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On Being a Means of Grace
Sermon by Dr. Eugene C. Bay October 23, 2005, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill It is a pleasure to be with you in worship and a privilege to be your preacher this morning. As you have already heard I am here at the invitation of your Stewardship Committee. I confess it makes me a little uneasy. Here I am, a guest in your pulpit, and I know that the topic of stewardship, involving among other things the question of what we do with our money, is one that tends to elevate everybody’s blood pressure. I don’t want to be responsible for that. But I also know that this business of stewardship, far from being on the periphery of Christian faith and life, is pretty close to the center. So I will do as requested. But, first, let us pray together. By the power of your Holy Spirit, may my words become your Word, O God, falling on hearts and minds ready to respect and receive it as such, and willing to respond to its truth, all to the end that your purposes may be accomplished in and through this congregation of your people; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Of all the so-called miracles of Jesus, only the feeding of the five thousand is reported by all four of the Gospels – suggesting how widely the story was known and how greatly it was loved by the earliest Christians. But only John tells about the little boy. Either the others did not know about him, or they did not think he was important. John knew better. He saw how the boy, with his five loaves and two fish, helped make a miracle. And, for John, that boy came to serve as a symbol of how each of us is important to the ministry of Christ and to the mission of his church. What strikes me about the story itself is its ordinary character. There is no indication of magic being performed, nothing to suggest a dazzling display of supernatural power. The incident takes places at a time when the popularity of Jesus is at a peak. Stories about his power to heal have been circulating around the countryside. John says, “A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.” Perhaps because he needs to get away from the crowd, or because he wants some time alone with his disciples, Jesus withdraws across the Sea of Galilee and heads up into the hills on the other side. The people watch him go, and guessing where he is headed, they set off with a kind of mob instinct, on a nine-mile hike around the lake where, eventually, they catch up with him. Just as Jesus is about to begin his spiritual retreat, he sees the crowd “coming toward him”. He responds, not with anger or frustration, as I am afraid I would have, but with compassion. His reaction is like that of someone who has unexpected guests show up for dinner. “How,” he asks, “are we to buy bread so that these people may eat?” Phillip, the supreme realist among the disciples, answers that a sum equal to a half-year’s wages would not be enough to give even a snack to such a mob. John imagines that Jesus knew all along what he would do? Which was? If, for a moment I may use John’s way of talking about Jesus, here was God’s “only Son,” the “Word made flesh,” the embodiment of God’s love “full of grace and truth.” What did he have in mind to do so as to feed these hungry people? You might think that the incarnate Son of God could simply snap his fingers and, Presto!, there would be bread for all. You may recall that is exactly what the devil tempted Jesus to do in the wilderness at the outset of his ministry. “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Jesus rejected that suggestion then, so it is impossible for me to believe that he accepted it here. This little episode brings us right smack into the question of how God’s love reaches our world. While I do not wish to deny that, sometimes, God’s healing touch is felt directly, or that God’s transforming power is experienced in ways that seem miraculous, long years of experience and observation have taught me that these are not the usual ways it happens. Food, water, medicines, and the like do not appear magically for the victims of an earthquake in Pakistan. Most cancer cells are not prayed away. New homes will not appear out of nowhere to replace the ones Katrina washed away in New Orleans. Individuals or nations who do not want to are not made to reconcile their differences. By and large, God’s love does not come at the push of a button called “faith”, or at the flick of a switch labeled “prayer.” Mostly, as in the story John gives us, God’s love reaches people through people, or through the institutions and agencies that people support with their resources of time and energy and money. Through someone like Andrew, for example, who had spotted that little fellow with his sack lunch. Or through someone like the little boy. For it was his five loaves and two fish, put into the hands of Christ, that released a miracle of grace. We are not told who the boy was or how he happened to be there. One clue about him is hidden in the text. His bread, John says, was made out of barley, suggesting a person of poverty. Far more common was bread made from wheat. Barley loaves were cheaper and were the choice of the poor. Some have conjectured that it was this poor lad’s spontaneous act of generosity that shamed the others, who were better off, to reach beneath their tunics for the bread they had kept hidden. According to this interpretation, it wasn’t so much a miracle of loaves being multiplied, as it was a miracle of people being transformed, of selfish people becoming a sharing people. But John doesn’t say that. He says that what happened was a “sign,” suggesting to those who saw it who Jesus really was. In any case, it was this poor lad’s lunch that ended up in the hands of Jesus. “Jesus took the loaves, “ John says, “and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, . . .” and there was more than enough to go around. How it happened, we are not told. John seems not to care about that, and neither do I. What interests me, and what I hope will catch your attention, is the crucial part the little boy plays in the story. He is there as both a symbol and as a challenge. A symbol because he represents genuine Christian discipleship – offering himself and his possessions for Christ’s use. But he is a challenge, too. We are to ask ourselves if we are anything like him, if we are willing to do as he did. During the last four of my forty-two years of ministry it was my privilege, at Bryn Mawr, to oversee a training program for young pastors. On two separate occasions three young people came to us directly from their seminary graduations. We called them “Residents in Ministry,” and we had them for two years. One evening a week they met with me for dinner, followed by an informal seminar having to do with various aspects of ministry. They were eager to learn and their questions were often right to the point. I remember well the evening when the topic was stewardship, pledging, money, and what the church says about these. In the course of the conversation the question came up: How is what the church does, in inviting a financial commitment, any different from all the other appeals that seek to separate us from our money? Is the church’s approach any different from that of National Public Radio, say? Or, is the church, like NPR, simply asking people to ante-up for services