The Rev. Dayle Casey Proper 13 -- A

The Chapel of Our Saviour Nehemiah 9:16-20

Colorado Springs, Colorado Romans 8:35-39

August 4, 2002 Matthew 14:13-21

It's Stewardship Sunday again, and I just wanted to let you know before you settle into your pew too comfortably.

When Jesus was in Bethany, on his way to Jerusalem to die, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus' head. "Some of those present were angry at the woman," says Mark. 'Why this waste of perfume?' they demanded. 'That perfume was worth more than a whole year's wages, and it could have been sold and the money given to the poor.' And they rebuked the woman harshly. But Jesus said, 'Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them anytime you want to.'"

What has always grabbed my attention in this story about Jesus is the "you." You see, the disciples were awfully quick to tell someone else how she should use what belonged to her, quick to tell her that she should have used her wealth to help the poor. And Jesus, in turn, was quick to tell the disciples that there are lots of poor to go around, and that this woman's gift to him did not prevent the disciples from helping the poor with what belonged to them anytime they wanted to. "You can help the poor at any time, Peter and James and John, with what is yours."

Jesus uses this same emphatic "you" in today's Gospel reading. "These hungry people need not go away," said Jesus. "Dote autois humeis phagein." You give them something to eat yourselves. That's the force of the imperative form of the Greek here. Jesus, by his choice of words, and maybe by his tone of voice as well, is pointing to the disciples: "You give them something to eat yourselves."

"But we don't have much," the disciples complained. "We have only five loaves and two fish, hardly enough to feed ourselves."

The multiplication of the loaves and fish is found in all four Gospels, and in Mark and Matthew it is found twice. No other event from Jesus' life is told by the evangelists so many times, so they clearly believed it was an important event. We often call it a miracle. But the evangelists do not call it a miracle. Matthew, Mark, and Luke don't call it anything; they just tell what happened. And John says it is a sign, not a miracle.

In any case, what does it mean? What is it a sign of?

Well, I see at least two significant things in the story as the evangelists tell it. One is that the disciples, like us in the Church, were stymied. Like us, the disciples were helpless when they considered only their own resources and when they thought first about their own need: "How can we possibly do all that needs to be done for all these hungry people with the little bit we have? Why, we have hardly enough to take care of our own hunger! How can we possibly feed all these people with only our five loaves of bread and two little fish?"

It is an instance of our original sin, an instance, as William Temple reminded us a few weeks ago, of the fact that our first thought, from the time we are infants, is to consider how the world, and what we have, will affect ourselves.

The second significant thing I see in the story is that when the disciples gave what they had to Jesus, and let him bless it and break it and give it back to them to distribute, then five thousand men, plus all the women and children and the disciples themselves, were fed. And all were satisfied.

If you want some rational explanation of how this event happened, you won't get it from me. I haven't a clue! It's just that this is the way all the evangelists report it -- not once, but six times -- that first the disciples thought about how little they had, and they gave what they had to Jesus, and then great things happened.

It was similar with Nehemiah. God sent Nehemiah back to Jerusalem from exile in Babylonia to do an overwhelming job, to rebuild the city wall. And Nehemiah gathered the builders together while others stood around and sneered and said, "What do you feeble Jews think you're up to? Why look at this wall! You don't even have the right materials. What you're trying to do is impossible." Then, later, Nehemiah's own workers began to lose heart. "We can't do it, Nehemiah! Our strength is limited, and our enemies are even threatening to kill us to put an end to this work." But Nehemiah said, "Well, then, half of us will stand guard, and the other half will work with one hand and carry their spears in the other." So they kept working.

But later, they began to complain again. "Nehemiah," they grumbled, "we're running out of money, and we need food to stay alive. We have mortgages to meet and bills to pay, and times are bad and God can't really expect us to do this work and pay for all this when we've got other commitments, too, and the economy's in a real slump, and some of our brothers are even charging us interest, and what with living conditions being what they are right now...and ... and...." And Nehemiah said, "Share!"

