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A message by
Rev. F. David Throop, Pastor
March 16, 2008
Palm Sunday
Please pray with me:
Loving and gracious God, in reflecting on this event of the feeding of the five thousand, help us to discern the difference between magic and miracle. Help us somehow to understand that what was performed by our Lord was not an act of magic which dazzled the minds of a crowd, but rather was a miracle of transformation which changed their hearts. And now, continue to transform our minds and hearts in Jesus Christ, in whose strong name we pray. Amen.
Got the picture? In front of us is a large crowd of hungry people with seemingly no way to be fed, one disciple who is more head than heart, and another disciple who is more heart than head. And in the midst of everyone there is a little boy with barely enough food to feed even his own family. All of these now became the ingredients for another new miracle of transformation.
I’m curious: are each of you more head than heart, or are you more heart than head? Generally speaking, head people make decisions based more on facts, and heart people make decisions based more on feelings. Each of us tend to lean just a bit more in one of these directions over the other. So, what are you: more head or more heart?
I have heard it said, and perhaps you have, as well, that “head people” will always seem to find another reason why something won’t work. It’s like this: head people research and reason and calculate and compute and diagnose and analyze and deduce and then conclude, and always with disgustingly impeccable thoroughness. And whatever the focus may be, a head person will say, “Well, based on careful and extensive calculations of mine, there is absolutely no way possible that the matter before us will ever work. And let me share with you in detail 27 reasons why I am convinced this is so.”
Now, on the other hand I’ve also heard it said that “heart people” were never given any brains, but if they were given brains, they never seem to plug them in. It’s like this: A heart person will say in regard to the same matter before them that, “Well, I just think it’s the right thing to do. Don’t ask me why, don’t ask me to show you facts and figures. I don’t have them. I just have this deep sense within that we simply need to move forward in faith. I just know it’s the right thing to do.”
Do you know people like these? Have you ever been in a planning meeting of any kind, and one which includes both “head people” as well as “heart people?” If so, then you can certainly see that the solution to the issue in front of us includes Philip, a “head person,” and Andrew, a “heart person.” Philip, more of a head person, does some careful calculations, and then quickly explains the utter impossibility of being able to feed a crowd that size. “Okay, Jesus, now the way I figure it,” he says, “even seven, no, eight month’s wages won’t be adequate to buy enough bread for each person here to have even just two bites, no, make that one bite! It just won’t work, Jesus.” That’s Philip for you, always working with his calculator. That’s just the way “head people” are.
And then, here’s Andrew, more of a heart person, who hears what Philip has just said, but who says anyway, “Uh, Jesus, here’s a little boy with five small barley loaves, and a couple of fish...” That’s often the way heart people work. Whether it is feeding 5,000 hungry people on a Galilean hillside, or simply making day to day decisions in the operation of today’s church, it often comes down to the encounter between head people and heart people. I’ve got a lot of years of ministry “under my belt,” as they say, and it’s interesting to reflect back on the decision-making process along the way. As a congregation, we have been blessed . . . and cursed by both!
By the way, as we continue our brief reflection on this event, you might be interested in knowing that this crowd of five thousand people or more was mostly Presbyterian. I have arrived at this conclusion because Presbyterians cannot come together for very long without eating! And if you’ve got a large gathering of Presbyterians and no food, you’ve got a problem, and it’s a serious problem! And a problem of this magnitude will be solved, not by head people and not by heart people, but only by those who are willing to become transformed.
I have maintained throughout my entire ministry, and you’ve heard me say it a whole bunch of times, that a Christianity in which people continue to remain pretty much the same as they were before they became a Christian is a most imperfect Christianity. I really believe this. And I hope you do, as well. Otherwise, why would you be here this morning? Why would you take the time to come here and be joined together with others in worship today? And why would some of us give our very lives in order that more and more people might know and experience the transforming gift of our Lord? I hope you are here today not just because it’s Palm Sunday. I hope you are here once again today, and I hope that you share in a whole variety of acts of ministry because you also believe that a Christianity in which people continue to remain pretty much the same as they were before is a most imperfect Christianity.
Let me reflect on this last statement a bit differently. When that day comes when I am no longer your pastor, I do not want any of you coming to me and saying, “My, David, how you have changed and grown and matured over these past thirty some years!” I don’t want to hear any of that kind of talk.
something along these lines, “Dave, I want you to know that as the result of this congregation and its ministry, along with my participation in worship and in Bible Studies and in outreach ministries along the way, I have truly grown and matured in my walk of faith. And thank you, Dave, for being a part of my journey.” I hope to hear you say, “Dave, I have not only grown in my understanding of Who God really is, but I’ve especially grown in my awareness of the need to be one whose very life is a daily example to others of what it means to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord.” That’s what I want to hear. When that day comes, I want to hear each of you share with me that as a direct result of your having been connected with this congregation, that you have matured in your prayer life, that you have become a much more generous Christian, and that you have broadened your understanding of the needs of people near and far, and that in serving as an ambassador of Christ, every element of your life is much healthier, filled with greater hope, and spilling over with a most extraordinary joy. That’s what I want to hear.
