A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
July 12, 2020 \u2022 \u00a9 2020 All Rights Reserved<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Places! Action! If you\u2019ve ever been in a play or movie, you\u2019ll recognize those commands immediately. A stage is a strange and wonderful place from behind. As an actor, you stand to the side, often hidden just behind hanging curtains, familiar props and sets arranged just over there. Then the director speaks: \u201cPlaces\u201d\u2014and you hurry to find the exact spot from which you begin. A second command\u2014Action!\u2014and everything begins. Of course, the real beginning was long before. Perhaps months before you heard about the show, you noted the audition time, you showed up, read something, answered questions and then waited, the long wait until finally the list is posted and you discover you are playing\u2014whoever. \u201cIt\u2019s not a lead,\u201d you tell your friend, but all the while you\u2019re thinking how to make the part shine as if it were. You gather at the first rehearsal, read through the play, and then there comes the first day on stage, a bare stage, just a dirty, dusty stage, and it seems to take forever to get everyone sorted out. When it\u2019s done, you gather to get directions. Then the first real rehearsal, and it begins with the director saying, \u201cPlaces! Action!\u201d Long before those words on opening night, long before the first curtain, you have been practicing, practicing, practicing, finding the place\u2014\u201dPlaces!\u201d\u2014rehearsing the steps, the motions, the words Action!\u201d\u2014so that when it counts, when it really counts, all it takes is those two commands to set you in motion, to create the wonderful experience of drama. Now reading the story of the feeding of the five thousand this week, what occurred to me is that this is really Jesus doing the same thing. He\u2019s rehearsing his followers, he\u2019s showing them their place, he\u2019s calling them to action. Jesus is rehearsing us so we\u2019ll be ready for our parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story of feeding of the crowd is the only miracle story in all four gospels. Matthew sets it in loneliness. Jesus\u2019 friend and mentor John the Baptist has been killed, executed by the king after a lurid conspiracy. Imagine the fear and grief that death must have inspired. So Jesus does what we sometimes do, he withdraws. The text says that he went to a lonely place. He means to get away, to pray, certainly to grieve, clearly to think about his next steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the crowd won\u2019t let him get away. He takes a boat; they run along the shore. Finally, the text says, \u201cHe had compassion on them,\u201d and he begins to heal and the day becomes full of touching and celebrating and people pushing and pressing. We\u2019ve ll heard this story before and it\u2019s easy to rush past this introduction. But stay there a moment, feel that moment. You\u2019re tired, you\u2019re sad, you\u2019re overwhelmed and yet others demand your attention, your care. What do you do when you\u2019re empty? Isn\u2019t this the first miracle of this story, that at a low point in his life, Jesus sees the very people he meant to avoid and had compassion on them? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, late in the afternoon, his followers\u2014you and I!\u2014approach him. We\u2019re good staff; we know he\u2019s stayed too long. \u201cSend these people away,\u201d the disciples say. They\u2019re smart; a hungry crowd can turn dangerous. Maybe they\u2019re exercising some compassion too, doing it by way of planning. \u201cSend them away to buy food.\u201d In other words, tell them to go, and make their own way, feed themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now Jesus, turns to his disciples, looks over their heads at the crowd, the empty crowd, and simply says to his friends, \u201cYou give them something to eat.\u201d Think of it: imagine a crowd here, staying too long, imagine if we hadn\u2019t planned food, hadn\u2019t made phone calls, hadn\u2019t assigned who would bring what, when, just imagine if I stood here and gathered the council and said, \u201cYou give them something to eat.\u201d Wouldn\u2019t we be like the disciples? They immediately make excuses: \u201cwe don\u2019t have the money, we don\u2019t have the food, we don\u2019t have enough.