{"id":1478,"date":"2024-07-30T10:01:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T14:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/?p=1478"},"modified":"2024-07-30T10:01:19","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T14:01:19","slug":"leftovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/2024\/07\/30\/leftovers\/","title":{"rendered":"Leftovers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Sermon for the Salem United Church of Christ<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">by Rev. James Eaton \u00a92024<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tenth Sunday After Pentecost\/B \u2022 July 28, 2024<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bible.oremus.org\/?ql=589347471\">John 6:1-21<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>This text includes two stories: Jesus feeding more than 5,000 people and Jesus walking to his disciples across the water. Because of the constraints of time, I&#8217;ve chosen to deal only with the first story in this sermon.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Leftovers-July-28-2024-72924.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha&#8217;aretz. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has brought forth bread from the earth.<\/em><br \/>&#8211; The Jewish prayer over bread, also used by Muslims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Give us today our daily bread.<\/em><br \/>&#8211; The Lord\u2019s Prayer<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Good food, good meat, good God, let\u2019s eat<\/em><br \/>&#8211; Table grace at Michigan State Youth camp<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every culture has a way to say thank you at the beginning of a meal. In our home, May and I usually cook, but it\u2019s Jacquelyn who offers the prayer: \u201cHeavenly Father, thank you for this food and the person who prepared it.\u201d We say grace because we know, deep down, we are not of ourselves enough: we need to be sustained, every day, by our daily bread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bread is interesting stuff. Sometime about 14,000 years ago, someone somewhere figured out that if you ground up grains, mixed them with water, and put them near a fire, the grains turned into something good to eat. Later, they discovered if you added something bubbly like beer, which we know is over 5,000 years old, the result was even better. Ever since, bread has been the common food of common people, and it weaves in and out of the whole Bible story.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What<strong> to Do When 5,000 Show Up?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the beginning of the story we read in John, Jesus has gone off to a mountain to meet with his disciples in private. Remember that geography is theology in the Bible: \u201cThe mountain\u201d is frequently where God encounters prophets, from Moses at Mt. Sinai to Jesus later when he is transfigured. Mark says withdrew to let his disciples rest. John just says they went off by themselves and Jesus sat down. Sitting down is the position from which a rabbi teaches, so perhaps that\u2019s what Jesus had in mind. Clearly, it\u2019s a private party. But five thousand men show up &#8211; and their wives, significant others and children. What to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What amazes me about this story every time I go back to it is that it is so like us. I\u2019ve been sitting with church committees for almost 50 years and every time a crisis occurs, the first thing that happens is someone talks about the cost. Philip does it here: \u201cTwo hundred denarii wouldn\u2019t be enough.\u201d Two hundred denarii is about eight months wages for most people. It\u2019s an astounding sum. What\u2019s the next thing we do, once we figure out we don\u2019t have the money for the project? Don\u2019t we look around to see what we do have? Andrew: here is a boy with five loaves and two dried fish. I\u2019ve always wondered about this boy: it doesn\u2019t say he offered his lunch, it doesn\u2019t say he volunteered to share. These aren\u2019t big loaves; the average lunch for a peasant is three barley loaves. Barley loaves are coarse and not as tasty as wheat bread; it\u2019s what poor people eat.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s easy to rush over the details that come next, but we shouldn\u2019t. Jesus tells everyone to sit down; the Greek word here actually means \u201cto recline\u201d. That\u2019s significant because poor people in this time ate standing up but rich people at feasts recline at table. He\u2019s asking them to eat like they\u2019re at a rich, wonderful banquet. Then Jesus gives thanks. \u201cBlessed art thou O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who brings forth bread from the earth.\u201d He starts distributing the bread and the fish, and it turns out there is more than enough for everyone.&nbsp; If you grew up in a church where they\u2019re comfortable with the supernatural, this is miraculous. If you grew up where preachers like to make things more natural, maybe you\u2019ve heard that everyone just shared the lunches they\u2019d brought\u2014as if that wouldn\u2019t be a miracle as well. It doesn\u2019t matter which road you take, they both get to this place: there is this miraculous abundance in God\u2019s care.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What God Does<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is what God does. At creation, God makes a world with everything we need and then says to people, \u201cTake care of it.\u201d Eat whatever you want, God tells them, except from the tree of the experience of good and evil. In the wilderness, when God\u2019s people are hungry and whining, they discover manna, a bread like substance that occurs naturally. God feeds people twice at the request of Elisha, once with leftovers. No wonder every religion, every culture, has a way of saying thanks: at it\u2019s foundation, what we need to survive is all gift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We say grace, but what if we really gave thanks? What if we gave thanks for each part of the meal &#8211; main dish, potatoes, vegetables\u2014hopefully dessert! Someone raised that chicken, someone plucked it, packed it, put it out for us to buy. Someone grew the vegetables which needed rain and sun and earth. What if we gave thanks for those as well. It would take a long time to say that much thanks. Even just the bread would take a while if we thought of all the ingredients &#8211; water, yeast, oil, flour. The wheat alone