August 3, 2014 - Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Los Angeles - "I Was Hungry"

Matthew 14.13-21

Bad news comes to Jesus … as bad news usually does … all of a sudden, out of the blue, just like that … 

Maybe Jesus was expecting it, but when it comes, it comes hard and fast … as bad news usually does … hard and fast … out of the blue, just like that.

“John is dead,” they say … “We buried him just awhile ago … a headless body it was … we hear it was a birthday party, and plenty of dancing, and the old fool made a promise to a dancing girl … ‘You can have anything you want.’

She wanted John’s head … that’s what her Mommy told her to say … what a fool Herod was … too much drink and a belly full of food.

He didn’t want to do kill John, or so he said … but John is dead anyway, all because of a birthday party … We buried him a little while ago … sorry to bring bad news … but we wanted you to know … so sorry … we wanted you to know.”

And with that bad news hard and fast on him, Jesus heads off into a wilderness area, by himself … to do what we all do, I suppose, when bad news hits us hard and fast … our mind is a mess, thoughts whirl here and there without rhyme or reason … tears come unbidden … we’re sad, angry, frightened, confused … best left alone for awhile … “Don’t talk to me right now … leave me alone … I have to be alone for awhile” …

So human is Jesus when bad news comes his way … no tower of strength, impervious to the slings and arrows of life … he’s just flesh and blood … like us, and he hurts and he cries … when bad news comes his way … I’ve got to get away for awhile … by myself … and he finds a boat to sail him away.

But the crowds … always the crowds, press in upon Jesus … the crowds find out … someone spills the beans, “We know where Jesus is.”

And off go the crowds … on foot, dust a-flying … determined to find Jesus … “What is he going to say next? … what kind of trouble is he going to find?” … the crowds want to know more about him … hear his take on life and faith … and for the sick, maybe a chance, a chance to get healthy again … the crowds press forward, kicking up the dust …

Then or now, folks have a way of finding out where we are …

The text brings a knowing smile …

Jesus takes a boat … onto the sea, canvass billowing, the lap of waves, the smell of fish, a fresh wind - he knows it all, he’s familiar with the sea and those who make their living on it .. and there finds peace … a slow boat it is; he’s in no hurry … when the boat pulls ashore, the crowds are already there … they beat him to the punch … they’re waiting for him … no rest for the weary … the work is never done.

Let’s pretend for a moment that we don’t know the rest of the story … let’s pretend that it’s you and me … our heart is heavy with bad news, we’re tired, bone tired, dead tired … we taken time to get away from everything … we want to be be alone … “Don’t call me, I call you!” 

And the smart phone - oh, we should’ve turned the darn thing off … but we didn’t … bells and whistles and show tunes and clicks and gongs … email, instant messages, voice mail, notices and tweets … 

“Oh, just leave me alone!”

But no alone for Jesus … no rest for him today!

And now the story takes a turn … the heart of Jesus shines like a bright light in a very dark night … it says of him, simply, plainly, When he saw the great crowds, he had compassion for them … and he goes to work.

The work is never done …

For Jesus … or for us …

The work of the Kingdom … bring good news … raise up hope … engage in the stuff of life … make things better … fill in the low places where life is hard and hope is thin … bring down those high and mighty places puffed up with pride and power … prepare the way of the LORD, make straight his paths.

Jesus has compassion for the crowd …

By this time, the disciples show up … they, too, see the crowds … they listen to Jesus … they watch him work … they know he’s tired, they know he’s sad … they watch him go to work.

When evening falls … the disciples make their move … had they been thinking about it for awhile?

They’ve been thinking about it for some time, stewing about it … whispering to one another … and before Jesus can say a word, they say a few words to Jesus - Look here, Jesus, this crowd is hungry, and there’s no food to be found here; things might get outta hand … we suggest, send them into the villages … not that far away … they can buy food for themselves.

But Jesus has none of it … There’s no need for them to go away, says Jesus … you give them something to eat.

But we don’t have enough, not near enough to feed this hungry crowd … we have only five loaves and two fish … 

Bring the food to me, says Jesus.

And to the crowd, Sit on down, and make yourselves comfortable! 

With food in hand, Jesus looks up to heaven … gives thanks to his father … that’s what “bless” means here … no need to bless the food - that’s a pagan ritual … food is already holy, already blessed … it comes from God’s good earth … when Jews said a blessing before the meal, it wasn’t to do anything to the food but to bless God, to praise God, to hallow God’s name … Hallowed by thy name … that’s the blessing … Jesus gives thanks for the food …

And then Jesus breaks the bread …  

Truth be told?

Jesus doesn’t trust the disciples right now … they’re not about to share their food … all the disciples can think about right now is their own hunger … they’re not about to share what they have …

Jesus doesn’t waste any time even asking them.

Give me the food; I’ll handle it.

When he breaks it, he proportions it, fairly … everyone gets a piece of bread … there’s more than enough to feed everyone, if everyone takes their share, and no more … when the loaves and fish are divided fairly, everyone can eat.

