Scripture: Psalm 23 & Mark 6:6-13, 30-44
7/22/2018
There is this time of morning that comes, without fail, every morning, when, in the quiet of my still slumbering household I try to silently slip out of the backdoor and out to my quiet of quiets and inner calm, my back porch. I had been searching for such a place when we were looking for houses. I had lacked anything like this in our previous abode and 10 months out of the year in New York our beautiful back deck was either covered in snow or just too dang cold to even think about sitting out there in peaceful silence. But, when I walked onto this porch for the first time while looking at the house, I knew that this would be the perfect location for what I was looking for. So each morning, I rouse by the sound of the grinder on my coffee maker, spend the next 15 minutes in that liminal space between awake and asleep, and then with the duel effort of the alarm on my phone and the ding of the coffee maker signaling it is done doing its thing, I grab a mug and head out to the back porch for sabbath time. And sabbath time is different from just watching TV or reading a book. Sabbath time is time spent in silence, in contemplation. Time spend watching the birds come to my newly installed bird feeders. First the finches, then the chickadees, then the titmice, then juncos, all of whom can peacefully coexist in the Realm of God. Then the family of cardinals living in the tree in my yard come sweeping through and clear everyone else away until they have been satiated. In the midst of this, it is time for prayer, for listening for the still small voice, for being both by myself and one with all of the beauty of God’s good creation. Normally, I can squeeze an hour out of this experience before Lesley gets up and joins me with her mug in hand. Before long the pitter-pat of Seamus scampering through the hallway and onto the porch, sometime later, it will fall to one of us to wake Jameson up and jump headlong into the day. But it is that time, that first thing in the morning time, that gives me the peace and calm to go through the rest of the day. And I think a lot about Jesus and the disciples in the midst of those moments of respite. In Mark’s gospel one of the first things we learn about Jesus is that he, too, craves periods of sabbath. That seemingly each day, when he has spent all of his considerable energy and compassion taking care of a people who are desperate for someone to care about them, someone to hear their stories of pain and suffering, someone to see those who are sick, those who are blind, those who are deaf and lame, and bring them healing. After long days in which he is that messiah, in which he is that healer, that listening, he almost always goes to be by himself. Normally somewhere high up where he can go and he, too, can watch the birds, can sit in silence, can listen for that still small voice, that constantly calls out to him reminding him that he is the beloved of God, that he can just be. In today’s reading, he has decided to usher the disciples into this little bit of peace that he has carved out for himself, just a little closer to the heaven that is erupting all around them, in what scripture calls a “deserted place.” Then, of course, the people find him. They always find him.
And, you kind of have to see this in your mind, this sight of 5,000 or so folks lining the shores, watching Jesus’s boat as it searches for somewhere to come ashore to give Jesus some much needed quiet time. And as it does touch the coast, word soon travels through all the 5,000 or so folks that this is the place where we can get close to Jesus again. The need of the people to gather in close, to touch the hem of his garment, to hear and in hearing be blessed, to see and in seeing know that God is in Jesus and Jesus is in God, to just find a moment of mystical union with the source of all that is. And we are told, the one who possessed infinite patience, infinite love, looked on all the thousands of folks who had traveled to hear him, to see him, and we are told that he had compassion on them. And that he healed their sick. And while we are given no indicator of how long has passed with Jesus healing and speaking to people in this deserted place, we are told that eventually, evening comes and to the disciples’ minds, that means its time for the people to go home, and maybe they were concerned with whether or not the people that had gathered could find something to eat, but there is every indication that more than that, they would like a chance to eat and rest and have some of their own alone time. So when they come to Jesus to tell him the time and that it’s maybe has reached the appointed hour when folks needed to be heading back into the area villages to find food for the evening before stores begin to close up, the assumption kind of has to be that Jesus will be on the same page as they are. He was, after all, the one who had wanted the disciples to this place of solitude in the first place. So when he responds that the people don’t need to go home, that the disciples can feed them all themselves, there must have been some degree of incredulity that swept through the disciples. Maybe they thought Jesus had just spent too much time in the hot Judean sun, or was still trapped a bit too much in his grief. Because the disciples were quick to retort that they really had nothing to speak of, just these 5 loaves of bread and two fish for their own dinner. Maybe a filling meal for them but certainly not enough for everyone else. Perhaps it was for the disciples the same way it was for my growing up when I would visit my grandparents McLeod’s house. By the time I was 6 my grandparents had moved back to Lumberton from their retirement fishing and golfing community to be closer to their grandkids. And from a pretty early time, my grandparents house became a place to welcome any number of my friends. And my grandmother was a wonderful host for whomever would walk in the door offering up ice cold coca-cola or a coke float, or her Scottish Shortbread made with the recipe from the old country. In time they would host birthday parties and Sunday dinners always making room for whomever wanted to sit at table and break bread with us and this worked out well. My grandmother, bound and determined to turn me and my brothers into what she called “proper southern gentlemen” had but a few rules in her house. One, the television was off-limits whenever the Carolina Tarheels, my grandfather’s alma mater, were playing basketball. You could, of course, watch, but there was no changing of the channel. Two, hats were allowed outside, but never, ever inside. That’s one that has stuck with me my entire life. And three any food or drink that was in the house could be eaten, drank, enjoyed provided that there was enough for everyone that wanted some. So for instance, if there was one piece of birthday cake left and say, three brothers who wanted it, that piece of cake was getting split three ways. If there were three thirsty boys but only one can of coke, we were having water. Moreover, my grandparents believed it to be was the height of rudeness to have a visitor in your house and for the host to enjoy something that they could not enjoy. So it might have been for the disciples, the certainly didn't want to seem rude and eating dinner in front of 5,000 or so folks who didn’t have anything to eat seems not only inhospitable but also, potentially, dangerous. I don’t know what its like to have 5,000 men plus women and children surrounding the only folks with food but, it at least seems like not the thing to do. But Jesus, perhaps sensing a chance to once again demonstrate the power of God to the disciples, immediately told them to bring him the little bit of food that they had for their meal and with a quick look at the skies he begins to break and distribute the bread and the fish. And the disciples kept coming back and the people kept eating and we are told that eventually all the people ate til they were full, after which Jesus sent the disciples back out to the crowds to collect whatever was left and when they were done they had filled up 12 baskets of leftover bread and fish.
