When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns.

(14) When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

(15) As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it is already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

(16) Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

(17) “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

(18) “Bring them here to me,” he said.

(19) And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.

(20) They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

(21) The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

                Just out of seminary, a young man became the pastor of a small rural church. Nervous on his first Sunday, he began his sermon by saying, “I will teach from the passage where, Jesus, with five thousand loaves and two thousand fish, feeds five people.” In general, the congregation managed to keep from laughing out loud. But one man couldn’t contain himself and let out a huge guffaw, and then continued to snicker throughout the sermon. The next week the pastor hoped to make a better impression, so he decided to preach a similar message from the same passage. “This morning I have a similar message as last week,” he said. “I am using the story where Jesus, with five loaves and two fish feeds five thousand people.” The pastor looked confidently at the man who had laughed so much the week before. “Now, sir, could you have done that?” he asked. “Why sure,” the man answered, “if I had what was left over from last week.”

                This week’s Gospel lesson is one of the most widely known miracles that Christ performs. In fact, if you look at the bible, it might be the most important. Not that the other miracles aren’t important, but they are only mentioned once, or maybe twice. But this story is mentioned in each of the gospels. It is that important! Because it is so important there has been a lot of analysis done over the years on this passage. As I prepared for the service this week I did a lot of reading, more so than usual. There are lots of themes that present themselves in these few lines of scripture. We have miracles. We have faith. We have trust. We have love. We have compassion. We have charity. We have hope. We have need. We have sadness. We have a need for prayer. We have people interrupting us when we need to be alone. I could go on and on, for there are many more themes as well.

                This morning, though, I want to take a slightly different angle in approaching this story. Today, let’s start off with something different. Let’s start off with a myth. A myth that has ramifications in this story and in our lives. A myth that has ramifications in how we look at the world, how we live in a community, and how we practice our faith, or sometimes our lack of faith. Let’s start off with the myth of scarcity.

                I read about the experience of one pastor who lived and worked in Manhattan. His wife, however lived in Western North Carolina and they would visit each other frequently. On one trip, the pastor realized he needed a battery for his camera, so he borrowed his wife’s car and headed to Wal-Mart. Now, it needs to be said that by law, no Wal-Mart can be opened in New York City. So, this pastor didn’t have a lot of experience in one. He entered the store and started to head back to electronics when he noticed cases of Coca-Cola on sale for a price that was unbelievable for this New Yorker. So he got a cart and grabbed a whole bunch of cases. He continued back towards electronics, but again before he got there he discovered paper towels that were also at an unbelievable price, so he got some of those as well. By the time he left, he had almost filled his wife’s small station wagon. When he got home, his wife came out to greet him and saw the car. She walked around looking in all the windows and slowly turned to him and said, “And we don’t need any of it!”

                This isn’t that hard to believe for us, because not living in New York, we experience this all the time. I have to wonder what my grandfather or grandmother would think walking into a Wal-Mart today. They both died before Wal-Mart came anywhere near my hometown. They did their shopping at the local grocery store. The store was small compared to Wal-Mart but still big compared to what they must have seen growing up in the 1920’s and 30’s in the heat of the depression. Anyone who lived through that must be able to tell us first-hand how much abundance there is around us today. It is staggering.

                Think about it. We live in abundance, so much abundance we often don’t know where to put it all. We first fill the closets and the attic and the basement and the garage and then we go across town and rent some space to store our stuff. The reality is that in the midst of all of this abundance of stuff, we have a mentality of scarcity. We think we need a little more. We are yearning to buy, if the price is right. Imagine our present day culture in any historical perspective. We have more possessions that any culture in the history of the world. We think of ourselves and our own personal value in terms of how much stuff we have. Yet our basic way of seeing the world is by virtue of scarcity. And if we are honest, almost no one of us is free of that yearning to have a little bit more. We don’t want to be accused of being greedy. We simply don’t quite have enough yet. Maybe other people do, we say to ourselves, but I don’t. I need just a little bit more.

                A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller how much is enough? Rockefeller responded, “Just a little more than I have.” But if our primary motivating factor is a sense of scarcity, it is hard to be grateful. A genuine sense of prayerful gratitude for our abundance has lost its base in our ceaseless passion to perpetuate our myth of scarcity.

