A sermon preached at Kowloon Union
Church on Sunday 29 July 2018, the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, by
Peter Youngblood. The scripture readings that day were Psalm 145:10-18; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1–21.
When I was young, my parents
told me a lot of things that turned out to not be true.
Wait, the kids have all left haven’t they? If they
haven’t, parents, you might want to cover their ears. Ok, if it’s safe, I’ll
continue…
For instance, I was told
that big birds called storks deliver babies. I was also told to leave my baby
teeth under a pillow and then the tooth fairy would bring me a quarter. Of
course, the big one was Santa Claus. Nothing was as exciting as waking up on
Christmas morning to see what Santa had brought me. It was also a little scary.
What if he hadn’t brought what I’d asked for? What if I hadn’t been a good-enough
kid that year? Well-behaved children received presents, but naughty kids got
coal. It was all very stressful.
But as kids grow up and go
to school, they start to learn things like science, math, and the physical laws
of the universe. So when I was around eight- or nine-years-old, I began to think:
This doesn’t make any sense. (Final warning! Are their ears covered?) How could
Santa possibly visit every child in just one night? Even if you exclude those
households that don’t celebrate Christmas, that’s still a lot of homes. Another
problem: Why did I never hear about anyone actually getting coal? I knew some pretty
bad kids growing up, but they always seemed to get the best presents. Ok, so maybe
that part about Santa was a myth. But then there was this
most unnerving detail: On the label that said “to Peter, from Santa”, why did
the handwriting always look exactly like my dad’s? You can see where I am going
with this. As you start to think logically—which you do more and more as you
grow—you find many problems and inconsistencies with these stories, and so they
simply don’t stand the test of time.
Now compared to Santa Claus,
today’s New Testament reading doesn’t seem so crazy. Sure, it is a little hard
to believe that just five loaves of bread and two fish fed so many people, but
maybe we should give the author of John the benefit of the doubt. After all, this
is the only miracle of Jesus that appears in all four Gospels, so it must
be accurate…right?
Well actually, when you’re a
nine-year-old kid who just found out the truth about your favorite Saint—that
is, St. Nick—you don’t want to be fooled again. So, when I heard about this
miracle in Sunday School, I was naturally a little skeptical. I got out my
calculator and did some math.
I’ll use just use my
cellphone for this. I don’t think anyone uses a calculator these days. Ok: Five
thousand people. Two fish. Five loaves of barley. For this to work, the fish
would have had to have been pretty big. Let’s say they were barbels. Those can
get big, and they lived in the Sea of Galilee. We’ll be generous and say
they were 12 pounds each, that’s a little over five kilograms. 2 fish make 24
pounds. Plus the 5 loaves of barley. That can’t have been more than 8 pounds,
right?
24 pounds of fish and 8
pounds of bread. We’ll divide each by five thousand. Ok, every person could
have gotten .0048 pounds of fish and .0016 pounds of bread. Well, on average
human beings were shorter two thousand years ago, so they probably didn’t need
to eat as much. Oh, wait…actually the five thousand only includes the men!
With women and children, there could have been more than twenty thousand people
there!
The math—or maths, to use proper British English—just
doesn’t work and math is probably the purest, most accurate science we have.
Therefore, as a kid, I’m thinking: it either must be some kind of supernatural
occurrence…or it’s just a myth. Maybe after Jesus blessed it, the bread and fish
started to magically duplicate: two becoming four, five becoming ten, and so
on. The only alternative is that it didn’t happen at all. And as I grew up, it
became easier to think that it was exactly that: just a myth, a story to make
us feel good. Anything that sounds too good to be true is usually too good to
be true.
But miracles don’t have to
be these supernatural events that defy math or science. Later on, I heard a
different interpretation of the loaves and fishes. According to this
interpretation, there was actually much more food than just the
two fish and five loaves that John mentions. In fact, among the crowd, there
were most likely people who had brought a picnic along for themselves to eat.
But remember, most of them were the poor and marginalized of Judean society.
They had heard of the great things this guy Jesus was doing and had thought: Well, maybe he can help us too. So when
the issue of food came up, those who had brought something instinctively
thought to keep it for themselves, thus ensuring their own survival.