contains miraculous abundance. Annie Dillard writes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So far as I know, only one real experiment as ever been performed, but when they get down to the root hairs, I boggle completely. In those same four months the rye plant created 14 billion root hairs, and those little strands placed end-to-end just about wouldn\u2019t quit. In a single cubic inch of soil, the length of the root hairs totaled 6,000 miles. (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, pp. 166-67)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jesus gives thanks\u2014and there is miraculous abundance. My favorite part of this story is that there are leftovers. Remember where we started? We can\u2019t afford it, there isn\u2019t enough, we just have a little bit\u2014now the disciples are scurrying about with baskets taking up the leftovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some people want to seize Jesus\u2014don\u2019t let him get away, they cry. They wanted to make him King by force. Isn\u2019t this like us too? We want to own Jesus, we want to make him our king, we want him to heal us, feed us, just us, not the others. But he slips away; he always does when we try to take charge of him. The only way to stay with Jesus is to stop making him ours and let ourselves belong to him. At the end of this story, he\u2019s back where he started, up on a mountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Leftovers<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The disciples have a new problem: taking up the leftovers. The text calls them \u201cfragments\u201d, the same word used by early Christians for the bread used in communion. What did they do with all those leftovers? Did they make bread pudding? Did they hand them out the next day? John doesn\u2019t tell us, he moves on to Jesus using the image of bread for himself: \u201cI am the bread of life\u201d, he later says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the boy, how did the boy react? Someone packed him a nice lunch: five loaves is a lot for a peasant boy and a couple of sardines to go along. I bet he looked forward to that lunch; boys get hungry and here he had everything he needed to be full, possibly something that didn\u2019t happen every day. Going hungry isn\u2019t something you forget. My dad grew up on a farm in Michigan and remembered going hungry. We always had enough to eat in the home where I grew up, but dad insisted that every dinner had to include a plate of bread, even though we seldom ate it. Did the boy give up his lunch voluntarily? Was he disappointed? John doesn\u2019t say. But John does say everyone had as much as they wanted. So we know that at the end, the boy was full: he had enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is what God wants: for us to feel the fullness and thanksgiving is both the method and the appropriate response. Fullness is not an amount but an attitude, a spiritual state Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist in Vienna in 1942 when he was sent with his family to Theresienstadt concentration camp. Two years later he was sent to Auschwitz, where his family was murdered. Even there, he said thanks. He says in one place,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most ghastly moment of the twenty-four hours of camp life was the awakening&#8230;We then began the tussle with our wet shoes, into Which we could scarcely force our feet, which were sore and swollen&#8230; One morning I heard someone, whom I knew to be brave and dignified, cry like a child because he finally had to go to the snowy marching grounds in his bare feet, as his shoes were too shrunken for him to wear. In those ghastly minutes, I found a little bit of comfort: a small piece of bread which I drew out of my pocket and munched with absorbed delight<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even in the heart of darkness, even in the midst of evil, God intends our fullness. The writer of Ephesians prays, \u201c&#8230;that you may be&nbsp; filled to the full measure of all the fullness of God<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How<strong> Wonderful to Be Full<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This story is one of the few told in all four gospels. I think it\u2019s told because it helps us understand who we are. We are the people who pick up the leftovers of God\u2019s grace and give them out so that need everyone will have what they need. We are the people who pick up the leftovers of God\u2019s grace and share them out as fragments that can fill someone with the full measure of God. It\u2019s what we do every time we open the clothing closet; it\u2019s what we do through Neighbors in Need and countless other missions. It\u2019s what we do every time we welcome someone; it\u2019s what we do every time we share communion. We take up the leftovers of the bread of life, share them out, so that all can indeed, like the boy, like the disciples, like the crowd, have what they need. We share them out as God\u2019s blessing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-olam, hamotzi lechem min ha&#8217;aretz. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has brought forth bread from the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How wonderful to be full. May you be full today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Rev. James Eaton&#8217;s sermon at Salem United Church, he focuses on the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 people. He reflects on the themes of abundance, gratitude, and sharing. Eaton emphasizes that God\u2019s grace provides for everyone\u2019s needs and that true fullness comes from being spiritually sustained and thankful for life&#8217;s everyday miracles.<\/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_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":[39,346,347,52,108,3,2,130],"tags":[349,23,350,348,237,67,5,255],"class_list":["post-1478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exegesis","category-john","category-john-scripture","category-pentecost","category-scripture","category-sermon","category-worship","category-year-b","tag-anniedillard","tag-feeding-of-5000","tag-frankl","tag-full","tag-grace","tag-jesus","tag-sermon","tag-thanks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","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=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1483,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions\/1483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firstreflection.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}