Sermon for July 25, 2021
2 Kings 4:42-44; John 6:1-21
OK, let’s start with a pop quiz. Who’s the most important character in today’s
Gospel reading? Right, it’s Jesus. It’s pretty much always Jesus; but
given the miracle of feeding thousands of people from a few barley loaves and
dried fish, you know he’s going to take the prize in this story. But coming in second is someone whose name we
don’t even know – he’s just “a boy” (John 6:9).
This boy is the second most important character in this reading because he’s
the one who catalyzes the miracle.
Don’t you wonder – what’s this boy’s story? Jesus asks the disciples how they’re going to
feed this huge crowd that’s been following them. The disciple Andrew reports he knows about a boy
who has five barley loaves and two fish.
But presumably Andrew wasn’t shaking down all the kids in the crowd to
take their sandwiches from their lunch bags.
Maybe instead, this boy had come to Andrew.
Maybe it was late in the day, and people
were getting grumbly about how long they’d been out there, looking for Jesus
and his miraculous healing power. Maybe
some people had pulled out whatever food they’d brought with them, while others
had realized that they’d walked a long way from home without packing dinner. Some of the folks with food probably shared a
bit with the people next to them; and some of the folks with food probably figured
they deserved to keep what they’d brought for themselves.
But then came along this boy. Maybe he’d seen what Jesus had been doing before
today’s story – healing a man who’d been sick for 38 years, healing a little
boy with a fever. After all, the reading
says, the crowd was following Jesus “because they saw the signs he was doing
for the sick” (John 6:2). Maybe the boy
was so grateful for the healing he’d seen, and for the healing he trusted was still
to come, that he came up to Andrew and said, “I know everybody’s hungry. Here.
Take what I’ve got; it’ll help feed some people.” Gratitude and trust can do that to you.
Apparently, this was what Jesus had been
waiting for. With the boy’s gift, Jesus goes
to work, using the pattern he’d also use later, at the Last Supper, and the pattern
we use in every celebration of the Eucharist.
He takes the food that’s been offered, and blesses it, and breaks it,
and gives it to all who’ve come. From
that, not only is there plenty for all; there’s also abundantly more than plenty,
12 basketfuls of leftovers – all from five loaves and two fish. Or, more precisely, all from one boy’s
gift of five loaves and two fish.
If we step back from it, we might find
this story doesn’t make much sense. This
miracle was not an efficient way to get a crowd fed. I mean, he’s Jesus, after all. Later in today’s reading, he walks on water
and time-travels with the disciples across a stormy lake to reach the shore in
an instant. Faced with a hungry crowd, Jesus
could have simply opened up the heavens and rained down 5,000 barley loaves
and 5,000 dried fish – end of story.
But the miracle wasn’t about fixing a supply
issue. The miracle was about something
deeper.
It seems that, most often, God prefers to work
miracles the complicated way – collaboratively.
Jesus didn’t want to open up the heavenly pantry and pass out free
food. Jesus wanted someone to step up and
start a miraculous reaction, an inbreaking of the kingdom of heaven on
earth. Jesus was waiting for a gift to
catalyze the miracle.
That’s what had happened in our first
reading, too. The setting is back in the
days of the kings of Israel, and the prophet Elisha is also using miracles to reveal
God’s power. In addition to speaking and
acting on God’s behalf, Elisha apparently had priestly authority to receive
people’s offerings, because a man brings him his appointed offering of “food
from the first fruits” – 20 barley loaves and fresh grain (2 Kings 4:42). The prophet directs his servant to give this
gift to the hundred people who were there, suffering from famine. His servant asks Elisha what anyone would have
asked: How is this one offering going to feed 100 people? But, the prophet says, “Thus says the Lord, ‘They
shall eat and have some left’” (4:43) – and all from one stranger’s offering of
his first fruits.