\u201d If it was now, we\u2019d add, our insurance won\u2019t cover this. This is the excuse of the church in every generation, in every place, \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, you know what happens. Someone\u2014according to a different account of the same event, a small boy\u2014someone offers up some bread and some fish and it turns into the first fish fry; French fries hadn\u2019t been invented yet, so all they have is good rough peasant bread, the flat bread common in the area, and small fish, like chubs or sardines. I see this as the beginning of fish tacos. Somehow, everyone is fed. All week long, preachers on a mailing list to which I belong have been arguing: is it a miracle? Did they share? Was it something supernatural? If it isn\u2019t supernatural, can it still be a miracle\u2014is sharing itself a miracle? You\u2019ve heard both sides I\u2019m sure at various times. Here\u2019s my question: does it matter? Here\u2019s what happens: the crowd is hungry, they share what they have, Jesus blesses it, breaks it and it turns out to be not just enough but more than enough. Miracles happen when we do what Jesus commands even though we don\u2019t understand it. He blesses what we do and it is enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t take my word for it: look for yourself. Here\u2019s an example. Any out three months ago, this terrible pandemic meant we had to suspend having worship services here in our beautiful building. It\u2019s how we\u2019d always done things since 1919 except in August when we did nothing. But we thought, we experimented, Dave Petty contributed expertise and some equipment, Jim Dennehey found enough money in the accounts to buy a video camera and we set out to stream an online worship service. We\u2019re still figuring it out, to be honest. But one thing is clear. Every week, this service is watched about 100 people, about four times our previous average worship attendance. Is that a miracle? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We never think about what the disciples did after Jesus told them to feed the crowd. But what they did was simple. They went to work anyway. They hoped anyway. They had faith anyway. They found someone with five loaves and a couple fish. These knew as well as you or I that five loaves and a couple of fish aren\u2019t going to feed a crowd that size. But they took what they had and they began to distribute it. They hoped, they believed, they worked. That\u2019s what happened here. We hoped, we believed it was important, we worked. We made changes, some of them difficult, and we held our breath. Today, our church is growing in ways we never imagined. For the first time in memory, we\u2019re going to offer services in August. It\u2019s a miracle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What\u2019s the point of the story we read today? What does it have for us? This, I think: Jesus is rehearsing his followers and that includes you and I. He\u2019s saying to them, \u201cPlaces!\u201d\u2014 \u201cAction!\u201d. Jesus never intended to do all the work of ministry. God didn\u2019t set out to save the world in one strait jacket supernatural burst; instead, God starts with a family, Abraham and Sarah, as we heard last month, and history, growing them up, just the way we slowly help children to grown. Jesus doesn\u2019t do it all himself; what he does is to teach his followers the rhythm of sharing, the rhythm of ministry, the method of being the body of Christ. This is the principle he teaches: miracles happen when we say yes to Jesus’ command, offer all we have, receive his blessing and generously share.How does it start? It starts with Jesus\u2019 compassion. Where do you think that compassion is today? When have you felt that compassion? How does it continue? It continues when we hear him turn something over to us. What is he turning over today? What need is he telling us to meet: where is he saying, \u201cYou give them something to eat!\u201d today? It goes on when we share what we have in faith. Faith doesn\u2019t mean we think it\u2019s enough; faith means we offer it believing he can make it enough. It goes on when we act at his command to share what he has blessed. Where is Jesus in your life? How is that blessing shared?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The feeding of the crowd isn\u2019t a final event; it\u2019s a rehearsal. \u201cPlaces! Action!\u201d didn\u2019t stop there and it hasn\u2019t stopped yet. Today, as then, tomorrow as today: Jesus turns to us, in his compassion, to say, \u201cYou give them something\u201d. May we do it, Lord, may we do it in faith, in hope, in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Sermon for the First Congregational Church of Albany, NY by Rev. James Eaton, Pastor July 12, 2020 \u2022 \u00a9 2020 All Rights Reserved Matthew 14:13-21 Places! Action! If you\u2019ve ever been in a play or movie, you\u2019ll recognize those commands immediately. A stage is a strange and wonderful place from behind. As an actor, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[101,109,3,2],"tags":[245,237,246,247],"class_list":["post-1102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-after-pentecost","category-matthew","category-sermon","category-worship","tag-245","tag-grace","tag-inspiration","tag-ministry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1103,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1102\/revisions\/1103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}