Monday, July 30, 2012

Sermon from 7/29/2012


Scripture John 6:1-20

Rev. Michael Fry preaching
at East Bethany PC
July 29, 2012

What if Jesus asked our congregation, Where are we going to buy enough food for all these people to eat?[1] 

We might answer like Philip, that we don’t take in enough money to support such a project, or like Andrew, that we have this amount in our budget and it would be but a drop in the bucket of this need.  These are rational and practical responses yet they do not answer Jesus’ question. 

We might think, In the face of so much need, what can we do?[2]

The world is unfair, there is so much poverty, I certainly don’t like it but I am only one person what can I do?  A drop in the bucket.

We are a small church, with a small budget, we only 24 people in worship.  There’s just not enough people here to meet that kind of need.  We are just a drop in the bucket. 

This kind of thinking is precisely what gets in the disciples way in this story.  They think they know what can happen.  They too live in an economically depressed area and know how hard resources are to come by.  What are five loaves and two fish among so many people?  A drop in the bucket.

Theologian Cheryl Johns proposes that part of our problem is that the old saying, ‘knowledge is power,’ limits us rather than moves us toward action – because sometimes too much knowledge can keep us from trusting in a power greater than ourselves. 

She notes that, the pursuit of trivia is so much more appealing than the pursuit of answers to problems and solutions to crises.  This causes knowledge to become an escape from reality that does not empower but entertains.[3] 

This happens to me when I’m going to buy something like a pocketknife.  I spend three hours or more trying to figure which knife to get.  It really frustrates my wife because this is three hours spent researching something rather insignificant that is going to get lost in a month or two. 

There is another old saying, It’s not what you know but who you know.  The disciples don’t really know Jesus yet.  They’ve been traveling with him for two years now and they’ve seen what he has done turning water into wine at a wedding and healing people where ever he went, but they don’t really understand that they are walking with God and have not come to fully trust him yet.   

But when we face an overwhelming need with limited resources, trust in God is exactly what we need.   

This is quite the challenge isn’t it? 

General Manager of the Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane, faced a similar challenge in the film Moneyball, where he faces the challenge of fielding a competitive baseball team with limited resources compared to teams like the New York Yankees.  And despite the odds, the advice of coaches, and 50 years of baseball tradition he has done this. By recruiting undervalued players that are overlooked because they throw funny or considered past their prime, he has found an unconventional way of putting together a successful team.  This has changed how baseball is being played because now bigger ball clubs are using similar systems in player recruitment. 

Beane is not multiplying loaves and fish to feed people; he takes lots of little drops of water and fills a bucket with them to make a winning team.  My point is that even though we have limited resources, it need not limit our vision or our future.  We act with trust in God rather than what we think we know about the future. 

We act trusting that God will provide.  The good news in this passage is that in the hands of Jesus little becomes much – this allows the few to become many, and the weak to become strong. 

What do we have to put in Jesus’ hands? 

A little boy gave up his own food, and by his generosity and Jesus’ power, he and every single other person ate their fill and there were still left overs – an abundance! 

Jesus does the impossible – the math does not add up – two fish and five loaves of bread should not feed 5,000 people.  Yet this is the kind of abundance that Jesus promises us in our ministries when we put what we have in his hands. 

Habitat for Humanity is an example of an organization that began seeing the huge need for clean, decent, and stable housing.  They started with a dream of building homes and selling them at cost, financed at no interest, to people who would not qualify for a mortgage.  On paper huge need, no profit margin, and risk equals failure, not even a drop in the bucket.  Since 1976 Habitat for Humanity has built 500,000 homes and sheltered 2.5 million people – a huge drop in the bucket.[4]

Think about how a few people in this congregation went together to organize the chicken barbeque at Clor’s for Doug and Peggy Fuller that raised more than $1000.  This might be a drop in the bucket compared to all their expenses, but it is a drop of compassion that shows Doug, Peggy, and their family that they are not battling leukemia alone. 

Think about the food table that we started this past winter to give food to people who are hungry not just around holidays but who need food at the end of July.  Bob wasn’t sure it was going to work, but he thought together we could feed a few families.  Does it end world hunger?  No, but it is a drop in the bucket that means that a few more people are eating better than they would if we hadn’t decided to get behind this project. 

We can be limited by what we know or we can trust Jesus to multiply our efforts.

Where the disciples are limited by what they think they know, Jesus sees possibility. 

Let us spend a few moments reflecting on our own on what might be some of the unrealized possibilities that God sees for our ministry here at East Bethany, possibilities that lie dormant because of perceived limitations. 

And let us never stop trusting in God, whose power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20).  In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord Amen. 




[1] Karen Marie Yust proposes a similar question in her article on the Pastoral Perspective of this passage in the Feasting on the Word Commentary.  Year B, Vol. 3. WJK: 2009, pg?.
[2] This question is posed by Cheryl Bridges Johns in her article on the Homiletical Perspective of this passage in the Feasting on the Word Commentary. Year B, Vol. 3. WJK: 2009
[3] Cheryl Bridges Johns.
[4] http://www.habitat.org/how/factsheet.aspx

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