First fruits … what does that mean, anyway? Well, it means giving back to God first
from the bounty God has given us, recognizing that the founder of the feast
should get a tangible thank-you before we start chowing down. Back in the day, that term “first fruits” meant
literally what it says: A farmer would give to God the first part of the
harvest. Now, that’s truly an act not
just of gratitude but of trust. If you
give away the first part of your crop, you’ve got no guarantee that hail or locusts
aren’t coming to wipe out the rest before it ripens. That’s why offerings of the first fruits are
holy: because they’re not given from what remains once we know we have enough. They’re given from what God provides before we’re
sure how much we’ll get.
So, if you’re going to give God an
offering of first fruits to show your gratitude and your trust, how much do you
give? For the boy in the Gospel story,
the answer was, “All of it.” That joyful
trust he felt in Jesus’ healing presence was enough to turn his heart and his
pockets inside out. Blessedly for us,
that’s more than God asks. This is where
the idea of the tithe comes from, with Scripture and tradition saying that a
tenth of what God gives us is enough to show our gratitude and our trust. “You can keep the other 90 percent,” God
says. “Just the first 10 is plenty.”
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t
always been very good about that. I can
remember sitting in my car in a church parking lot 25 years ago steaming because
someone had preached a message like this.
Ann and I gave to the church regularly, but I was hung up on the number. A God who cares about the poor shouldn’t demand
a regressive income tax, I thought. Ten
percent of what Ann and I had seemed like much more of a burden than 10 percent
of what some wealthier person had.
OK – we can debate the relative fairness
of tax policies. But this isn’t about a
tax. It’s about a gift. God certainly could tax us, I suppose,
demanding payment for the privilege of continuing to live. But it’s love, not obligation, that’s on God’s
heart. Rather than being a tax, I think
the tithe is there as a sacrament, a lower-case-“s” kind of sacrament. Giving 10 percent is outward and visible enough
to put concrete reality on the inward and spiritual grace that is the love we
share with God. Maybe 10 percent is the
price of sacred memory, the amount it takes to bring to mind the truth that’s
so easy to forget: that everything we have is a tangible manifestation of God’s
love, love beyond all measure.
Well, this much I do know: After increasing the gifts from my first
fruits year after year, I began tithing in 2015. And I haven’t looked back since because I get
to see miracles every day. Just this
past week, we had a cavalcade of miracles right here, with kids, youth, and
adults coming together for Vacation Bible School. One of those miracles is hanging here on the
pulpit. The VBS kids made four quilts related to the week’s theme, that each
one of us is treasured by God. Each kid illustrated
a square, and then Joy Bower put the squares together so the kids could see the
quilts in process. The squares offer all
kinds of images – homes, families, flowers, pets, rainbows … and crosses. But what they share is the message that the
person who’s wrapped up in that quilt is precious in God’s eyes. Now, once our quilting group, the Fabric of
Life, finishes them up, the quilts will go to Court Appointed Special Advocates,
to bring love to foster kids who definitely need to know how deeply God
treasures them.
The gifts you offer to God here at St.
Andrew’s – gifts of time and talent and treasure – they spark miracles like
this every day. That’s because gifts
from our first fruits carry holy power.
They do more than meet a personal obligation. They catalyze miracles. Those gifts begin as a few loaves and fish, but
they take on flesh and blood, empowering the Body of Christ living and active
in the world. God takes your gifts and
uses them to work miracles of community, bringing people together in Jesus’
love. God takes your gifts and uses them
to work miracles of healing, bringing people’s bodies, minds, and spirits to
the wholeness God intends. God takes
your gifts and uses them to work miracles of formation, guiding people of all
ages along their walk with Jesus. And God
takes your gifts and uses them to work miracles of sustenance and opportunity –
feeding, clothing, and educating the people heaviest on God’s heart.
Sure, Jesus could snap his fingers and make
all those things happen in a flash. But he
prefers to take you along for the ride. God
values your heart and your mind so deeply that God wants you to catalyze miracles. We don’t have to work those miracles
ourselves. We just need to provide the
spark, and God will do the rest.
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