And they did. And the work continued, and the wall was completed. In 52 days it was completed, because Nehemiah refused to be intimidated into not doing what God had called them to do, and because he expected God to lead them to succeed in doing what he had sent them to do, and because, under Nehemiah's leadership, the people persisted.

The multiplication of the loaves and fish and Nehemiah's rebuilding of the Wall of Jerusalem are, as John says, signs. They are signs of the Church. Signs, acted parables, of what the Church is.

"Do we understand all these things?" Jesus asks. They are hard to explain, because, as we've seen during the past several weeks, a parable is like a joke. You either "get it" or you don't. Like the one where one guy says to the other, "I'm going to ask God why he doesn't do something about the mess the world is in." And the next day his friend asks him, "Did you ask God what you said you were going to ask him?" "No," the first man replies. "Why not?" "I was afraid he might ask me the same question."

Here's another parable, another sign of the Church, that may help us this morning. It's another story about Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity.

In the very early days of Habitat for Humanity, in Americus, Georgia, as they were trying to build Habitat's very first house, the first Habitat affiliate had a meeting one day. And as they were waiting for Fuller to arrive, they got to thinking about the rather ambitious project Fuller had gotten them into -- building houses with very little money, and then selling them with mortgages that didn't even carry an interest charge.

They got out a calculator, and they figured that just to get started they would need $6,000, because building requires a lot of capital, especially when you're planning to sell the houses with an interest-free loan. So they figured they needed at least $6,000 to get started, to get the ground prepared and the footings and foundation begun. But they had only $3,000.

When Fuller showed up, the group told him what they'd been thinking. "We need $6,000 to get started, Millard, but so far we've raised only $3,000."

Fuller was silent for a moment, and then he said, "Let me tell you something very important. Listen carefully. The whole future of what you are about to do rests on what I am about to say. It would be absolutely reckless and irresponsible for you to start your Habitat affiliate without having at least $1 in the bank. To start with anything less would be ludicrous."

The group laughed, nervously. Then Fuller grinned and said, "Habitat is based on the economics of Jesus, which is found in the feeding of the multitudes. Here it is. You take what you have -- one dollar -- and you give thanks for it. Then you give it to the Lord to be blessed. And then you step out in faith. Pagans need money in the bank before they start something," said Fuller, "not Christians. You take the first step, you find a situation where people know there is a poor family without shelter and [where] motivated people can help out, and then you watch God provide, sometimes in ways you will never imagine."

And to their amazement, in a matter of weeks, the group in Americus saw Fuller's words come true as their first house became a reality, with various people offering to help with materials and money and services. Even a Klu Klux Klan drop-out offered to do the plumbing for the house of a black family, for free!

That was twenty-five or thirty years ago, and you know the rest of the story -- how Habitat for Humanity has become one of the largest home builders in the country, with affiliates in many other countries as well, all building decent houses for people who otherwise could not afford them, and all of it being done with donated money and materials and labor and interest-free loans.

The economics of Jesus, you see, is based on the assumption of abundance rather than the assumption of scarcity. Jesus' feeding of the multitudes moves from scarcity -- "We have nothing here but fives loaves and two fish" -- to plenty -- "...and all ate and were filled, and they gathered up twelve basketfuls of food that was left over."

The commodities in shortest supply, the story implies, are imagination and commitment and faith, faith that God does not mean for any to be sent away empty, faith that God is able to supply, and faith that Jesus has given us what we need to give the world what it needs. It's like the school teacher who was asked how she avoided "burn out" in over thirty years of teaching. "Teaching is like rearing children," she explained. "It is an act of love, and I have found that love is a renewable resource. The more you give it away, the more you get."

Is it possible that God's creative power among us is limited, just as it was limited among the disciples that day in Galilee, only by the limits of our expectations and vision? Limited only by our limited capacity to trust in God's power? Limited only by our failure to commit our loaf, or our dollar, or our shoulder?

"They need not go away," Jesus said to the disciples, and says now to us on this Stewardship Sunday, 2002: "Dote autois humeis phagein. You give them something to eat yourselves."

