Pentecost 11                                      Matt. 14:13-21                                     7/31/05

                                                        “ It’s A Miracle!”

It never ceases to amaze me.  Before I went to seminary, when I was considering my sense of call and what being a pastor could mean, I often wondered what I would do once I’d preached on a given Bible story once:  “How in the world, can a pastor – could I as a pastor – come up with something new to say in a sermon week after week, year after year?”

Now, almost ten years into my vocation as an ordained minister of theWord and Sacrament of God, charged to preach the Gospel every week, and having gone through the three year lectionary cycle three times, I can only say, “It’s a miracle.”  Somehow, even in a week where the Gospel lesson is a story told and heard so often anyone here could probably recite it from memory, I found a new angle, a new inspiration, a new message to proclaim.

And somehow, this lesson picked by an ecumenical group of Bible scholars years ago, without any thought for a little country church at Drakes Mills is the perfect lesson for this week.  For tucked into this “oh so familiar” story is instruction on what it means to be God’s people, the church, in this time and place.  The feeding of the 5000 is at its heart about God’s grace and abundance delivered by disciples who were/are just as human as we.

The all too human disciples come to Jesus and say, “Lord, have you noticed?  It’s getting late and there are all these people who are going to discover that they’re hungry pretty soon.  Maybe you’d better send them away so they can find something for themselves.” 

Now, the disciples have a lot to learn – that’s a big part of being a disciple.  And lesson number one is, people are not a problem to be solved.  Jesus, as second Person of the Trinity, deals in compassion and grace.  He doesn’t solve problems in the limited human sense; He gives beyond human expectation or imagination.

As a lesson for the church, this first exchange between the disciples and Jesus teaches us that while we may think we have the answers to our problems (or other people’s problems) all worked out in our heads, we need to be open to miracles God has planned.  Since God doesn’t look at us or the church or those the church is to minister to as “problems”, we need to approach God in prayer with humility and openness to see how God would have us share His grace. 

It’s so easy to get stuck in a very narrow line of thinking, especially when we are anxious.  When we, in our humanness, get caught up in anxiety, or an obsession with having our way, or fear of what others will think of us or some other human limitation, we lose our ability to hear what God wants.  We may even put our limits on God.

But, when we can remember that it is the God of power and grace that we serve, we are more able to trustingly open ourselves to God’s will.  When we do this His grace can flow through us and the Spirit can inspire us to be creative in our ministry in His name.

This brings us to lesson two for the disciples and us.  While the disciples obviously didn’t think they could solve the problem they found, Jesus doesn’t want any question of whose ministry this is.  He doesn’t multiply the loaves while they are in the disciples’ hands.  This ministry, like all ministry including the ministry of this church, is Jesus’ ministry.  It is only when this is fully understood, when control is given to Him, when His power and glory are acknowledged that miracles can happen.

At the same time though, certainly being God, Jesus could have had manna float down from the heavens like God provided for Israel in the wilderness. Jesus doesn’t even mysterious just multiply the loaves wherever they were before the disciples found them and He doesn’t levitate the pieces out to the crowd.  Jesus puts the disciples to work.  As tired as they probably were and much as they probably would have preferred to sit with the crowd and enjoy the what Jesus provided, Jesus knows that being a part of the miracle and sharing in the work of His ministry is vital to the disciples’ development.

As a lesson for the church today, this tells us that doing the work of Jesus ministry is ours – and not just ours corporately as St. Paul ’s Lutheran Church or ours as represented by a pastor and select members.  The ministry of the Church belongs to Christ, but must be done by every member for miracles to take place.  Each person is gifted in special ways and God expects each person to use his or her gifts in Christ name for the good of others.

This is important, not just so God can have more hands.  Just as Jesus could have fed the people with manna, He could miraculously put knowledge of His grace in children’s heads, whisper the Good News of salvation in the ear of the unchurched, have angels lead us in worship, mystically uplift the spirits of the lonely or sick, and in a glorious flash of power see that the ministry we are to support of the larger church is accomplished.  He did not and does not choose to do this.

One of the reasons for this is that God, like any good teacher knows that disciples need to learn by doing.  Knowledge of God’s abundant love and gracious power is strengthened in us as we act in His name.  Thus we grow as disciples.  And let there be no doubt, the moment we were received into the kingdom of God in baptism we became disciples.  And as disciples we are to first and foremost in our lives put ourselves at Jesus disposal, to do the ministry He calls us individually and corporately to.

And this brings us to the final lesson given that day to the disciples and us.  I won’t do a character study of the individual disciples today.  Read the New Testament attentively and you will see that each disciple is an individual with his (her) own gifts.  Each is also thoroughly human with all of the limits, weaknesses and woundedness that that humanness implies.  One of the greatest miracles that Jesus performed and continues to perform today is that He calls and empowers for ministry people just as human as those who served bread to 5000 people that day.

Just as each of those disciples had limits, weaknesses and wounds, so do we.  Some may seem less capable of serving, but that person is no less called.  Some may need more support and help, but no person is too weak to serve.  Some may suffer from deep wounds caused by the difficulties of life, but no person is beyond healing and being made a beautiful tool for God’s service.

It is tremendously important that we understand and accept that each of us is wounded in some way, but God will lovingly heal our wounds, if we allow it.  Furthermore, we need not be ashamed of our wounds.  Every person, no matter how perfect they may seem to us, no matter what high position they may hold, no matter how saintly they may be or have been – every person going right back to the disciples has been and is wounded.  Jesus was the only person who ever lived who wasn’t wounded as part of being a human, and He became wounded for each of us, so that we need not be ashamed of our woundedness ever. 

Shame is one of the nastiest tools the devil uses on us to separate us from God and from each other, and to keep us from discipleship.  He will use it to keep us from facing our wounds and seeking the healing we need.  But the people who came to Jesus for healing that day didn’t let shame of their woundedness keep them in hiding.  Just as they had the courage to come to Jesus so must we – no matter how ugly, dirty, smelly or deeply painful those wounds may be.  Jesus touched the wounded then and gave them healing; He will do so today.

Then with scars made beautiful by Christ we are blessed for service in His name and sent to share of His abundance with others.  This is what it means to be a disciple.  This is what it means to be a member of the Church.  Truly it is a miracle!  Amen.