Learning how to be hungry...

This last Sunday, I spoke at church about the gospel reading from Matthew 14:13-21, where Jesus feeds 5000 men, not counting women and children.  Here is a good portion of my sermon and notes about it all.


When I read today's gospel, I notice a couple of important points that help us get started with this story.  First is that compassion draws hungry people...even as Jesus was in mourning over his cousin John's beheading and death, he has compassion on the crowd that follows.  He heals them...and they stay with him.  Second is that this was clearly a eucharist story for the early church...a story that would bring some meaning and memories to what they did very often; they shared communion...they made eucharist.


This story also raises a question.  Why did the disciples decide the crowd was hungry? Sure, there was scarcity everywhere but nothing in the text tells us why...I wonder if they were projecting? “I'm tired. I'm hungry. Can we please get rid of these people Jesus?”  After all, it seems like the crowd wasn't too concerned about dinner or sleep.  They would've stayed with Jesus all night.

 In John, Jesus bypasses them and feeds the crowd himself which resonates with the theology of the Johanine community from which the gospel comes...but in Matthew, Jesus says “no—you feed them.”


Our eucharistic theology is so screwed up that we have rules and regulations about who can bless the damn bread! We do the same thing the disciples did... “Lord, send these people to an ordained clergy person who can administer sacrament to them.” And I know we don't do that here at this church...but do we? Do we have our own rules about where and how and by whom God's bread is broken to share?


In the church world, we are so busy building up our baskets, the Lord has gone hoarse from telling us to give these people something to eat. I fear the church, like the disciples, doesn't really have any food to offer anymore. Certainly, with all churches in decline by traditional metrics, everyone else seems to have concluded the same thing.

But, then, maybe we as church aren't the disciples here...maybe we are the crowd...and Jesus is sending people to US to break bread among us. Unlike the crowd here, we are so worried about who made that food and whether or not it was kosher (“Who is the mother of that boy that gave his lunch?!” we would've asked in another gospel's telling of this story...), we would rather starve than be fed. And we encourage the rest of the hungry crowd to abstain. And the Lord who wants to feed us tries in vain as the church in God's name proclaims from pulpits “DON'T EAT THE BREAD!”


Instead of seeing yourself in the shoes of the disciples today, find yourself among the crowd and call that crowd “the church.” If the crowd is the church, then the question becomes who are the disciples who are breaking bread to us in this narrative?

I would like to think they are unchurched people who are learning what real compassion without strings attached looks like.  They are apostates who left the church long ago because of many reasons, but have found that they aren't different people except in ways that make them happier, and gentler, and yes, even godlier.

The disciples are messengers of peace from other world religions and even other Christian denominations we would so easily dismiss, because we think that truth is confined to one outlet...and if we would listen to Truth, in whatever costume it dresses itself up in, we would find that we are less hungry for it after we eat...even as most of us would continue to focus on Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith.


In my take, the disciples are atheists or agnostics who value faith only if it can be questioned and tried...and if we would accept the bread they are offering us, we would find our faith enlivened and relevant because of the questions we would ask of ourselves...or we might find ourselves abandoning our faith in pursuit of truth outside the religious answers we've always known.


Does that scare you? Am I too radical to preach this in a Christian church? I mean, if we all preach this, won't everyone leave the church because they don't need it? I'm suggesting exactly that to you—you don't NEED the church...but we do need each other. And church is as good a place as any to really find each other...but only so long as we tell the truth about ourselves and others. Church has no value simply because it's the church...the value church has is in what people bring to it.


And the story today teaches me that too. Yes, the bread will come from the hands of disciples we are so quick to dismiss and reject. But, more than that, it's important to remember that they aren't providing the food that will feed us all...we are. It's a little counterintuitive in this story isn't it? The disciples don't save the crowd...the crowd has the food it needs to survive. Jesus just gathers it and redistributes it. Now instead of one boy with a sack lunch, they all have plenty with leftovers.


