He is not here! He is risen!

Alleluia!

Remember when?  I'll bet your family has some great stories which start with 'Remember when.........' and get told again and again. These are the memories which get us laughing or leave us pensive or taste a little bittersweet.  They are our stories; they make us one.  Family members know the story and those who know the story are considered family.

Children love these kinds of stories, especially when Mom or Dad are the main characters and were young and did something silly .....you know, they acted like the children they were.  My children always loved to hear about adventures from 'when they were a baby' including all the ways they managed to fracture the English language as they learned to talk.  I only get nervous when my children are telling stories to one another and I have absolutely no recollection of the 'incidents' being described.

Sharing stories after the death of a loved one helps us place this moment in the context of an entire life lived.  The stories connect us and give us a sense of belonging while at the same time carrying us along the current of inexorable time.

When we read the stories about Jesus, we get to listen in on the disciples' story telling.  Remember when.....he fed all those people on the hillside?  Remember when.....he made that terrible storm go away?   Remember when.....he ate that last supper with us?

Remember when.....we thought he was dead.........but he wasn't?  The earthquake!  The angel!  I couldn't believe it.  I wanted to, but it was too incredible.  I told Mary and Peter told me and then I spoke to Thomas and then......it was amazing.

He is not here!  He is risen!  Who could imagine that?  What can I say?

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

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.

Might as well go fishing

That's where we find the disciples at the end of John's gospel: fishing.  Not terribly surprising since that is what most of them did either for a living or to provide food.  Not only that, what else were they to do?  They went back to what they knew, what was comfortable, what put food on the table.  They hung out with the folks they knew and felt comfortable with.  They went fishing.

Although, after hours of night time fishing, they had caught nothing.  I guess that happens even to professional fishermen.  Checking with our local fishing expert, that indeed happens to him.  But the strange/amusing/unbelievable part of the story comes next:  Jesus tells them to put their nets down on the right side of the boat.

Now I can't help but think that this is metaphor since I doubt if fish are that discriminating about exactly which side of a boat they swim under.  What, however, could this metaphor be pointing us to?

Well, right could mean the opposite of wrong.  You were putting out your nets on the wrong side of the boat.  Could that mean that they were seeking to tell the Jesus story in the wrong places?  In the wrong manner?  Wrong technique?  I don't know.

This shift to the 'right side' could also point to efforts that are made without the cooperative energy and direction of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus, therefore, empowers the fishermen to catch their fish by directing them to the 'right' place.  Maybe.

Of course, 'catching fish' is also probably a metaphor since at his calling Peter was told to Follow and learn how to be a 'fisher of men'.  So I'm thinking that 'catching fish' is really leading folks to Jesus.  Note that the net was filled with fish (153) but it was not torn.  Remember how Jesus said he did not lose even one that was given to him by the Fathr (except the one destined to be lost) John 17.12.  I like the interplay of these two images.

What do we have in the end?  We have folks who are doing what everybody does: working to provide a living for themselves and their families.  Apparently, hidden in the metaphors, is the message that our work goes beyond just catching halibut.  We also are given the task of gathering in those who have not heard of Jesus and bringing them to him.

Third, there are lots of 'uncaught' fish in the sea and netting them for Jesus is a part of our work.  When we wrap up this story and Jesus tells Peter to 'feed my sheep' he is not giving him a different task - something other than catching fish - he is simply giving Peter a different picture of what his work looks like.

In our fellowship, our every day work, our ordinary activities, even the stuff we need to do to maintain ourselves, we are not to lose sight of our larger calling as people of faith:  go and find the lost ones and bring them to Jesus.  It's a different kind of fishing.

If I only knew how to pray....

I hope you are not looking for some magic formula - just the right words or tone of voice, the most appropriate quoting of scripture or maybe some fancy phrases like the pastor uses.  I pray that you are not seeking some precise balance of piety and boldness so that God will do what you want God to do.

Because if you are, I don't have it.  Never have; never will.  I do know that you can meditate in silence or sing your praises to God.  You can gather with the whole community or carve out a few moments during your morning commute.  You can include religious words or simply cry out with moaning and groaning too deep for words. 

You can stand up, lie down, sit in your pew, kneel at the altar, walk in the woods, drive in your car,  raise your hands while you're at it.  Many prayers have ascended during football games, before Math tests, on icy roads and after crushing medical diagnoses.  You can use English, Greek, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and even gibberish.  God's ear is turned towards and tuned into creation's cries.

But if your heart is wandering in the land of lust or greed or anger or just plain selfishness you're going to have a hard time of it all because it is the heart that speaks most clearly to our God.  This you know:  the God who graciously gives us all, wants us to grow into just such gracious giving people.  Because God is gracious, we are free to ask, seek and knock any time we want and with a whole lot of silliness in the mix. 

This I do know.  The more you pray, the deeper, stronger, and richer your life in Christ grows.  Use up your iphone minutes in conversation with God and before you know it, your eyes and your heart will be opened.  So we ask, just as the disciples did long ago,"Lord teach us to pray."

Who is the greatest?

Jesus is at it again.  He keeps talking about his rejection, suffering and death.  Now the disciples are worried about which one of them is the greatest! 

It sounds like they are positioning themselves for power when Jesus is gone.  But maybe they only want to receive special praise from Jesus if, indeed, Jesus' time is almost gone.  Or maybe, when they heard Jesus rebuke Peter in last weeks lesson by telling him, "Get behind me Satan" they saw their opportunity to take Peter's pre-eminent place among the followers.

We can't really know for sure what they were thinking, but they are certainly caught red-faced when Jesus asked them.  No one would own up to the conversation that had engrossed them all.  Kind of like when we were kids and no one wanted to admit to Dad their guilt over some misdeed.

Jesus knew anyway.  Jesus not only knew what they had been talking about, he also knew how little they understood about God's plan for the salvation of God's beloved people.  Jesus knew they could not and did not understand how his own death could be a good thing - for the disciples or for the people. 

And they hadn't even confronted the cross yet.  In the gospel of Mark, Jesus only speaks of his death, not his manner of death.  The cross is the final horrific, shameful detail in this ghastly sequence of death. 

Jesus knew they didn't know, yet he kept teaching, loving, walking with them because they would need the memories of these last weeks together when the time came. 

And, BTW, it is a child.  Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.  Welcome a child and you welcome me, Jesus teaches them.

They don't understand that either.  We don't either most of the time.

Sunday we are looking at Mark 9.30-37, the second passion prediction.