5000 and counting

It's one of the stories that folk remember from the Bible:  how 5 loaves and 2 fish were sufficient to feed 5000 men plus women and children.....with leftovers....12 baskets of leftovers.

It is the perfect story to parallel our celebration of our Lord's Supper.  Jesus performs the 4 fold action:  he took the (fish) offering, blessed it, broke it, and then gave it to the disciples to distribute.  So they did, and everyone ate and was satisfied and there were leftovers.....12 baskets of leftovers. In the hands of God,  a little can become a lot.

If that is the only lesson you see or hear in this story, it is sufficient.  You can spend a lifetime living out that one line: in the hands of God, a little can become a lot.  You can apply it to your relationships, your parenting, your giving, your spiritual health.  Put it in the hands of God and wait and watch to see what God is going to do.

But for a moment let's parse that a little deeper.  First, there were a lot of people who had followed Jesus to receive a healing, a blessing, a little comfort.  There was no need to look far and wide for people in need: there were 5000 of them right in front of Jesus.  Regular people.  Ordinary people.  Hurting people.

Jesus paused in this story because of their need.  He stopped to minister to them because he was filled with compassion: a word which means 'to suffer with'.  That is, Jesus was moved to suffer with the suffering people he saw.  A touch of healing, a word of comfort, a new found hope were the blessings he bestowed.  And I am sure folks were grateful, but after a couple of hours, they were also growing hungry.

Now Jesus turns towards the disciples who are worried about the hungry crowd (and the lack of any good concession stands in the neighborhood).  Jesus says: 'You feed them.'  'With what?' they ask.  'We only have 5 loaves and 2 fish.'

At this point, what could be simply a miraculous feeding event turns into an object lesson for the disciples:  What do you have to do the Lord's work?  How much of it are you willing to give to meet these needs?  Are you willing to 'suffer with' these suffering people?

Someone gave up their supper.  5 loaves and 2 fish.  In the end, they saw God at work, they became workers in God's kingdom, and they were equipped (12 baskets of leftovers/one for each disciple) for tomorrow's work as well.  This is what disciples do; this is how disciples are formed.

Lots of questions to ponder.  What are you offering up to God so that God's work can be accomplished?  What resources has God put in your hands for the work that needs to be done?  Who are the suffering people right in front of you?

If it were you, would you have given all 5 loaves and both fish?  Not such a simple story at all.

Hungering and thirsting......

There is a popular song playing on the radio right now with this line of lyrics "I didn't know that I was starving 'till I tasted you."*  This song might go places that I don't want to highlight, but this line is a powerful image of that deep longing that rests in our secret places.....that we cannot even put a name to.....until it finally finds its satisfaction. 

In the Old Testament, it is the psalmist who shares these same sentiments.

O God, you are my God, I seek you,

my soul thirsts for you;

my flesh faints for you,

as in a dry and weary land

where there is no water.  Ps 63.1

In the Sermon on the Mount, (Mt. 5.6) Jesus teaches "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."

Augustine of Hippo, a theologian of the early church, wrote "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."  (Confessions)

Throughout the ages, writers and poets have searched for the perfect  combination of words which describe the wholeness accomplished when one finds God ....and thus finds oneself.  Like water to a thirsty soul; food for the starving; a place of perfect rest.

*lyrics by Hailee Steinfeld and Grey

Reformation Monday: I am the LORD your God

I am the LORD your God.

That is where it all begins.  It is the foundation stone for all that follows, and what follows are 10 commandments that draw a broad picture of what it means to be a covenant people, a people who live in community, who are God's people and worship this God known as YHWH. (Exodus6.7)

The story began with creation, and then Abraham, and down through Joseph who welcomes his people into Egypt only to have them become enslaved.  Then we get Moses, the episode with the Red Sea, and the beginning of a wandering in the wilderness that would continue until an entire generation passed away.  God clearly had the power to get the people out of Egypt; it took 40 years to get Egypt out of the people. (but that's another story for another time).

Moses goes up the mountain to talk with God (truly I think he just listened).  God thundered, spoke the commandments and, apparently, engraved them on stone tablets.  (I say apparently because the story doesn't mention tablets at this point.  Later, the text tells us Moses was to make tablets like the ones from before.)  But all of that is back story.  See Exodus 20

This is how those commandments begin: 

I am the LORD your God

 who brought you out of the land of Egypt, 

out of the house of slavery; 

you shall have no other gods before me. 

Our relationship with God is founded on this primary profession of faith:  The LORD is God, and the LORD alone.  In case you are unsure of which LORD, it's the one who got you out of Dodge when the slavery got to be too much.

All the other commandments flow from this one.  There are many good reasons to abstain from killing your neighbor or sleeping around with another's spouse, or stealing their new electronic devices.  Almost every civilization has some version of these same basic rules for living peacefully in community.

But the Ten Commandments of the book of Exodus are predicated on knowing who God is and pledging allegiance to this God alone.  This involves honoring God's name and setting aside time dedicated solely to giving thanks and worshipping this God. 