Now, I tend to believe that this is a miracle story based on some historical event rather than a historical report about a miracle event...so the multiplication of the loaves and fishes isn't all that important to me except to teach us about how much we truly have when we only think it is a little. But many if not most of you will say “absolutely not...it's important that Jesus multiplied those loaves and fishes.” And maybe you're right...but even so, it's completely significant that Jesus doesn't turn stones into bread to feed the people. He uses what they have. The crowd has all it needs to be fed. But isn't that how the Divine that we see at work in the world goes about doing things? Doesn't the spirit take a little of what we have, sift it through the hands of some people who might have even tried to just be getting rid of us, pass it among our various crowds—churches, friends, families, dance clubs, supper clubs, schoolrooms, etc—until we are all amazed at how interconnected we are with one another?

I don't know what your idea of eucharist is, but if it is confined to this table at church, you'll always go hungry. God is feeding the world at many tables. Some of them in churches today, yes...but at many other times and in many other places.


What it comes down to for me is this—I do believe. Today, anyway. And I believe in the good news so much that I believe it can withstand any doubt or disbelief and that those who search for truth will find it...and I care very little if they find it in a church or in a bar or in a movie theatre or a synagogue or mosque or a temple or a country chapel or a orchestra concert, or a band rehearsal, or a music festival or any other place. Because I believe...in a God that is found in all of those places by many names and in many different forms.


Does this sound completely apostate and heretical?


That must have been how this story sounded to the first century listeners who heard it. God doesn't masquerade as a carpenter from Galilee. God doesn't call fishermen and publicans. God doesn't party with hookers and get drunk on the weekends like Jesus. That's not how God works, they say. But it is.


So, join the crowd. Seriously...the crowd in this story...and find eucharist outside these walls. You'll starve if you only look for it from the church. Because I fear the church has seen itself as the disciples in this story for so long instead of the crowd, that they've starved to death, rejecting the bread God is bringing through unlikely sources. But the bread is there. It is exactly where Jesus said the kingdom of God is. Among us.


I haven't lost hope. I believe food will come from somewhere...but not until we start asking the right questions of ourselves and others. Not until we start caring about people rather than personal utility or the groups we are trying to use people to build up. And I DO believe that the church of Jesus Christ can be disciples, distributing the bread of hope that the crowd had with them all along right back among them and feeding the hungry. But we'll never get there until we can begin to find our own hunger again and bring our own stories and struggles and questions to the table.

 Let us pray.



May the God who satisfies the hungry soul help us to see what we have need of in our own souls. May She bring out from among us the gifts that will feed not only our souls but the hearts of our neighbors and the stomachs of a physically hungry world. And may we never be satisfied with believing that God is confined by one sack lunch, or by our ideas of propriety, or by our concepts of what is “best” or “right.” In other words, Lord, thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And give us this day our daily bread...

A New Wind is Blowing in East Texas

 

May 20, 2012 was not Pentecost Sunday.  May 27, 2012 was.  May 27 was also Memorial Day weekend and Woodland Christian Church in Longview, Texas likes our high holy days to be well attended.  So we just moved Pentecost up a week.  Because that’s how we roll.  We (basically) follow the lectionary and we sing the doxology but we are far from dyed-in-the-wool liturgical.  So moving Pentecost up works for us.

May 20, 2012 was also the day of a very important vote in the life of our church.  Not realizing it while scheduling everything in the month of May (do you have any idea how much stuff goes on just in May alone?!), Pentecost Sunday and the Sunday that we voted on whether or not to amend our constitution to become officially Open and Affirming fell on the same day. 

Without being dramatic with the suspense, I’ll simply tell you: the vote passed with more than the 2/3rds congregational vote required to amend the constitution.  The vote is historic.  We are the first church in East Texas to officially declare themselves to be Open and Affirming (there may be a very select few other congregations who might fit the bill, but the denominational requirements differ or do not require a congregational vote of this nature, perhaps).  We are the 5^th Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) church in Texas to declare O&A and the 20^th in the South Central Conference (comprised of several states, including Texas) of the United Churches of Christ to do so (we are part of the 25% of that conference who now declare ONA). 

