Episodes
Sunday Nov 17, 2013
A Pledge that Multiplies
Sunday Nov 17, 2013
Sunday Nov 17, 2013
Rev. Dean Snyder
John 6:5-13
The story of the feeding of the crowd appears six times in four gospels. Two gospels tell it twice. In one version 5,000 are fed. In another 4,000 but it is still basically the same story.
Jesus and his disciples go into the wilderness, a remote place, to have some down time during their ministry. A crowd of thousands follow them into the wilderness because they are so hungry to hear the teaching of Jesus.
It gets to be meal time and in several versions of the story Jesus’ disciples come to him and tell him to send the crowds away so that they can get themselves something to eat. Instead Jesus’ says to his disciples: “You feed them.”
The disciples say to Jesus: We don’t have the budget for it. It would take six month’s salary to buy enough food for everyone to have even just a little.
One of the disciples says All the food we have is these five barley loaves and two fish that this boy has offered us. But what good is this when we have 5,000 people to feed?
Understand that the barley loaves were not really loaves of bread the way we think of loaves. They were small dinner rolls. And the two fish were not tunas or salmon. They were more the size of sardines.
What good will five dinner rolls and two sardines do when we’ve got five thousand people to feed?
Jesus had the people sit down together on the grass. Jesus took the five dinner rolls and said grace over them and distributed them to the people. He took the sardines and distributed them. When everyone had eaten and was full, the disciples gathered up the left-overs and there were 12 baskets of left-overs.
The early church loved this story. They told it over and over. That is why it appears six times in four gospels. There is no other story about Jesus that was told over and over again like this one. Something about this story takes us to the very heart of what the early Christians loved most about Jesus.
Traditionally there are three interpretations of this story.
One interpretation says that Jesus miraculously multiplies the loaves and fishes. He took five dinner rolls and two sardines and turned them into enough food to fully feed 5,000 people. He took a very little and multiplied the molecules in it to make it a lot.
I am good with this interpretation because it is an affirmation of the New Testament belief that matter does not limit spirit. Spirit transforms the material. The creative power of the Creator God was present in Jesus the Christ.
The second traditional interpretation is called the sacramental interpretation. It says that this story is really about Holy Communion, the Eucharist. Just as we are fed by little pieces of bread and little sips of wine in holy Communion, and are fed until we can eat no more, the 5,000 were fed by little pieces of the loaves and fishes because they were in the presence of Jesus. The 12 baskets of left-overs are a symbolic expression of how Jesus sacramentally fills us to overflowing.
The third interpretation assumes that most everybody had actually brought a lunch with them. People are not so careless as to go into the wilderness, a remote place, without grabbing a lunch to take with them. But when the disciples started looking for food, no one wanted to admit they had a lunch hidden away because if they shared their lunch with such a large crowd they would end up going hungry themselves. Everyone just thought to themselves that they would find a few minutes to sneak away somewhere where no one could see them and scarf down their lunch.
But when Jesus had them sit down together in groups, and showed them the dinner rolls and little fish the boy had offered to share, and Jesus gave thanks for the rolls and fish and thanks for the boy who was willing to share them, people started pulling their lunches out of the places they had hidden them, and they started sharing them with the people sitting to their right and to their left and in g=front of them and in back of them.
When all of the food that people had brought with them had been shared and eaten, when the disciples collected the left-overs, there were 12 baskets left-over.
This is the interpretation of the story I like the best because it suggests that what the early Christians loved most about Jesus is that he helps us become who we really are – generous, sharing, open, loving.
I believe one of the fruits of the spirit is generosity. That when God breathed life into us, the breath God breathed into us was the breath of generosity. I believe it is part of our essential nature to share.
But we become anxious. We become fearful. If I share there may not be enough for me. But the truth is that if we share there will be enough for all of us with 12 baskets left-over!
In the story the one who models this is a child … a child who has not yet learned how to be distrustful and anxious. Jesus if you want my rolls and two little fish, I trust you. Here they are. I trust you that if I give you my lunch I will not go hungry.
Here’s the deal: If we don’t trust Jesus and the crowd around us, no amount of lunch we have hidden away will be enough. If we do not trust God, and the universe and the people who love us, no pension will ever be large enough. If we do not trust, no savings will ever be enough.
And if we hide away what we have when others around us are hungry, we will come to assume that that is what others will do if we are ever hungry and it will cause us to trust less.
It is our essential nature to share but we have become anxious and distrustful, so instead of everybody having enough and there being 12 baskets of food left-over, we are all hungry sitting on our hidden lunches.
This is what the early Christians loved about Jesus. He took a crowd of individuals who were hiding their lunches from each other and turned them into a party where people were sharing food and drink and talking and laughing and having a joyous time together.
Generosity creates community.
This is our stewardship Sunday here at Foundry. We are going to ask you to be the child in the story the early Christians loved the most. We are going to invite you to put your dinner roll and fish on the table.
If you would get out your bulletin and turn to the last page and find our steps of giving chart.
We are asking you to estimate the income you expect to make next year. Figure a proportion of your income to give, and then to fill out a pledge card. If you already pledge we invite you to consider moving up a step toward tithing or beyond.
But our emphasis this year is to invite everyone to the table. If you are not now pledging, we invite you to start somewhere, at whatever level you are willing to risk.
Because this is what I’ve learned. Distrust feed on distrust but generosity feeds on generosity. When one of us is anxious and distrustful it will make someone else more anxious and distrustful. When one of us chooses generosity, it makes someone else more generous.
Jane and my pledge for this year is $365 a week, a tenth of our current income. I forget what we started out at when we first began to pledge. It wasn’t much. But many people over many years of ministry taught me generosity. They helped me to be less anxious and to trust more. To have more faith.
Most of all we want to give everyone a chance to start on this journey this year.
Please pass the pledge cards down the aisle. If you are a visitor this morning we invite you to fill out a pledge card and put it in the offering plate of your home church next Sunday. If Foundry is your church, we invite you to bring it forward this morning.
Stanley will play for us for three minutes. We invite you to prayerfully fill our your pledge card. Then we are going to bring our regular offerings and our pledge cards forward this morning and put them in the baskets as we sing a hymn together.
Let us pray together.
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