received? Are the church’s members just being asked to do what they have to do if they belong to a country club, and pay their dues? I thought it was a good question. I still think so, and I believe the boy in our story can help us with the answer. We are not told what motivated him. Knowing what we do about Jesus, we can be pretty sure he was not coerced, overtly or more subtly. I like to think of what he did as a free will offering that, in the hands of Christ, became a sacrament, a means of grace – which is to say, a way by which the love of God in Christ was revealed, released, and received. And that is exactly how I wish you would see yourself – as having something, actually several “somethings”, you can place into the hands of Christ, an offering, to be transformed by him into a means of grace, making possible what, without you and your support, would not otherwise happen. The little boy in our story reminds me of a friend of mine, Jack McConnel. Jack is a physician and a Presbyterian elder. When he retired he and his wife moved to Hilton Head, South Carolina. Not long after arriving there Jack noticed the disparity in health care between the wealthier and largely white population and that of the poorer and mostly black residents nearby. He also observed that a great number of retired medical professionals lived on the island – doctors of all kinds, nurses, dentists, nutritionists, medical technicians. So Jack proposed establishing a clinic, utilizing the retired medical professionals as volunteers, to serve the needs of those without access to the usual channels of health care. That was several years ago. Last May my wife and I visited the McConnels and one morning Jack took us out to the clinic: an attractive facility, fully equipped, providing a full range of medical and dental services, all by way of retired professionals and other volunteers, with only two paid members of the staff. The volunteers offer anywhere from a half day up to several days a week of their time. Gifts from area residents paid for the construction of the building. All the equipment was donated. Private donations pay for the on-going expenses. Jack thinks of the services offered as ministry, and from what I could see he is right. Some time ago he put together a handbook on how to replicate the Hilton Head experience, and there are now more than 75 other clinics up and running around the country. What does it take to make something like that happen? What kind of gifts did Jack and the others offer? Sensitivity, compassion, imagination, vision, time, expertise, and money, of course. It takes, in other words, a lot of people doing as the little boy in our story did, offering what they have and, in doing so, helping to make a miracle and becoming themselves a means of grace. I know how easy it is to feel the way Andrew did in our story. He wasn’t at all sure, you remember, that the boy and his lunch would be of much use. And who among us has not felt overwhelmed by the need that surrounds us. These past weeks in particular with their hurricanes, earthquakes, floods and fires, along with all the suffering from our wars of one kind or another. The sheer physical needs for food, shelter, for health and safety are huge, to say nothing of the spiritual hungers for faith, hope, and love. We, too, may look at the few resources available – whether of time, energy, imagination, or money – and wonder, What are they among so many? Or, like Philip, some of us may be utterly dismayed by the need and think there is nothing that can be done – nothing that will make an appreciable difference, anyway. But the example of the little boy won’t let us linger in doubt or discouragement. What he had he put in Christ’s hands, and Christ used it to make a miracle. Without the boy and his bread, the people would have gone hungry. In the person of the boy, John beckons you and me to see how much God depends on us, how we can either block, or open up, a way for God’s love to get through, God’s purposes to be achieved. The natural human impulse is for us to think about what we need from Christ. In that respect, we are like the crowd that followed Jesus around to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. It’s a big part of what brings us to worship on a Sunday morning, isn’t it? The sense of what we need from Christ: the forgiveness of sins, the assurance that we are loved, the courage to do on in the face of fear, the hope that will enable us to endure suffering and adversity. We know how much we need from Christ. We may not stop to think what Christ needs from us. We might even wonder: Why would the One who is Lord of all need anything from us? Yet when you turn to the Gospels, when you look at the earthly life of Jesus, it becomes perfectly clear. Not only did he need a boy’s bread and fish to feed the multitude. “He needed another’s stable in which to be born. He needed another’s boat from which to speak his word. . . . another’s animal on which to ride into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. . . . another’s house in which to have the Last Supper. He needed another’s tomb in which to be buried.” 1 And today he needs you and me to be the channels through which his compassion can flow into hungry stomachs and his grace into hungry hearts. It’s not as though we have to do it all. It’s not as though we have to give what we do not have. The question is whether, like the little boy, we will offer what we can. If you do, if I do, if we do, God in Christ will do the rest – multiplying what we bring until it goes farther and reaches more people than we can even imagine. Those Residents in Ministry were right to raise with me the matter of motivation. There ought to be something distinctive about Christian giving, and there is. It starts with gratitude, the recognition of what we have received. We give because we have been given to. God has given us life itself and the means by which to sustain it, but more, God has given us himself, his love, his Son, the community of faith, the fellowship of believers. But there is more: the awareness that we are meant to be part of God’s purposes on this earth, we are meant to be a part of Christ’s on-going ministry, we can be a means by which the love of God in Christ touches other lives. Because I believe this so strongly, I want now to take on the role of Andrew. Knowing what, in the hands of Christ, can happen with what you are capable of offering, I want to usher you into the presence of Christ. I want you to have the privilege – the privilege! – of offering Christ what you can to use as he will. Mind you, it’s not just your money. It’s your imagination, your time and talent, your care and compassion and commitment. But it’s your money, too – the equivalent of the boy’s loaves and fish. I know that still today Christ can turn your gift into a kind of sacrament whereby once again his love is revealed, released, and received. So, I want to usher you into the presence of Christ this morning. I want to take you to Jesus and say, “Here is someone who is willing to give you what you can use to make a miracle. Here is someone here who is ready to become a means of grace.” I would like you to take on the role of the little boy in our story. Will you do that? Surely you would like to do that. 1. The Words of Gardner Taylor, compiled by Edward L. Taylor (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 2001) p.266 |