We often think of this story as a miracle performed by Jesus and indeed it was. It’s hard to imagine anyone else taking a measly 5 loaves or bread and 2 fish and turning it into a meal fit for a king and a bounty that seemed to have no end in sight—a feast fit for kings, queens, and all the children of God. But what does it say to us today, sitting here in this place. What power does it hold in our own lives to declare that Jesus did this thing where he miraculously fed hungry people some 2,000 years ago. Does it move us to act or be different in our current environment? Does it call us to more faithfully seek to follow Jesus in our daily lives? Does it lead us to believe that the impossible is still possible in this place, in this time, in this country, in this world? Does it help us to see the world in a markedly different way, in which abundance and opportunity and love and joy and hope and peace form the foundation for all of creation? Can we have eyes to see and ears to hear the movement of the spirit all around us or are we stuck in the brokenness of the world, in the sin, in the pain? Can we have eyes to see?
The author of the 23rd psalm could not have any idea how far spread his words of his experience of God would be when he penned them some 3,000 years ago—that after all this time they still bring comfort and faith to billions of people around the world. They still provide families who are in the deepest stages of grief a brief glimpse of light of a time to come, a time their dearly departed loved one is enjoying now. They still provide a way for those of us who search for God, who seek to find God, can still see the realm of God all around us. The author’s experience of God as the one who guides him to green pastures, who leads him to calm waters, who restores his soul, speaks to our own need to know that it is God who is in control, it is God who is the one who takes account of and sees to all our needs, who restores our faith again and again and again. Who gives us the eyes to see abundance all around us when the broken world talks about scarcity. Even more, it is God who stands with us when our lives feel their most bleak, when darkness and death and fear cascade all around us, there remains the light of God to serve as a comfort, as a shield, as a protection against any who would do us harm. God is there. And it’s in those times of struggle and strain, in which we hunger and thirst for righteousness, that God sets before us and those who would turn us from the light, a table of goodness, a holy table, with Christ as the host and all of God’s children called to take their place. Blessing upon blessing upon blessing until all the author can see is goodness and mercy following him all the days of his life.
While we are not having communion today, in the stories for this morning, of Jesus feeding all those before him with broken bread, of the author of the 23rd psalm being brought to a table where all his needs are met, it is hard not to think of the little miracle that happens in front of us each time we gather around table and bread and broken and cup poured and we say that all who hunger and thirst are invited to the table. What a powerful and faith-filled call into the community. All who hunger and want to be fed, come and you will find your fill with plenty more to spare. In my life, I have been blessed with the opportunity to see the little miracle, to lead communion in some of the poorest countries in the world and every time without fail, God provides and all who desire to be are fed until they are full. I have offered communion in desperately poor communities where una tortilla y juego became el cuerpo y el sangre de Cristo. I’ve led communion in African countries where the bread represented the ability for a family to feed themselves or not and yet, at no time in my life have I ever seen the bread or the cup run out. And so it is that the miracle of Jesus and his feeding of the 5,000 or so folks happens again and again every time we gather around this table and throw open our doors and say to all who hunger, all who thirst, come and be fed. All who hunger, all who thirst, take and eat, don’t just pinch and nibble. All who hunger, all who thirst come taste and see that God is good. All who hunger, all who thirst, come to this table, because at this table, there is always room. Always a space for you. Always more to eat. Don’t worry if we run out, we’ll go find more. Each time the glory of God appears before our eyes and we get to leave this place to go and find some more people who need to be fed, too. And of course, we don’t need the communion meal to feed folks, we don’t need the last supper to call us to throw open our doors, we don’t need bread and cup to demonstrate the abundance of God. It’s written across the expanse of God’s good creation. It is in the movement of the spirit in this space and every space as she calls us to open our eyes and see the goodness of God all around us, in each face, in each moment, in each breath. We are, each of us, truly surrounded by goodness and mercy all the days of our lives. And so glory be to God in the highest and on earth, peace, amongst all God’s peoples. Alleluia, amen.
Image credit: The Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes (Jacopo Tintoretto, 1545-1550)