And you don’t even need to include me in the mix. You see, I’m just a servant serving the servants of a servant Lord. And I do this because I truly believe that a Christianity, in which we remain pretty much the same as we were when we made the decision to begin following Christ is a most imperfect Christianity. It’s all about change, — let’s see, where have we heard this one! — and specifically, it’s all about continually being transformed ever more faithfully and joyfully to the ways of Jesus Christ.
That’s what happened one day on a hillside in northern Galilee not far from the Sea of Tiberias. A whole bunch of people came together, remained together, and then, acting in submission to the prayer Jesus prayed, bore witness to the transforming power of Christ himself both in their minds and in their hearts.
There are so many miracles in this account. It was a miracle, first of all, that people would even follow Jesus and remain with him for so long. You see, in today’s world, as we shared in our Bible studies of this past week, people no longer want to follow Jesus. They stay away from him. Worship attendance across America peaked in 1959 and has been declining ever since. The Protestant part of the U.S. population has dropped from roughly 65% of the population in the 1970s to only 51% today.* And, interestingly enough, fully one-third of those who claim to be Protestant cannot name or describe any specific denominational affiliation! The Presbyterian Church (USA), one part of this Protestant family, is now quickly approaching a membership size which is almost half its size in the mid 1960s.
The largest loss among any faith community, however, is that which has been experienced by the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. According to a recent survey reported by the Alban Institute, fully ten percent of America’s adults claim to be former Catholics. Fully one-third of the survey respondents who claim to have been raised in the Catholic Church no longer label themselves that way — fully one-third. I guess that here and there we will find popular movements among some Christians, but overall, at least in this country, fewer and fewer are coming to and following Jesus Christ. In considering the religious climate of today, it is an absolute miracle that several thousand people would follow Jesus up a hillside and remain with him for such a long period of time. That simply won’t work in today’s world, at least here in our country. If you announce a religious event, you had better cross your fingers that people will come. And so, the first miracle is that so people would even follow Jesus and remain with him for so long.
Second, it was also something of a miracle that Jesus would show unconditional compassion on such a large gathering. In both Matthew’s and Mark’s recording of this same event, we are told that, “When Jesus saw the large crowd, he had compassion on them.”
I have no doubt that everyone in this room has some degree of compassion. But my guess is that the compassion we show is often conditional or situational, that is, more readily given by and large to those we know, those who are closest to us, those we already like or love. There are plenty of exceptions, of course. But if you look around this room, and do sort of a self-assessment on your own compassion potential or aptitude, there just might be some others here right now you would not choose to be the first recipients of your immediate compassion. And yet, in each of the gospel accounts where this miraculous feeding event is retold, central to the miracle is the compassion of Jesus.
A third miracle centers on the little boy. No matter what we say, we certainly cannot forget the miracle of a little boy giving up his five small barley loaves and two fish.
First, let’s focus on the bread, and in doing so, let me ask, How many of you eat bread, and how many of you have eaten bread today? Now, how many of you typically eat barley bread? You’re right. You and I eat bread made mostly from wheat, or maybe a little bit of rye thrown in, but mostly wheat. Based on my research this week, I don’t think you can even purchase barley bread. As Mary and I researched this, we were able to find only one multi-grain bread which included barley as an ingredient, and what little barley was in the bread was way, way down the list of ingredients. You will not find barley bread out there, at least not here, not here in our part of the world, not here in affluent Orange County. Barley bread in the days of Jesus was eaten mostly by the very poor, and in certain countries it’s possibly still much the same today. If you had bread made with wheat, you were doing okay. But if your bread was made with barley, well, you must be “from the other side of the tracks.”
And not only did the little boy have barley bread with him, but he was carrying two fish, not fifteen pound trout or salmon or bass, but probably two very small fish, perhaps the size of sardines. Had he purchased them at the local market? I don’t think so, not if he was carrying barley bread, the bread of poverty. Which means, he probably had caught the fish himself.