                We see this sense of scarcity in the lesson this morning. The disciples are anxious about the apparent scarcity of food. They nervously ask Jesus what to do. He says, “How much do we have?” You know the rest; a boy is found who has five loaves and two fish. Jesus gave thanks for the little but they had, and in that moment of gratitude, there was enough for everyone. The central theme here is gratitude. Gratitude is also central in the story of the woman who poured the expensive ointment on Jesus’ feet. The story of the ten lepers being cured and only one returning to give thanks.

                Many of us grew up in families where we were taught to always say thank you. We were taught to keep that expression central in our relationships with others. But now, hundreds of times a day on television, billboards, magazines, etc, we are beckoned to want more. We are reminded that the world is a place of scarcity, not abundance. This sabotages gratitude so we can rarely stop to rejoice in God’s abundance but rather we press on with the myth of scarcity.

So we have this myth of scarcity. I label this a myth, because what is really around us is abundance. Extravagant abundance. The lesson this morning speaks to this in lots of ways.

Anyone who has ever been to a wedding will know that in the service, the bride and the groom must vow to love one another in sickness and in health, in riches and in poverty, for better or for worse. In other words, they promise to love one another with everything they’ve got. To hold nothing back.

They promise to love with extravagance, without limits. The church says to love with unbridled enthusiasm. Love is a renewable resource. In giving you receive, when it comes to love.

Love is a spendthrift; it isn’t very good at math. It definitely couldn’t balance a budget, at least not when the love is true.

Jesus has been doing a lot of good. But he is tired now; he needs to be alone for a while. He has just learned of the horrible death of his cousin, John the Baptist. He needs some alone time. But, he is not about to get any. Many of us would be past our ability to be courteous in this situation. But Jesus is more than that, he somehow summons up compassion.

He begins healing and talking and then we hear of the miracle of the multiplication of the food. Scarcity in the face of great need is contrasted with the gracious, extravagant abundance that is offered at the hand of Jesus. Everyone doesn’t just eat, they are filled and there is more food left over than there was at the beginning. Extravagant abundance.

There is extravagant abundance all around us. Creation itself. Mankind, the rich diversity of races, the diversity of sizes and shapes, sounds and senses. Our God does everything in abundance, from creation, to loving, to accepting us even with our faults.

So we see now that even in our mentality of scarcity, the reality is one or abundance, even when we can’t see it.

The final point I want to make today is by far the most important.  Have you ever been hungry? I don’t mean it’s two in the afternoon and you haven’t had lunch yet hungry. I mean hungry hungry. Hungry like you haven’t eaten in three days or more. Your stomach aches in pain. You can barely stand up because of the pain and the lack of energy. I mean hungry, hungry. I have never been that hungry and I hope that none of you have been that hungry, but that kind of hunger is a reality for the vast majority of people on the planet.

Years ago there was a major famine in southern Sudan and Ethiopia. Interestingly, there is another major famine occurring there right now. Yet in the last famine many might remember a congressman from Ohio, Tony Hall warning that a million people were in the grip of a life threatening famine. In the same newscast, Dan Rather was reporting another record high on the Dow Jones as the American economy continued its record flight into increasing prosperity.

In the midst of this incongruous clash of famine and fortune in the space of a few minutes on the news, the words from today’s reading would penetrate the soul…”You give them something to eat!”

It sounds nice, but let’s be realistic, what can we do? What can I do? The problem is so big and I am so small. Even if I could help, it wouldn’t even make a dent in the problem. Well, let me tell you a story. Former president Jimmy Carter tells of a change in his church in 1976. Two families left. One family went to the white house. The other family was assigned to be missionaries in Africa.

Jerome Ethridge was an agronomist. He was not a preacher, knew no foreign language, and had no religious education except as a member and deacon at church. He and his wife were given rudimentary training as missionary recruits. There were sent to France to learn the language. Then they were assigned to Sokode, Togo. They ran a Christian library and taught languages to the young people who came by for books. Hundreds learned to read and write, but there was little chance for Jerome to use his agricultural skills or to be an effective witness for Christ.

When the opportunity arose, they were able to go to a much smaller and more isolated village named Moretan, in East Mono, a region of Togo. There, among people who mostly worshipped nature or crafted idols, the Ethridges assessed how they might meet urgent human needs. The greatest need was for drinking water, which was plentiful only during the rainy season. At other times, the women had to walk as far as sixteen miles each day to get water. With diesel well-drilling equipment furnished by some North Carolina Baptists and the help of local villagers, Jerome drilled 167 wells, 130 of them successful and capped with hand pumps. Over a period of eight years, every village within 80 miles of Moretan received a working well.

