Ninth Sunday After Pentecost – Pastor Ellen Mills
I am offering you two ways to receive this. In print, you will need to read the scriptures for yourself, and then the prayer and reflection that follow in this post. If you click on the audio link below (below), you can hear all of it, including the scripture
Ninth Sunday After Pentecost
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Let us pray,
Glorious God, your generosity waters the world with goodness and you cover creation with abundance. Awaken in us a hunger for the food that satisfies both body and spirit, and with this food fill all the starving world; through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
Isaiah 55:1-5
Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21
The scriptures this morning speak of the abundance and provision of God. In Isaiah, we are invited to come when we thirst. We will be provided with water, wine, milk, bread and rich food. The Israelites, deported to Babylon and held in captivity, are being given a word of hope for their future, and reassurance that God will continue to provide for them. The Psalm echoes this, but with different imagery. Rather than a banquet spread before us, we are given images of God providing for all living things. “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season….” And these readings are paired this morning with one of the gospel stories of Jesus feeding a multitude. Although the heading in your Bible may call this “Feeding the Five Thousand” it is actually far more since Matthew admitted that only the men were counted, and the women and children ate as well.
I do wonder if we hear these passages the same way people did when food was raised and meals were made by the people who ate them. Are we at risk of missing how thoroughly and intimately God is involved in our lives when food comes from grocery stores or restaurants? Do we see the connection of our daily lives with God, and do we live in gratitude? I think back to the outdoor education exercise I did with a school group from Fort Wayne when I was an intern at a nature center. The exercise was well intentioned, but poorly matched to reality. It was about the web of life, and how everything depends on the sunlight at some point. It started with chocolate chip cookies, and it expected to go from the cookies to the ingredients, to how they were grown, and that the sun was needed for the growth. But when I asked where chocolate chip cookies came from, I got the answers “from the box” and “from the store.” This group was not familiar with the whole process of going from the soil and water and sun to the food they ate. And when I told them the ingredients of sugar and flour, it still didn’t help.
But there is a lot more going on in this story. Jesus has just heard about the murder of John the Baptist, and he has tried to go away by himself to absorb this news. The crowd somehow is aware of this, and they follow him, and he responds by teaching them along the lakeshore. And it gets late. And Jesus is aware of the hunger of this crowd and has compassion on them. I enjoy what comes next. Now Jesus has already been healing them. And elsewhere we have been told of various ways that Jesus used his power for others. When the disciples come to Jesus to solve the problem of the crowds of hungry people far from a village, Jesus sees a teachable moment. The disciples have decided how to solve it – they just want Jesus to make their solution happen. The people can go away hungry and find food themselves, they just need Jesus to command them to do so. Jesus offers a different solution. They can be fed here! The disciples should feed them! After those readings earlier of God’s abundance, the disciples respond with scarcity thinking. But Jesus! “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” I will agree that doesn’t sound like much. But it is scarcity thinking, because they have already decided what they do not have and cannot do. Jesus asks them to begin with what they do have and can do. Jesus blesses and breaks the bread, and they distribute the food to the crowd.
I have no idea what the crowd thought was happening. What they would have experienced was some food being passed out to them. They ate and were filled, and there were leftovers, emphasizing the abundance. When churches look at their future and start with what they don’t have, or that they have “only” such and such, they have probably not included God in their thinking. They are limiting God to what they see at the moment, and their evaluation of their own possibilities. We don’t know how so many were fed. But we do know that some disciples were asked to take what they had, and share. And it was enough.
I am fascinated by the stories of food kitchens who provide meals to those who walk through the door, and the meals are made from what has been donated. And they often do not know ahead what will be donated. So, each time they make a meal, they take what they have, figure out how to make a meal with it, and offer it to others. I volunteered a couple of times for one near the Lutheran seminary in Chicago. It was called the Living Room Café, and it was in Woodlawn, a neighborhood south of the University of Chicago. I am not known for my creative cooking, and I was amazed at the cooks who looked at the food available, and whipped up a meal. God was present in the process, and in the hospitality, just as God was present in the bread and fish shared by the disciples. God has compassion, and God provides. And Jesus’ teaching to the disciples was that this work of God involves us. There is no waving of a magic wand. We become intimately involved in trusting God and doing hands-on hospitality. And we do it because God has compassion on the hungry, as Jesus showed over and over. “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.” Amen.
Confident of your care and helped by the Holy Spirit, we pray for the church, the world, and all who are in need.
You take resources that appear to be meager, bless them, and there is enough. May your church trust that what you bless and ask us to share with the world is abundantly sufficient. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
Your bountiful creation offers sustenance and life for all creatures. Protect this abundance for the well-being of all. Reverse the damage we have caused your creation. Replenish ground water supplies, provide needed rains in places of drought, and protect forests from wildfires. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
You offer yourself to all the nations and peoples of the earth, inviting everyone to abundant life. Bring the prophetic vision to fullness, that all nations will run to you and that nations who do not know you will find their joy in you. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Hear the anguish of tender hearts who cry to you in suffering and satisfy their deepest needs. Bring wholeness and healing to those who suffer in body, heart, soul and mind. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
You offer freely the fullness of salvation. Give our congregation such a welcoming heart, that our words and actions may extend your free and abundant hospitality to all whom we encounter. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
Loving God, you call leaders of the church. Guide this congregation as they consider a candidate. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
You gather your saints as one, united in the body of Jesus. Bring us with all your saints to the heavenly banquet. We remember with love and thanksgiving the saints we have known. Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
In the certain hope that nothing can separate us from your love, we offer these prayers to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord’s face shine upon you with grace and mercy.
The Lord look upon you with favor, and give you peace.
Amen.