Sermon at St. Thomas, Dubois

By Lynn E. Cunningham

July 23, 2006. Pentecost 11

Isaiah 57:14b-21

Ephesians 2:11-22

Mark 6:30-44

1.         Today’s lessons bring together, the story of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians addressing the conflict in the early church between those who thought one had to be circumcised to be a member of the church, and those who did not, and a prophecy by Isaiah concerning how Yahweh will judge Israel for its misdeeds but then revive Israel. All three lessons deal with reconciliation. Let’s start with the feeding of the 5,000.

2.         Who were these 5,000 people that Jesus fed with the five barley loaves and two fishes? The group has always seemed a bit faceless and anonymous to me. They are not identified as being from a particular village, or tribe, such as the Samaritans, or the Galileans. They are not identified as being fisher folk, or farmers. Instead, they are identified as “a great crowd”, as being “like sheep without a shepherd”. They are identified as local people who saw Jesus and the disciples leaving to go off to a deserted place to rest, and to recover from their labors.

3.          The crowd chased after them and reached the deserted place ahead of Jesus and the disciples.

4.         So, who were those 5,000 people? What might the story teach us?

5.         How might you and I imagine this crowd? Imagine that all of the people from a group of small towns came together one afternoon to share a picnic. Someone famous is drawing all of them out to the picnic. A big meal like we see in Dubois, kind of like the Swedish Smorgasbord dinner in June or the Buffalo Barbecue in August. Imagine people wander into the picnic grounds and settle down on the ground in family groups or small groups of friends. Perhaps some richer families brought picnic baskets filled with food. Perhaps the wealthier ones started feeling uneasy about whether they might have to share some of their food with the people who brought none, or who had none to bring. And you know how it can be in a crowd. People looking around to see who they knew, so they could sit close, or people start introducing themselves to people they settled close to, but did not know.

6.         But of course, this being small towns, some people might not want to sit next to other people. Maybe there had been some disputes among different families, and they did not want to be sitting close to the people they did not like or did not approve of.

7.         Maybe the elders of the town nearest the picnic grounds were unhappy that such a large crowd was coming onto their land and perhaps trampling their fields, or scaring their flocks. Perhaps, the elders worried about crowd control.

8.         In small towns, where people have known each other for years and decades, quiet feuds get going and can fester on for years and years.

9.         As everyone came out for one giant picnic, there would be some people who would be avoiding each other. Some of the feuds may have grown out of property disputes, such as the location of fence lines. Some grew out of religious disagreements. Others are grounded in commercial disputes. And feelings can run pretty high.

10.       Since it was a like a picnic, probably everyone brought a little food, but you might not share your food with certain people that you were having an ongoing fight with. Or people might not want to share their food with the elders of the main town, since they seemed to be getting bossy about where people would sit. People might jostle each other to get closer to the main speaker, Jesus.

11.       We are not told much about who these 5,000 people were, as I said. But I feel quite certain that if 5,000 people turned out from a bunch of small villages back in the Bible days, they would have had many quiet disputes and feuds among themselves. After all, other parts of the gospels tell of plenty of ways in which folks were arguing and disagreeing with each other. Samaritans and Jews arguing. Pharisees arguing with the students of the Torah. And both arguing with the Sadduccees. And so on.

12.       So what did Jesus do with these 5,000 people to get them to settle down quietly and share with each other, so that every one was satisfied from just five loaves of bread and two fish?

13.       Fundamentally, I suggest He calmed their fears. He showed them the nearness of the love of God. Jesus does this sort of thing in many other stories in the Gospels.

14.       In other stories in the gospels, Jesus calms the storm when he and the disciples are out in the boat. He reassures the disciples when they are troubled. He heals the leper and the blind man, and raises the sick daughter of Jairus from her death bed.

15.       How does He calm the fears of this crowd? By showing people that there is always enough. He always shows a way out of the bind people are in. He always shows where true life is, even where death has occurred.