Like Jesus' parables, this story is a sign, a sign of the kingdom of heaven. And the Church is the sacrament, the outward and visible and very physical sign of that kingdom, a physical sign of God's continuing to feed his people now.

But notice how Jesus did it. If the disciples and the others were waiting for a thunderstorm of loaves and fishes to fall from the skies, they were surely disappointed, because Jesus did not call down manna from heaven to feed the hungry multitude. That would have been some show! Bread and fish raining down from the skies! But Jesus did not do that. Instead, he said to his disciples, " You give them something to eat yourselves. You have five loaves of bread and two fish. You are not without resources. Give me what you have." And he took their offering, and he blessed it and broke it, and then he gave it back to the disciples who distributed it among the people, and all who were there ate and were satisfied, five thousand men, plus women and children.

Now that's power! Kingdom power. Get it? It's how God works in the world. Give what you have, and, when it is blessed and broken by Christ, see how it does its work and how the blessing comes back to you.

Jesus -- and Nehemiah before him and Millard Fuller after him -- did not dwell upon what the disciples did not have or upon what they could not give. He focused, instead, upon what they did have. And he asked them to give it. And then he took their offering, five loaves of bread and two fish, and he blessed it and broke it and gave it back to them to be distributed among those who were hungry. And all were fed and were satisfied, including the disciples themselves. And they even picked up baskets full of food left over!

There are some who are spiritually hungry who bounce from church to church always looking to "be fed," and often complaining about not being fed. "We just weren't fed at that church." Perhaps you've heard it. Perhaps you've said it.

Would you be fed? Then feed!

Would you learn more about the ways of God? Then teach! And expect, in doing so, to learn yourself. It's just a fact, is it not, that what makes for a good and effective Sunday School for children is the active participation of adults. If parents and other adults don't give of themselves to the Christian education of our children, then, dear friends in Christ, there just isn't any way to expect much? It is in the giving that one receives.

Would you be served by Christ's Church in a time of crisis, at a time you are in need of comfort and strength? Then offer such service to another in his time of need.

A lot of people in Colorado are being displaced by fire this summer. If you were the victim of some disaster such as fire, earthquake, or flood, would you expect or accept help from others? Then give what help you can to those who need such help now.

Would you be blessed by good music in worship and by the praises of God's people? Then, for heaven's sake, sing!

Would you be welcomed in a new and strange place, perhaps in a new city or neighborhood or church? Then welcome the stranger among you here, remembering that the stranger among you is anyone you do not know, even if he or she has been your fellow parishioner for twenty years!

Would you be remembered in prayer in your time of need? Then pray for others in theirs.

Would you be forgiven the sins you have committed? Then, for heaven's sake -- literally, for the sake of heaven -- forgive others the sins they have committed against you.

Would you be fed? Would you have bread for your own soul? Then feed those who are hungry. That's the way it works. Give what you have to those who are hungry in body and soul, and then, when Christ has received and blessed and broken what you offer, expect to be fed yourself.

Do we understand all these things?

Here's a final kingdom parable: "I had seen poverty before," the man said. "I had seen even poverty such as this. The man at my door was asking only for something to eat, so I gave him a morsel of bread from my full loaf. I gave as one who had much to one who had not. I gave hoping he would then go away and let me have my morning coffee in peace. He apparently knew this attitude. He responded accordingly, a little bow of the head, a muttered thank you, and then he moved away from my door and out of my sight.

"I didn't think about him again until I saw him again, at church the next Sunday. There he was standing in line waiting to proceed to the altar. The man who had begged for food at my door now stood just two persons ahead of me in line, waiting to beg for another kind of bread.

"All of a sudden I knew this man, for in him I saw myself, a beggar man before the Lord. The two of us in the same bread line, indistinguishable. For I, too, have to present myself at the Lord's table without one plea, without a claim in the world to make except my own need, and my trust that He will provide."

And the Lord says, "They need not go away. You give them something to eat!"

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.