Realizing the problem on
their hands, the disciples wanted to send everyone away to eat on their own, in
their minds fulfilling their responsibility as hosts but avoiding the material
cost. But doing so would have allowed many people to go hungry; the poorer
people in the crowd would not have brought food, nor would they have had the money
to buy it in town. Jesus knows this, but also knows that God will provide,
which is why he tells the disciples: “No, you feed them.” And when they go to
do it, God does provide. God provides in the form of a little boy
generously offering his supper. His bread and fish was given out to just a few
people—perhaps the neediest—but then the miracle happened: Others—having
listened to what Jesus preached and having witnessed this boy’s selfless act—were
moved by the Spirit to offer up their own meals. Those who received offered
what they had to others, and this reciprocity continued until all were fed. And
thus, the potluck was invented!
Now, I don’t mean to take all
the mystery out of this story, nor do you have to interpret it the way I do.
John does not explain, specifically, what happens in the handing out of the
bread and fish. And the other Gospels don’t even mention a boy. All we do know
is that a small amount of food was passed out and viola, somehow all were fed! Not everything needs a rational
explanation. But I do think this interpretation helps us to understand how God
and Jesus work through regular human beings. While ultimately, the source of
all love and abundance is God, God’s love emanates through us. Our power comes
from God, but it takes shape through our material efforts. Christ is the very
incarnation of Divine love and power manifested in human form.
Therefore, just because a miracle
has a rational explanation doesn’t make it any less a miracle. I see a similar
kind of miracle sitting right before me. Here at KUC there are human beings
from all across the world gathered together in a supportive community. I
imagine most of us don’t have a lot of money, maybe just enough to survive in a
very expensive city. Many in this community are transplants: immigrants,
refugees, and expatriates, some from marginalized and mistreated groups. Hong
Kong may be an international, multi-cultural city, but it is also very
segregated, full of racism, prejudice, and distrust. Probably a lot like
ancient Palestine!
Despite these obstacles and
odds, you come to KUC and support one another, sharing what little you have so
that the whole community may feel more comfortable, thus making an unwelcoming
city a little bit more welcoming. If you read it the way I do, then this church
is a lot like the crowd in John 6, who, with the help of Jesus Christ, found
abundance in just a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread. And just as there
was leftover bread and fish, the generosity of this congregation also
overflows. You don’t just take care of yourselves, but also the strangers in
your midst. If you were here last week you heard Timothy’s report on the peacemaking
program, which provides pastoral, financial, and social assistance to refugees
and asylum-seekers. To me a ministry like that one represents God’s call to be
unconditionally welcoming to those who need food and shelter, protection, and
emotional support.
KUC and its ministries are
modern miracles because they show how the humble gifts of individual human
beings are amplified in a community. When we offer what little we have toward
the common good, that modest wealth is multiplied. This is the miracle of God’s
abundance, which makes the impossible possible. This is how churches can
manifest God’s love and compassion by feeding each other, sheltering each
other, befriending each other, and doing the same for the wider community.
More importantly, this is
done without expectation of anything in return (I hope). In some other
churches, ministries like the peacemaking program are built as a way to
evangelize, their goal being to make new Christians and thus grow their
congregations. If that happens, great! But this is not what the miracles of
Jesus are all about. He did them selflessly, so that we may participate in them
selflessly. He emphasizes that point in John 6, retreating up a Galilean
mountainside when the well-fed crowd tried to make him their new king.
That does not mean we can’t
celebrate what happens a KUC. In fact, I think we ought to celebrate it,
because it is a sign of the continuing presence of Jesus Christ in our world.
In communities like this one, Divine love and power is made manifest through “mere”
human beings. This is a powerful weapon against cynicism; it’s proof that not
everyone acts purely out of self-interest and it shows that all communities—communities
as small as churches and as big as nations—can overcome selfishness and act for
the common good. More specifically, it shows that there is an alternative to
the economic systems that we take for granted. Unconditional hospitality and
charity is an antidote to unrepentant capitalism and consumerism. Sometimes it
only takes one small act, like offering to share one’s supper, to change our
way of thinking.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, July 29, 2018