The same day of our vote, historic First Presbyterian Church in downtown Longview voted by almost the same percentage as our vote to leave the Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA) in protest over the denomination allowing the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy.  But that vote is just more of the same in East Texas.  Why it makes news is confusing since it’s just part of the stale, old wind that’s been blowing around for years (in East Texas and the church).  It’s part of the same tired arguments about taking a stand against the homosexual agenda or bowing to culture or holiness or purity or whatever other excuse we make to marginalize groups of people.  But there is a fresh Wind blowing.  The Holy Spirit is moving…even amid and among the tired, stale winds that threaten to calm the fierce movement of the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit, well, She’s never been known to back down or settle down.

Here’s what’s most surprising about that historic vote Sunday.  It didn’t feel historic.  Not for me (Maybe others will comment about how it felt for them).  It didn't feel life changing.  I heard no rushing mighty wind.  I saw no flames of fire flickering and dancing unexpectedly in the room.  I felt no breeze.  I heard no strange languages.  I honestly felt relief.  Relief that we can finally put this issue that is contentious in Christendom today exactly where it belongs—in the past.  Relief that we as a church can finally be honest and proud of who we are because individuals in our body had the courage to say “enough of this wrangling over words and statements…let’s be clear and let’s do this because these people we are talking about are our family!”  And we did.  

The Earth did not move.  There was no crowd outside stopping in their tracks asking “what meaneth this?”  Actually, some just clapped and then we went to lunch (or a board meeting)!  Just like every Sunday.  Because what we voted on wasn’t to fundamentally change anything about our church.  It was just to tell people who we are—who God has fit us together to be. 

But that lack of amazing fanfare doesn’t fool me at all…this was a work of God’s Spirit and it was mighty indeed.  The Wind blowing through our church on Sunday morning isn’t finished blowing.  People will take notice of this.  They may talk about it.  And even in churches and groups where people gather to criticize our church’s stance, there may be some gay or lesbian in the closet listening…some young questioning teen or some straight teen who just can’t get their head around why the church won’t fully include their gay friends.  And they’ll hear the message the Spirit of God was saying at Woodland Christian Church on Sunday: “Don’t remember the former things or think about the past.  I’m doing a new thing—it’s springing up now, can’t you see it?  I am making a road in the wilderness and streams in the desert to give drink to my people, the people I formed for myself so that they will declare my praise.   Hey! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters!  And you who are flat broke, come buy and eat the wine and the milk that are free…” (my paraphrase from Isa. 43 and Isa. 55)

Don’t be mistaken, justice isn’t always established by far reaching legislation and legal mandates. Sometimes it is established in meekness. Sometimes it doesn’t come at a great denominational meeting in a big city with lots of delegates speaking for lots of people…Sometimes it is established in a small corner of the world in a little church in East Texas.  Justice doesn’t always fix every problem, sometimes it raises our awareness of other problems and drives us to do something about them too!  Sometimes a few people in an upper room get a breath of Wind and are set on fire to leave those four walls and go change the world—one moment of justice, one act of mercy, one statement of grace at a time. 

Ms. Nancy, the "kitchen queen" at Woodland!  

I could not begin to say it any better than my dear friend, Ms.Nancy, the “kitchen queen” at our church, said it: 

 “We are starting a new chapter in the life of Woodland Church.  There should not be,nor should there ever have been any ‘us’ and ‘them.’  We are all children of God.  Let’s move forward as ‘we’ and ‘our church.’  After much prayer and personal soul searching,I am certain we took the right path.  Let us all work together to build ‘our’ church, and be open to being led by Him in whatever plan he has for our future. Welcome to all my precious friends…!!”

Amen!  And thanks be to God!