Now let me ask you this: would you ask a little boy who had possibly spent most of the day fishing to give up his two and only little fish to a perfect stranger? I remember when I was a little boy, and our family would spend our summer vacation in northern Minnesota, and I loved to fish. And I would fish early in the morning, and I would fish throughout the day, and I would fish up to when the sun went down, and then until it got too dark to fish. And I remember at the end of one long day of fishing that toward the end, I finally had caught a fairly large bass. And I was so proud of that bass, but also so selfish about it, that when dinner time came the next night, I asked my mom to cook that bass just for me! Little ol’ selfish me was not about to share with anyone else the bass I had spend a day or two or three or four trying to catch.
And I remember when our Jonny was little, and we were back at the farm, and he and I would put our fishing poles on our shoulders, and we would walk hand in hand down the dirt road and then up through the woods and over to the farm pond and we would fish and fish and fish. All you needed to do was to tell Jonny there was at least one fish in the pond and you could keep him occupied almost forever. And I remember what it was like to see him catch a bass and proudly take it back to the farmhouse. Give that bass up to a bunch of strangers? Not on your life!
So, I’ll just say this: if there is a hero in this story, that hero is a little boy, whose name we don’t even know, but whose selfless action of giving to Jesus the only food he had for his family was probably the single catalyst which began a whole wave of transformation which would be experienced by thousands of people that day on a Galilean hillside.
And fourth, we certainly cannot ignore the miracle of prayer. We are told very little in terms of prayer, only that “Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks, and he did the same with the fish.”
We don’t know anything about the prayer Jesus prayed that day, only that he gave thanks. But, if you ask me, I’m guessing that before Jesus began his prayer, he brought the little boy to stand right there with him. And I’m guessing, I’m only guessing, that when Jesus held the bread and fish with his left arm and hand, he placed his right hand around the shoulders the little boy. And then Jesus prayed. And somewhere in his prayer he probably included words close to these, “Loving Father, as this little boy has now given from the goodness of his heart that which was to sustain even his own family, by his example may this multitude, from the goodness of their hearts and in the same loving and generous manner, now open their own hearts, and give to those around them who have absolutely nothing.”
I do not believe that the prayer Jesus offered that day was very long. I believe he simply used the example of goodness from this little boy to begin transforming closed minds to open minds, and closed hearts to open hearts, hearts which began to give freely and generously to those in need that day.
This is the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. It was not abracadabra, let the magic begin. Rather, it was, “Loving Father, trusting in Your everlasting goodness which knows no limits, may all who are here this day, like this selfless little boy, now do as he has just done.”
All of the experts who know the middle east and the habits of rural people like these in this event tell us that among the 5,000 or more were certainly those who had thought ahead, and who had brought along some food. But not everyone. And that’s why it was possible, at least in part, to feed a crowd of people this size. If the feeding was based only on the abracadabra magic of Jesus, this event would have absolutely no redeeming value to us today. But because it was a miracle based on the transforming power of the presence of Jesus along with the example of a selfless little boy, picnic baskets began to open up, and an entire crowd was fed, and with enough leftovers to fill twelve baskets.
Let me put it like this: if the local Presbytery of Northern Galilee had requested the completion of a "Feedability Work Sheet" from the disciples before that "feeding project" could begin, nothing would have happened that day, and you and I would never be able to read about that miraculous mountain side event today! If they had gathered together the best of minds and had given them the most accurate data about the size and needs of that crowd, and had furnished them with the most sophisticated calculators and computer program software to analyze and assess the probability of feeding such a crowd of several thousand with only a few loaves of bread and a few fish, they would not have been given permission to proceed with that project! No matter how they tweaked the numbers, no matter how they arranged the figures, no matter how they calculated the possibilities in front of them, the final answer would have been, "No way! Impossible! Permission denied! Project dead! Period!"
But thankfully, a little boy happened by, and God’s presence was there. And then a prayer was offered, minds were touched, hearts were convicted, and picnic baskets started opening up. A hungry crowd was fed and food was left over. One person could never have been able to feed that large of a crowd, but opened to the transforming power and presence of Jesus, all of them were fed. And as scripture so clearly tells us, they were all satisfied.
So, my head and heart friends, what is it today? Hungry people in our community and around the world? People suffering from HIV aids? A One Great Hour of Sharing Offering designed to help the suffering, an offering which is sadly lacking? Final funding to enable completion of a Phase II building program? What is it?
And in the midst of all of this and so much more, do you suppose that you and I are now the little boy with the five small loaves of barley bread and the two little fish?
(* Most of the statistical information shared from the Alban Institute is from an article written by James P. Wind, President of the Alban Institute. The full version of the article will soon appear in the 2008 issue of Congregations Magazine. Specific nformation about these statistics may be found at:
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) Copyright © 2008 by Rev. F. David Throop. All rights reserved. No part of this sermon may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of a very brief quotation, which will acknowledge the source. |