Next, with a leased bulldozer, Jerome constructed twenty-one deep ponds that hold the seasonal rainwater throughout the year. He stocked the ponds with tilapia, a fast-growing fish that provides a much-needed source of protein for the villagers. During these years, he also used his agronomy skills to help the people increase greatly their production of food, crops, forage for livestock, and trees that provided wood for cooking and home construction. Joann works with families on health and education projects, helped build a pharmacy, and provides transportation to a distant hospital for those too ill to be treated locally.

Finally, Jerome was ready to undertake a long-postponed task, to correct a problem that had always afflicted all of East Mono. For four months each year, rain changed the Mono River into an impassable barrier, isolating the area from the rest of Togo. Using cement furnished by his North Carolina friends, he and local volunteers built a bridge. When Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter visited the Ethridges, they were amazed to see the 230-foot concrete span across the stream.

Much like Moses, Jerome Ethridge has modest skills as an orator, and he doesn’t claim to be an expert on religious or theological subjects. He and his wife have just tried to serve the needy people around them, all without publicity or fanfare, and always in the name of Christ.

In addition to providing a better life for many people, what have the Ethridges accomplished in a religious sense? There are now 5,000 active members in 81 congregations in East Mono, each served by a local pastor. This is vivid proof of what just two people can do, inspired by faith in Christ and willing, like their Savior, to be humble servants.

They used what they had and God multiplied their offerings.  But there are three things we can learn from this story and the gospel reading.

1.       Compassion draws the hurting. One of Jesus hallmarks is compassion. This compassion draws the crowds to Jesus.  We are commanded to be compassionate too. In 3 Colossians we read, “As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Outreach and evangelism begin with compassion. Compassion opens doors that were closed by criticism and condemnation. Compassion is also the glue that holds churches together. As the old hymn, Blest Be the Tie that Binds says, “We share each other’s woes, Each other’s burdens bear, And often for each other flows, the sympathizing tear.” In a world rife with brokenness and sorrow, compassion is one of the most powerful healing forces the Christian community has. When we are compassionate we hear the words, “You give them something to eat.”

2.       We are agents of God’s compassion. The disciples often waited for Jesus to take the lead in compassion. Members of churches often wait for the pastor to take the lead in compassion. Churches often wait for the denomination to take the lead in compassion. Young folks often wait for the adults to take the lead in compassion. Men often wait for women… But Jesus says, “You, Grace or ST. Paul’s, you give them something to eat.” The followers of Christ’s compassion learned it by seeing it. Though he taught them that God is a compassionate God, seeing compassion in action made it come alive. We must teach our children about Christ, about the church, about the word of God. But it is crucial that they learn compassion by seeing it in action in the fellowship of faith. Maybe our experience isn’t that great and we feel we don’t know how to teach our children this. Maybe we feel we can’t give much in that way. And maybe we don’t have much to give in that way. But it is amazing what God can do with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. That brings us to the most important lesson of all.

3.       God will make us equal to the task. It doesn’t matter how much you have!!!!! What matters most of all is what God can do with what you have!!!

You have likely heard the term compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue happens when we see so much pain and anguish our hearts begin to grow accustomed to the daily sight of misery in the newspapers and on television. If we allow it to continue to penetrate our feelings, we would be overwhelmed. Compassion fatigue is a defense mechanism of our inner self to protect us from becoming paralyzed by the horror around us.

So we get used to it. It doesn’t strike home as much. And besides… “I’m just one person. What can I possibly do in the light of such overwhelming need?” Or in terms of our gospel lesson, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”

One of the central propositions in our reading is that God can take our “not enough” and turn it into “more than enough.” Amazing things can happen when we see with eyes of compassion and make ourselves available to God as agents of compassion. And remember – Jesus never asks us to do anything he is not able to give us strength to do.

Somewhere in your experience this week, you will see a person or a situation where compassion is needed. If you are open to it, you will know in your Spirit that God needs and agent of compassion. And when you begin to wonder what can be done for this person, or in this situation, and the words will then come to you: “You give them something to eat.”

This sermon was taken from a variety of sources mixed in with some of my own thoughts. I read a number of other’s thoughts on this topic and would like to thank Dan Matthews for his thoughts on scarcity in God’s abundance. I would also like to thank Bishop William Willimon for his thoughts on extravagance. In addition, the story from President Jimmy Carter came from one of his books, entitled, Sources of Strength.