The disciples don’t know that yet … don’t know how much they really have … or the power of sharing … a whole lot they don’t know about God, and life, and what the work of the kingdom is all about.

Jesus sees to it that everyone is fed … no one sent back home … nobody turned away … 5000 hungry men … women and children, too.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Some have suggested that when the crowd saw Jesus take the bread and fish, turn toward heaven, give thanks, start to pass it out, the spirit of fear was driven away … 

One-by-one, they reached into robes and satchels and found what little they had … some flat bread, a dried fish or two, a piece of cheese, some dates and nuts … folks were no longer afraid … they began to share with their neighbors what they had.

I don’t know if that’s what happened.

But as far as I’m concerned, that’s the greater miracle.

It would have been an easy for Jesus to simply make bread and fish … what a fuss the crowd would have made, patting their full bellies … but there would have been no redemption in that miracle … nothing to change the disciples, nothing to change the crowd … everyone would have loved Jesus a little bit more, for what he gave to them … 

Jesus isn’t interested in having folks “love” him … he wants us to love one another … brave enough to stop sending the hungry away … see the world - with the eyes of God.

I wonder …

Did the disciples ever feel ashamed of their behavior?  … did they talk amongst themselves about it, later that night, or the next week?

Palestine, Ukraine, Sudan, Libya … Arizona and Texas and California … a refugee crisis … people are hungry … children are crying.

If ever the Christian Church in America has an opportunity to step up and bear witness, it’s right now, right here, on our border … 

Some call ‘em illegals, some build walls, some send in the soldiers …  some wanna send the children away … fend for themselves … but Christians are taking the high road of faith … Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, plenty of other groups, too … to help America be the America of our highest and best dreams … the promise engraved on our Statue of Liberty:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Yesterday, the birthday of American novelist, James Baldwin.

An important moment for Baldwin came when he and a friend were standing on a street corner in New York City, waiting for the light to change. 

Baldwin recounts that his friend, an artist, "pointed down and said, 'Look.' I looked and all I saw was water. And he said, 'Look again,' which I did, and I saw oil on the water and the city reflected in that puddle." 

In that moment, Baldwin learned how to see, see the world differently than he had before.

Carl Sandburg the poet said: “In these times you have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you awake in the morning.”

The poet, Dana Gioia … wrote:

“What more could I have wanted from that day?
Everything, of course. Perhaps that was the point—
To learn that what we will not grasp is lost. “

Yes, we can do it.

We can feed the hungry.

Jesus my LORD, take my fish, take my bread … my hands are not strong enough to break it fairly for all; in your hands, it will be rightly broken, and fairly given … teach us, dear LORD, there’s enough for everyone … 

And when the dinner was done, and folks had eaten their fill … something extraordinary … 12 baskets of leftovers … enough for latecomers and midnight snacks … and who doesn’t love leftovers?

We can do it!

Amen and Amen!

February 8, 2009 - "Purposeful"

1 Corinthians 9:16-23

The pastor announced: "There will be a brief meeting of the Board immediately after the service by the west door.
After the close of the service, the group gathered by the west door for the announced meeting. But there was a stranger standing with them.
A visitor who had never attended their church before.
"My friend," asked the pastor, did you understand that this is a meeting of the Board?" "Yes," said the visitor, "and after that sermon of yours, I'm about as bored as you can get!"

Well, with a little effort, dear friends, I hope we won’t be bored this morning.

What’s our task in life?

We’re apparently the only life-form on the face of the earth to ask that question.
Because we have choices … an endless array of options … variations on a theme.

Dogs and cats don’t have such options.
Neither do cows and Mallard Ducks … but for us, it’s more complicated.

In some ways, we never finish the process … life is always unfolding - a new challenge, a new chapter, a new twist in the road; a turn in the story.

This morning, here at Covenant on the Corner, gathered for worship, followers of Jesus, what’s our task in life?

The most basic level of our task is simply getting up in the morning up - to face the day that comes our way – to make the best of it, to love and be loved, to help someone along the way; to remember God and be faithful to one another.

Let’s see if we can put a little more meat on the bone … What is our task?”

The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question One, asks, “What is the chief end of humankind?” and offers an answer that still makes a sense to me: The chief end of humankind is to glorify God and to enjoy God forever!

I like the way it’s phrased: “chief end” – not the only end, but the chief end, the central purpose, the heart of the matter, the deciding factor that flavors everything else we might ever undertake – to glorify God!

But what does that mean?

For me, it means to pay attention to God, significant and sustained attention!
I pay attention to Donna, sometimes!
I pay attention to my children, and to my friends.
The payment of attention – we recognize and celebrate the value and the importance of people in our lives.
To pay attention to God:
To acknowledge the importance of God.
Our reliance upon God.
The goodness and mercy of God.
Moment-by-moment, guided and guarded by God.
We need God to finish the deal – God, and God alone, can compliment and complete the puzzle of our life.