16.       I have no doubt that if Jesus were to come to Dubois and call everyone together, he would calm everyone’s fears by showing us the abundance of God’s grace in our lives. He would show that the disputes we have can be settled in light of that holy abundance in God.

17.       What do I mean by holy abundance, by Jesus showing the crowd that there is enough for everyone? One example. Take our recent dispute about putting a trailer house on the golf course subdivision. I own a house, with Dorothy, on the golf course. I can myself feel the rush of fear of suddenly having our house lose lots of its value by having less desirable houses built nearby. How would anyone feel if they were told that something they thought was worth thousands of dollars was going to be worth only half as much? Wouldn’t you feel fear and anger at whoever was doing that?

18.       On the other side, I can also can feel and understand the fear and anger that would come if I were a school teacher who wants to move here and teach, but can’t, because I could not find any place to live that is affordable.

19.       I read this story of the feeding of the 5,000 to say that Jesus wants both the worried homeowner on the golf course and the worried newcomer to town, to know that there is always enough to go around. Are we not all rooted in God and does not God always provide enough for everyone. Two fishes, five loaves, and yet there is enough for all 5,000 in the crowd. Is this not the central lesson of this story?

20.       I know that my own fear about something goes away, when I learn that whatever I lack is going to be provided. Have you ever felt that way?

21.       Supposing, just supposing, and this is of course just pure fantasy, that the Dubois elders got together and said that we need to provide enough affordable housing in this town so that teachers, and nurses, and other workers can move here. Supposing the elders knew that practically every store in town and every business is looking for workers, and yet people who want to move here cannot find a decent place to live. Supposing the elders took this story to heart and said together, let’s work as a town with our building contractors and make sure that there will be enough affordable housing for all the people we need to move here. And maybe every subdivision, including the golf course, will have to take its fair share of affordable housing units. But let these houses always be built to be attractive. Scatter them around so that all the neighborhoods continue to look and feel attractive. After all, this is America, where we certainly have abundance. Surely we have enough abundance to figure out a way to provide decent housing for people who want to work in our jobs that are begging for workers. And as our local economy prospers, the value of our homes might improve.

22.       Jesus through his action with the blessing and the breaking of the bread and the fishes transformed the perception of everyone in that crowd long ago from mutual suspicion and distrust, to the surprising knowledge that everyone was going to get enough, with some left over. Their fear melted away, and they shared throughout the community in spite of what we can assume were their divisions, and anger, and feuding.

23.       And so I read this gospel story to be asking each one of you to look again at those points in your life where you are in a dispute with someone. Ask yourself, what is my real fear about this dispute? What really is my worst nightmare about this? Everyone has these nightmares. I know I certainly do. Ask yourself, where might God be showing me a way out of my fear? How has God in fact provided enough for me in this situation so that I need not fear, but can approach my adversaries to work out a reasonable solution?

24.       As we worship this morning, in the Middle East, the Hezbollah is firing rockets across the Lebanese border into Israel, and the Israeli army is moving across that border to attack the Lebanese. Shiites and Sunnis are killing each other in Iraq. Tribal warfare in Darfur is spreading. Across the globe, we human beings are really, really good at letting our actions be guided by our fear, our anger, our distrust of each other. We are really, really good at learning how to kill each other. We tend not to be so good at finding ways to work out reasonable compromises with our opponents and enemies.

25.       Jesus, and Paul, and Isaiah, are confronting you and me this morning with the knowledge that God has another plan for how people can get along with one another, besides learning to distrust or kill each other.

26.       I have no problem with the fact that life involves disputes and disagreements among people. But I read Jesus and Paul and Isaiah to be teaching me, and I hope all of you, that there is a better way than feuding and letting anger fester over a dispute.

27.       We will now break bread together here this morning, in an action that continues what Jesus was doing with that crowd of 5,000 long ago. As we break bread together today, let something of that calming Holy Spirit come into your ownmind. Pray that we will each have our own fears calmed by the fullness, the richness, the abundance, of God’s grace in our lives together. As Paul writes, “you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God....In [Christ] the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.”

28.       In Jesus name. Amen