Saturday, August 2, 2014

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18, Year A

I Believe in Miracles

Readings: Genesis 32: 22 – 31; Psalm 17: 1 - 7, 16 ; Romans 9: 1 – 5; Matthew 14: 13 – 21

There is a song from the 70’s by Pearl Jam that talks about miracles.

“I used to be on an endless run
Believed in miracles 'cause I'm one
I've been blessed with the power to survive
After all these years I'm still alive”

I am not certain as I listen to the lyrics that the singer is actually attributing the miracle of his survival to God. Rather he attributes the miracle to his own powers.

Do we believe in miracles? Do we believe that God intervenes in our world and, whether it is through remarkable people or simply through God's own actions, brings about some miraculous happening? We want to, but our twenty-first century minds won't wrap themselves around the possibilities. We have seen it all. We live in a technological age that has made things that past generations just dreamed about totally possible. We also know that events are not always what they appear to be. I must say, I follow on YouTube, an amazing techie who has his three-year-old son doing the most fantastic things. In one video he is in a MacDonald’s playground that suddenly takes off like a rocket ship. It makes it truly difficult to believe in miracles.

It is especially difficult when we see what is going on in our world. There is war. There is violence and suffering. There are poor and hungry people. There are disasters and tragic events. So when it comes to the miracles of Jesus we want to believe them. They are about God intervening in our world. They are about God changing the bad things that are beyond our control. God relieves human suffering. The eyes of the blind are opened. Lepers are cleansed. Hungry people are fed. Such events give us a glimmer of hope in a world where so many things seem beyond our control. They give us a glimpse of God's glory. Yes! We want to believe them.

We want to believe the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. It reveals so much to us about Jesus' compassion for the crowds who followed him. He is suffering himself. News has just come to him about the death of John the Baptist. He is in grief. He reacts as many of us do by withdrawing. He goes to a deserted place by himself. He wants time to consider the tragedy. He wants time to consider what it means in his own ministry.

But the crowds follow him out into the wilderness. They follow as they always do. They have such need. He has compassion on them and heals their sick. And when evening comes the disciples want to send them away to fend for themselves.

"You give them something to eat," Jesus tells the disciples.

"We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."
Out of his silence and grief, out of his compassion, Jesus performs a miracle. He takes the bread and fish and blesses them. He gives the crowd what they want, a miracle to thrill them and bread to fill them.

Stories about feeding hungry people are numerous in Scripture. There are six such stories in the four Gospels. These passages were very important to the early church community. That makes them important to us. What are you really thinking about this story? Let's face it; most of us cannot believe the story literally. We look for explanations. And it is not difficult to think of a few.

The most common, of course, is that it is a tale about people sharing their lunches. Jesus had the people sit down. He blessed what he had and started to share it. Others opened up their hearts and their picnic baskets and everyone had enough to eat. Now wouldn’t that constitute a miracle? Whenever people give themselves it is a miracle of God's grace. When we reach out to others and share what little we have we are bringing about God's kingdom of shalom.
It is a miracle that is enacted over and over again in our world. Back to YouTube, there is a video that has gone viral, which is just such a miracle. A homeless person is sitting on the sidewalk, his belongings within reach, and a Styrofoam cup in front of him to collect coins. No one is stopping. No one even notices him sitting there. Along comes a young man.

“May I borrow your bucket,” he asks.

Finally the homeless man nods. The young man sits down with the bucket and begins to drum on it. As the crowd gathers he puts his hat out. Two others join him, one with a guitar, another singing. Soon the crowd is enthusiastically dropping money into the hat. They complete their song. The crowd disperses. They pass the hat over to the astonished man and disappear into the crowd. A miracle! It certainly was for the homeless man.

I witnessed more than one miracle when I went to Africa to the World Council of Churches a number of years ago. There was one particular story that resonated in me. Two widows in a poor village in the North Transvaal needed work desperately. There was an abandoned factory outside the village. They got permission to use it. They began to make bead bracelets and necklaces that they sold. Their business grew. They began to export them. Others in the village needed work. The women bought the equipment to do batik and brought others into the co-op. They began to educate and train people for work. The next stage was to send in tenders on government jobs, roadwork. Now a whole village works. Hungry people are fed. They see it as a miracle of God's grace.

There is the thought that perhaps the main focus of the feeding of the five thousand is the ideal of Christ gathering together the people of God as the true shepherd of Israel. It reminds us that God provided manna for the people to eat as they journeyed through the wilderness. That too is a miracle that is enacted Sunday by Sunday. Our communities gather together in worship. We break bread and we become part of Christ and Christ becomes part of us. We are sent out to be bread for a hungry world.

The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand teaches us about our God, our God who provides for us. We have all been in situations that feel hopeless. We are constantly amazed by the ability of God to take what we offer and make it great. But it teaches us so much more. Jesus sustained physical life with bread. But his real purpose was giving people eternal life. And that is the real miracle in which we participate. He would have these people and us understand that the provision of God is more than enough to fulfill every need of every man, woman and child on earth.

All of this presents to us a tremendous commission. Needy people followed Jesus everywhere. We don't need to look far to know that the thing most common to people is need of one kind or another. There are millions in our world who have the most basic needs of existence – food, clean water, shelter, freedom, security. There is within each of us a need for spiritual fulfillment, for inner assurance and serenity, for meaning and purpose in life.
As the people of God, we are fed and nourished so that there is no holding back in our life journey. We come to the table of the Lord and bread is shared with one another. Our journeys become the journeys of all. The path becomes one path lived together. That is the miracle of God's love. Amen.

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