The Psalmist writes:

 How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
      All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
      They feast on the abundance of your house,
      and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
      For with you is the fountain of life;
      in your light we see light [Psalm 36:7-9].

To live a God-attentive life … with God, for God, by God!
As we would live attentively with anyone we love … 

A God-attentive life …

And God sees to it that we have help along the way:
We have the Bible …
We have Moses and the Prophets …
We have the Apostolic witness of the early church …
We have the Holy Spirit …
We have great women and men to inspire us …
We have prayer and fellowship …
We have the gathered wisdom of the ages …
We have one another …
And we have Jesus!

We don’t have to do any of this alone!
We are not independent operators …
We are not a protoplasmic accident cast helplessly upon the lonely shore of some universe.
We are not alone …
We are children of God … children of our heavenly Father.
Brothers and sisters to one another through our elder brother, Jesus of Nazareth!

Dear friends in Christ, our first task in life is pretty basic:
To glorify God.
Pay significant and sustained attention to God, and in the light of God’s pure love, discover who we are, because in God’s light, we see the light.

We need God to hold it all together!
Now what do I mean by that?

There are two essentials forms of love:
Love of God and love of neighbor.
Twin vectors … vertical and horizontal.
Put them together; they form a cross … with Jesus at the center!

Jesus holds it all together.
Because it threatens to fly apart all the time for me …
And maybe for you, too.
How easily my love is scattered, my focus on God blurred by a thousand other interests and distractions.
My concern for the neighbor, so easily diluted, so easily diverted!

I’m not strong enough to hold it all together … I need Jesus at the center … at the intersection of love … to hold it all together for me.

And it’s not easy, even for Jesus.
He dies on that cross, ten thousand times a day to hold it all together … but his dying does something for us that we couldn’t do for ourselves … he gives to the world a purity and a passion, a purpose and a power, beyond our capacities – from beyond this world … we need Jesus at the center of the cross.

Our first task in life: to glorify God … to give sustained attention to God.
And therein we discover who we are in the light of God’s love … 

Our soul is shaped.
A way of life emerges …

The second piece of all of this: craft our life!
Consistent with the love of God!

To laugh easily and laugh deeply …
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children.
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty and always have time to say Thank you!
To watch the sun rise and take the time to listen to others.
To see the best in them, and help them discover their best.
To leave behind an improved social condition.
To spend a little less, save a little more, and give a lot more away!
To pay attention to God, and to love our neighbor.
[the above thoughts are inspired by Harry Emerson Fosdick and his definition of success].

Micah the Prophet [6:8] says it well:
  He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
      and what does the LORD require of you
      but to do justice, and to love kindness,
      and to walk humbly with your God?

The third piece of this is a little darker … 
To restrain the relentless impulse of self-interest.

This is the heart of Paul’s message to the Corinthian Church, a church filled with self-interest, all dressed up in religious garb … they talked the talk, but they didn’t walk the walk … they failed to do justice, they didn’t love kindness, and they couldn’t walk humbly with God!

Time and again, Paul reminds them: think often and think profoundly about your neighbor.
You have rights, says Paul, so do I.

But I’ve chosen to set aside my rights for something greater, something bigger – You!

We live in a time when everyone is scrambling for their rights … and for many, this is a matter of justice: the child in a crumbling school, the man who can’t find work, renters evicted because the landlord is in foreclosure, LAX hotel workers who are paid less than $10.00 an hour for back-breaking work – they are lots of folks who have few if any rights, and they have a right to speak up, and we’re under obligation to help!

And that’s the point of Paul’s message … for the sake of others, we restrain our own inner impulse for self-interest, for the sake of the something bigger and better.

Paul refrains from exercising his rights …
Paul refuses to throw his weight around …
Paul doesn’t try to get the upper hand …

He wants the same for the Corinthians who are very much into one-upsmanship … claiming rights over one another … trying to outdo one another in some sort of bizarre competition: I’m more spiritual than you are. I’m a graduate school Christian; you’re a kindergarten Christian.

The relentless impulse of self-centeredness, self-importance.
As some pundit put it years ago: there’s no smaller package in the all the world than a man all wrapped up in himself.
And wrapped up in ourselves is the relentless impulse of self-interest!

I know of nothing in this world that handles this impulse better then the love of God.
This relentless impulse in us – call it sin – requires grace  … divine intervention, if you will …
Jesus says well:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. [John 14:27].

Dear friends, the world can only give so much!
And what we need is more than the world can give.
The grace we need is the grace of God …
What God gives cannot be replicated in this world … there is no generic grace that we can manufacture to replace the purity and the originality of God’s grace.
Grace alone restrains the relentless impulse of self-interest.

We need divine intervention … 

We need God … we need Jesus … we need what he does on that cross every day of our life:
To restrain the relentless impulse of self-interest.
To craft a life that leaves this a better world.
To glorify God and to enjoy God forever.

Amen and Amen!