The Cathedral Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, PA
Sunday August 3, 2014
The Very Rev. Anthony R. Pompa
Matthew 13 The Feeding of the Five Thousand
I am one of the lucky ones. Perhaps you can be counted
among the lucky ones as well, perhaps not, I know some are more fortunate than
others by no action of their doing. I am one of the lucky ones who in life has
been loved with abandon, with abundance, even with extravagance. I am talking
about being loved in the most authentic deep way. I have been loved
sacrificially. There are four of us boys, my brothers and I who have been loved
by a mother in such a way that our well-being was and is always foremost. My
brothers and I grew up in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, known to many of you today
as that quaint tourism driven town. I am here to tell you that in the late
sixties and most of the 70s that we grew up there it was just another dried up
coal town trying to recover from the coal bust. In fact, and I tell you this
story, only because it will highlight my point later in this sermon, carbon
county was the poorest county in the state of Pennsylvania. Yet I stand before
you this day as one of the Lucky Ones, because I was loved with abandon,
abundance, and with extravagance. You see after my parents’ divorce, even with
alimony payments, our annual household income combined with my mother’s humble
hourly wage at a local textile factory, was well below the poverty level. I
know this now, I didn’t know it then. I didn’t know it then because though I
sometimes I knew we didn’t have a lot of stuff, we were happy on the whole or
at least I was. Happy because my mother loved with abundance. You see, even
though I know there were nights she went to bed with tears of worry, I always
felt loved, happy, adjusted even. You see my mother was crazy! She behaved,
even when she might have doubted, she behaved and still behaves as if there is
more than enough love to go around! More than enough! There are four of us to
Love with such depth and abandon. Sometimes I wonder, as Methodist Bishop Will
Willimon has speculated on the topic of radical love; is this wise on her part?
Wouldn’t it be better for her to hold something back- to preserve maybe a piece
of this energy, this sacrifice, this selfless giving, to hold on tight to it as
a valuable resource to be used carefully, thriftily even? No, it seems this
Love is a deep pool- my mother continues to send the notion and seems to behave
as if there is enough to go around and that this pool of love seems endless. In
fact she continues to demonstrate to any fortunate enough to know her that not
only is this pool deep but it seems to be an inexhaustible resource, and the clarity of the depth of this
pool seems to come in focus particularly when crisis are set before her. She is
crazy!
This brings us to our Gospel reading today. This preacher
has preached on this text a few times and you have heard it many times. Yet I
stand before you this day with the challenge for us to once again be challenged
and lifted to a new place as we encounter this story again this day! Loaves and
fishes, is about at the end of the day coming to know that in God’s economy,
God’s Kingdom, God’s way, there is an abundance about us that is a promise and
a challenge. You know how the story goes, Jesus, tired after days of teaching,
preaching, and healing seeks to slip away for some quiet time. The typical
crowd of folks desperate some of them to catch a glimpse of hope and meaning,
healing and promise from this powerful stranger, draw near at the end of the
day and instead of returning to their villages they remain. The disciples are
met with their first ministry crisis! What to do with this mass of folk who are
hungry in mind, body, and spirit. Their understandable reaction at first
displays their feelings of inadequacy and the overwhelming reality before them.
Jesus, they are hungry and there are so many, let us send them back to where
they came from! The easy answer is not
the right answer for Jesus who looks upon the crowd and is himself overwhelmed
with compassion and he tells the disciples, “You feed them”. God only knows
then the response of the disciples but miracles of all miracles some fish and a
couple loaves are scavenged up, Jesus blesses and breaks the pieces and it is
said that all were fed, 5,000 men AND Women and Children- point- a whole heck
of a lot of people. The power in this story of course is that not only were
hungry, desperate, longing strangers fed and filled but twelve basket full of
leftovers were collected! Leftovers! I don’t’ know about you, but Leftovers are
about my favorite thing in the whole world because just when you think you’ve
had enough of the best thing in the world, there it is the next day, more for
the next day! It seems to be, you see
for this Kingdom that Jesus has come to deliver, it seems in the economy of
God’s heart, it seems the way life is the way God sees it, there is enough for all; in fact, more than enough. Enough resource, enough love, enough hope,
enough compassion, in fact, not just enough, but more than enough- Abundant, inexhaustible,
even extravagant is God’s view of life.
If this true, then there’s
nothing to save for another day for fear that there won’t be enough to go
around, or someone unworthy might get a piece of something they don’t deserve-
Let alone that person being me?