Little of this explanation is specific to Reformation theology.  In his Small Catechism, Luther explains this first commandment this way "We are to fear, love and trust God above all things."  In his Large Catechism Luther notes that everyone worships a god, just not this God, the Creating and Redeeming God.  Idolatry is rampant, for 'that in which you put your trust, is your god' according to Luther. 

Acknowledging that God is God......and its corollary, that we are not.........is the first step, and we stumble over it all the time.  It is our North Star: guiding our way, leading us home, establishing particular values, granting us light in the darkness.  This God.  No other God.  

When healing is just the beginning......

It makes a great deal of sense that when  you are burdened with a physical/mental/spiritual/social problem......that absolutely no one seems to be able to solve.......that should healing come, should you experience wholeness once again........you will be filled with gratitude.  I expect for days you will find it hard to actually believe that the long wait and all the worry are over.  Before the healing, you could only look down the road one day at a time.  Now a whole future stretches out before you.  There are all kinds of possibilities.  I think this is rightly called HOPE.

Yet let us consider that the gift of healing is only the beginning.  It offers to each of us the opportunity to start again.  Now that the great burden of our broken bodies or spirits is no longer our reality, we have a chance to begin again with a new reality, and to live out that reality in new and different ways.  That is, the gift of healing is also the gift of a new tomorrow......and that tomorrow could and just maybe should be different from today.

Because after today, you will be a person who once was oppressed or imprisoned by a problem that was beyond this world's ability to solve. Now you will be a walking example of the unpredictability of grace, poured out on you and your life.  You might even call this salvation.

And you just might want to tell someone else about this miraculous, life changing, life giving experience.  You just might want to tell someone else about how it all came about.  In the case of the three people healed by Jesus in the 8th chapter of Matthew, each one just might end up telling their story of new life.....and pointing to the Jesus who made it all happen.  Those who were healed would now also be witnesses......to the salvific power of Jesus, to the joy of restoration, to the gift of unexpected healing.

Healing takes many forms:  a broken relationship restored, a disease which disappears, an invitation to an outcast, a meal for the hungry, a mind which is whole again.  Any and all of these can turn our lives in a new direction, one of gratitude but also a life of witness as well.  The verb  sodzo is Greek and is translated as 'to heal' 'to make whole' or 'to save'.  In this one word is wrapped all these notions of release from disease, wholeness of body, mind, spirit and the new life that is discovered in the end.

Healing is the beginning of a journey of salvation: new life that springs up like living water in those who have been made whole through powers unknown by mere humans.  Sure, some of that healing comes to us through modern science and practice.  That doesn't make it any less amazing, or, to think about it, leave us any less thankful.

From healing to witness.  New life springing up.  Salvation lived today.  Forgiveness that takes the broken and makes it whole.   I bet you have a story about how your life has been changed.  If we share that story with others, they just might reach out to the one who wants to heal them as well.

Am I worthy?

It is the question that nags at the deepest corner of our heart "Am I worthy?"  It is rare that you will catch an American phrasing it quite that way (it goes against our cultural grain) but when you approach someone certain that they will turn away from you, that is what you are thinking: Am I worthy?  To get an autograph?  To be chosen for the team?  To be asked to the prom?  To get the promotion?

When Jesus begins healing folks in the 8th chapter of Matthew, he encounters three people who, for one reason or another, are not considered worthy.  They are outsiders: a leper who is a Son of Abraham, a centurion soldier, and Peter's mother-in-law, in bed with a fever.  The leper has been set outside his own community because of his disease.  He is an outcast among outcasts.  The centurion is a Roman, a soldier in an occupying force, and he wants healing for a sick servant!  Then there's Peter's mother-in-law (notice we never learn her name) who was born on the wrong side of the gender divide.  These three have been found 'unworthy' by their own communities for one reason or another.

They came to Jesus because there was no where else to go.  Lepers were rarely healed; I expect the centurion would have been loathe to ask favor from a Jewish rabbi.  Every Jewish woman had heard the prayer uttered by the men, "Thank you God that I was not born a woman" (this is, in fact, an actual Jewish prayer).

It is not hard to hear these folks saying to themselves, "I am not worthy"  In fact, the centurion utters these words aloud, "I am not worthy for you to enter my house, only say the word and [the servant] shall be healed."  These are the folks that Jesus heals.  These are the ones Jesus finds worthy.

The leper, who has been separated from his family and community, can now show himself to the priest - see?  I am healed.  I am OK.  Now, I can be included once again.

The centurion has nothing to lose, it would seem.  He is asking for a servant to be healed, but I would have to imagine that this is a beloved individual for him to do this kind of leg work, humbling himself before Jesus, to receive a healing.  There may be more reasons than first imagined for him to demur from Jesus entering his house to heal the servant, but none the less, Jesus heals from a far.  Clearly this Jesus has power over powers rather than just power over people (like an officer commanding other soldiers).

Then of course there is Peter's mother-in law.  It may have been a nothing fever, and she is healed only to set up and serve the men lunch, but on this day the rabbi Jesus made her whole again.

Am I worthy?  This question echoes in the depths of our souls, for in some way, each of us is an outsider.  But not to Jesus......to Jesus we are beloved children in need of new healing.  That is the definition of grace.......and Jesus pours it out on each of us.