John 6:1-15, Feeding of the 5000 March 26, 2006 The Rev. Diane Livingston, Deacon Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi The story of the miraculous feeding is one many of us know very well. I imagine there are all sorts of reactions to the story: what a great miracle story!; things like that must have happened a lot when Jesus lived on the earth; for those Bible scholars you may know that the story must be very important because it appears in all 4 Gospels and even twice in Matthew and Mark. If many of you think of the story as far removed from yourself, I invite you to look at it differently today. I don’t think it is too difficult to see ourselves as Phillip who is the practical guy and relates the concern of the occasion to the day’s economic state: Phillip answers Jesus question of where can they buy bread for these people to eat by stating that six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little. Or we can easily see ourselves as Andrew who starts off so positive by noting that there is a boy among them who has 5 barley loaves and 2 fish. The openness seems to end though when he adds, “but what are they among so many people?” I don’t criticize those two, Phillip and Andrew, because they begin the process of what the church can do in the world. They offer who they are to Jesus. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams summarizes a teaching of William Temple by discussing how Anglicanism engages with society and how Anglicanism then nurtures and preserves its sense of the divine mystery. It makes sense when you consider that the Church is at the heart of things, pervading the structures of society such as economics, politics, family units, hierarchy of corporations yet the Church remains in some sense a body given distinctness by its worship and yet with boundaries that are fairly open. No doctrine or person of authority asks you to stop being who you are when you enter the nave of a church to worship. You sit here in worship with the same gifts and interests and passions that you had when you were in your car in the parking lot or your office this past Friday or your home last night. The Church is society at prayer. The Anglican sense of worship is the drawing together and the offering to God of what is happening in society. This may be a different take for those who profess that politics or any issue that we as a culture deal with in our daily living and the church don’t mix. Of the eucharist in particular, we bring familiar forms of economic wealth, which is always the product of our labor exercised upon God’s gifts and we offer them as symbols of our earthly goods. This would be the bread and wine that we carry forward as we prepare the table. It is what we as humans can labor and produce using God’s gifts and then offer these gifts as a symbol of our earthly goods. Because we have offered our earthly goods to God, God gives them back to us as heavenly goods, binding us into union with Christ. Our eucharist without us, our human symbols of who and what we are, is not real. Our living out in that world without worship, without God’s heavenly richness, is without direction and power. It is the worshiping life that can transform the world. Our worship is the offering of human goods to God, so that they may be received back as divine goods; and through that receiving of divine goods, society itself is bit by bit transformed, or at the very least, soaked in some degree by the Christian vision and Christian practice. Go back to the miracle story that we heard from the Gospel. What was offered that day? Five barley loaves and two fish. They were products of human labor using God’s gifts to us in the first place. They were offered to God that day through Jesus and he gave them back as heavenly, as miraculous, as bountiful (remember the twelve baskets filled once everyone had eaten). And indeed lives were started to be transformed after that day as word spread and as people experienced Jesus’ blessing. On Sundays and other times during the week when we share the eucharist we offer bread and wine to be blessed and made into the eucharist meal which in turn nourishes us spiritually to go forth into the world and be the hands and heart and mind of Jesus. In our social and political and work worlds how can we offer what we have and possibly experience the richness of God’s blessing? Do we have a home, a car, a telephone, a listening ear, physical strength to do labor, expertise to repair items, a kitchen, a heart to love others different from ourselves, the list can go on and on? I mention some of the above items because we often forget, as we all realized one week in the inquirers’ class that by having a car and being willing to bring someone to church who couldn’t get there otherwise, we are offering our gifts/our regular “stuff” if you will. There are so many opportunities to call people who may be lonely or sick, to prepare food that help others in their home or the church. Our home can be offered as a gathering place for church events; our families can include others sometimes in long term ways by being a foster family or a safe gathering place for youth. My point is that sometimes we sit back and think we are not good enough, smart enough, religious enough and whatever enough that we can’t really offer that much. Actually that is a cop out and that type of thinking is the way that we miss out on receiving the divine goods. The world misses out because by not offering what we have and not receiving the divine goods, we miss the opportunity to transform the world - a world that could be filled with God’s love and justice and abundance and mercy and reconciliation - a world that could be God’s Kingdom. Lent may be the perfect time to assess what we can offer God as a symbol of our earthly goods. If we truly offer these earthly goods to God, we will receive them back as divine goods. And our society just may , bit by bit, be transformed. For months my life has been immersed in the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Though there is much work still to be done and the recovery of peoples’ lives and the rebuilding of structures will take years, I can testify to you that the miracle of offering our human goods to God has been received by thousands of people as divine goods. What people have experienced by the giving and receiving of earthly goods has truly been a miracle and though Katrina is labeled a disaster, the offering and the blessing is resulting in the transformation of huge numbers of lives. I can only imagine Philip and Andrew standing on the Gulf coast after Katrina thinking how much money would be needed to care for all of those people and maybe saying there are people across the United States who have something but questioning if that could really make a difference. I can see Jesus standing there on the beach and asking everyone to sit down. I can see relief sites and people from all across the world giving from their human goods because I have interacted with this first-hand myself. I have heard their stories of offering. When we offer what we have, God gives it back as heavenly goods and transformation begins. I hesitated to use any examples or stories in today’s sermon because I don’t want you to think literally. You may not connect at all to an example from my life but there is no doubt you have something to offer. Pray and listen and study and worship and you will know.