Sermons

Mar 26 - Patricia Riggins - The Fourth Sunday of Lent

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One of the chores I had as a child was drying the dinner dishes. This task was made easier because my grandmother, who was the washer, told me two kinds of stories: biblical ones and ones of her German family as they settled into Missouri in the 1840’s. The miracle of the feeding of the multitudes was one of the stories that I heard fairly regularly. It is also one of the stories that seems to be prominent in most of the commercial films about Christ’s life. All four Gospels contain this story yet the version in John has some differences that are not found in the other Gospels and were not recited by Grandma Smith.

John places this story near the time of the Passover and tells us that Jesus had been teaching and healing throughout Galilee. In previous verses we are told that Jesus has spoken to the crowds about the Kingdom of God and that he cured many who were in need of healing. At the end of the day he and his disciples were tired. Jesus led his disciples up to the mountain, we can assume to get some rest and have some quiet time. We are then told that “a multitude followed him because of the signs he did on the diseased”. These folks had followed Jesus into the hills and John leaves the reader with the impression that the crowd followed Jesus more out of curiosity for the miracles he had done than the message he had imparted. This crowd most certainly looked tired and hungry and Christ’s first thoughts, as he saw them heading in his direction was for their physical needs: he asks Phillip-“How are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?” His compassion becomes real to us.

When it is determined that there is neither money nor means to buy food to feed the followers, the answer comes from a very undistinguished and simple source: a little boy. I imagine that he came along to see Jesus out of curiosity- after all, everyone seemed to talking about Jesus. Maybe he had to pester his folks to let him go and when they finally said yes, it was under the terms that he takes some food for the day. So they packed him some bread-barley loaves, the food of the poor, and fish. In my mind, I see this little boy standing close to the circle of Jesus and his disciples, in awe at being so near to the one everyone has been talking about and following. And when he overhears the exchange between Jesus and his disciples the little boy digs his hand into his satchel, quietly steps forward and offers his five loaves of bread and two fishes.

Jesus, again out of his compassion for the many who followed him, instructs his disciples to “Make them sit down.” With the small and wonderful gift from this little boy, Jesus took the loaves and when he had given thanks he distributed them to the hungry. The leftovers were gathered up and filled twelve baskets of fragments of barley loaves-perhaps one for each disciple for the next day’s journey. The crowd sees the miracle that has been done and claims Jesus as the prophet who has come into the world.

It is only in John’s Gospel that we hear about the little boy; in the synoptic readings, the bread and fish appear to come from the supplies of the disciples. What would make a small boy decide to give his food to Jesus? Was he just caught up in the moment and acted from impulsiveness? Was he listening to his mother’s voice as she said you should share? Or, did he just act from a heart of love and purity, one not hardened by values of materialism or indoctrinated into the culture of accumulating? Perhaps because of his childhood innocence he intuitively knew that when we give, and give from our scarcity, we receive, and receive in abundance.

John’s Gospel is also the only one in which Jesus distributes the bread to the crowd; in the other Gospels, Jesus gives the bread to the disciples who in turn distribute it to the people. A little later in this chapter Jesus says to his disciples: "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger and he who believes in me shall never thirst”. Something sacred happens when we sit down to a common meal: we share food, our time, our stories and ourselves. When we break bread together we enter into an expression of giving to one another.

There is also vulnerability in sharing a meal with others; we are being asked to share in a basic necessity of life, the nurturing of our bodies. Eating from the same plate and drinking from the same cup lead to unity and can bring peace. Perhaps this is most evident when it is absent: how many of us have had to suffer through “one of those meals” of dreadful silence and unspoken anger, where intimacy has been replaced with distance? Just as Jesus took the bread from the little boy and fed the hungry, we are also called to be bread for another.

Henri Nouwen, in his book, Life of the Beloved, describes the spiritual life in terms of being taken or chosen, being blessed, being broken and being given. I invite you to consider this framework as you come forward this Sunday and perhaps every Sunday to receive Holy Communion.

We have been chosen, in a very compassionate way and by a truly loving God, to embrace our uniqueness, our humanness and to accept those qualities in others. Like the little Boy in our Gospel reading, we are called every day of our lives to look into ourselves to see our own goodness. To remember that we are all made in God’s image and that God dwells in all of us. We are all chosen.

Blessings come in all kinds of shapes and flavors. Last year I completed a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education. This experience and training permitted me to serve as a hospital chaplain. I was privileged to share sacred time with patients and their families as they experienced life’s most real and traumatic events. I learned the value of every person’s story-how it connects them to their true spirit; to their sense of identity; how it sanctified their being. Each story expressed the ultimate blessing-how God’s loving presence is threaded throughout everyone’s life. We are all blessed.

Our brokenness exists at all levels-individually and corporately. We are reminded of our own wretchedness during the Great Litany on Ash Wednesday. Our corporate brokenness is evidenced in our social fabric: war, AIDS, domestic violence, the lack of affordable housing, children living in poverty, the lack of access to basic health care, the continual existence of famine and poverty in a world that celebrates billionaires. As a people chosen and blessed, we are called to offer our brokenness up to the Light, to turn and ask for repentance and to embrace our brokenness as a part of who we are.

We are called to follow Jesus’s example by giving of ourselves, by taking hold of the gifts God gave us and distributing them. We offer these gifts for God’s use, not our own; most likely our offerings won’t reach the headlines or be reported on the TV. They will be more like the offerings of the little boy, unnoticed and unreported. We are called to offer food to the hungry by making a casserole for St. Martins; to be compassionate to one another by reaching out to a friend who is having a rough time with life, to listen to those who are in distress, to extend a kind and gentle hand to a stranger, to care for this very tender earth by using her resources wisely, and to interact with everyone we meet in a way that honors the Christ within them.

In a few minutes we will participate together in the sacrament of Holy Eucharist. We will listen to words that are both familiar and strange; words that define who we are as a community of faith, words that have their roots in the Last Supper. We will watch as the celebrant takes the bread in his hands, blesses the bread, breaks the bread, and gives the bread. We will gather as the multitudes did, standing in our vulnerability to receive the bread of life.

Several times in the last few months, I have been brought tears when I have received communion. I know that I am beginning a new journey-a path that both excites and scares me. As I approach this altar I realize that it is God’s love and presence in each of you, in my husband and in my daughter that has brought me to this point. I offer my thanks to this community for loving and accepting all of us as who we are. Thank you.

Let us pray:
Most gracious creator we thank you
For choosing each of us to be yours
For blessing our lives with so many unique gifts
For being present in our brokenness
For giving us to one another
Amen