Well, doesn’t it just seem then that God is like that? I
mean look at other places in scriptures, Jesus is consistently delivering such
compelling news. The parable of the sower you are to spread seed everywhere!
Even particularly in the more complex soils, those challenged perhaps by a lack
of depth or by competing weeds, one might find extra seeds sown because you
need them. At a wedding in Cana, water is transformed into wine, and not only
is it a little bit of wine, but it is a lot, and it is not just average wine
from unripened grapes but it is full and rich, and deep, and abundant. Seems
like God is like that.
There is a lost son
who returns from a wayward journey of his own choosing who is greeted not only
enthusiastically by his Father upon his return, but not only is he greeted but
he is celebrated with an abundance and extravagance that sends a definite truth-filled
message. Love it seems is a deep love,
the kind of love that meets folks in their limitations, desperations,
struggles, doubts, fears and prejudices and it is a deep pool that should one
take the risk of diving into can present the opportunity to change the equation before
us. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. We don’t’ have to grab our piece of it
and hide it away from others as if there isn’t enough to go around OR behave as
if there isn’t enough to last the day! Jesus is clear in the teaching! There is
enough and not only enough, there is more than enough. Abundant hope, abundant
love, abundant forgiveness, abundant mercy, abundant compassion, abundant
resources, abundant!
Such a reminder we need in our world today and as followers
of such good, compelling and challenging news. The struggle is consistent in
our world to declare and live this abundance. We sometimes feel like Jacob in
our Old Testament lesson wrestling with God to find a blessing yet not smart
enough to know we need God to win so the blessings might flow. We are
overwhelmed with conflicts between peoples who clearly do not believe there is
enough for everyone. Gaza, Ukraine, Syria and South Sudan. Our own struggles in our own country. Our own
struggles in our own lives where we sometimes fail to see the deepest pool of
hope of love, of forgiveness- our own struggles in our own crisis where the
opportunity is once again before us to lean into a truth that a deep abiding
love of God is in exhaustive, sufficient- and even abundant, extravagant.
I’d like to tell you the story of my one of my closest
friends. With his permission I tell you about Todd and Anne and their family.
Todd and Anne living with their young son Ian in Austin Texas tell of how in their
lives they came upon an opportunity to test the faith stated life-view of
abundance as met and considered the adoption of two young boys in South Austin.
They speak in terms of meeting these boys who for all circumstances were from
another world. Born to a crack addicted mother and trapped in a cycle of
poverty, Todd speaks of their encountering these new young lives, refugees from
a circumstance of life so foreign to Todd and Anne’s experience, they may well
have been considered to be from “another world”.
This very week in an event held in a small town in
Michigan, where Todd serves the Church as Bishop of the Diocese of Eastern
Michigan, Todd speaks of his experience encountering the opportunity to live
into Jesus world-view teaching of abundance. The important context of Todd’s
speaking was in response to the refugee crisis of south and Central American children
flooding the borders of the United States. There in Michigan a processing
center has been established for these young children sparking diverse
reactions.
These are Todd’s words,
My wife, Ann, and I,
along with our 6 yr-old birth son, Ian, began a journey fifteen years ago into
an unknown future with two refugees from a neglected part of our society that
most folks don’t like to think about --- a place with circumstances that we
truly can’t even begin to imagine --- across borders we’d like to pretend don’t
exist. We were frightened, unsure of
ourselves, concerned about welcoming strangers into our home, unsettling our
comfortable life and predictable patterns.
We didn’t know if we would have enough time, enough money, enough square
footage, enough love. But we welcomed
the strangers anyway. And the strangers
became friends. Friends became
beloved. The beloved became part of us,
became our sons.
More than 57,000
children, teens and adults from Central America have entered the U.S. since
October 2013, many fleeing gang violence and drug wars. Most are seeking a better life filled with
hope and possibility. Many have been
sent across by their parents --- children striking out alone in pursuit of a
better future. The response from
citizens and governments along the border as well as communities in
mid-Michigan, like Vassar, have been mixed.
They have been welcomed and reviled, embraced and rejected, invited in
and sent away. As a society, we are
being asked, in the words of the biblical author of the Letter to the Hebrews, “.
. . [to] not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some
have entertained angels without knowing it:.
Abundance, extravagance, an inexhaustible
resource.
I stand before my fellow Christians this day with a story
about desperate people, hungry people, 5,000 men and women and children on top
of that! Who came to catch a glimpse of what they hoped would be an inexhaustible
resource, an abundant resource, an
overflowing resource of compassion and strength and that day were met with a
revelation that not only was love and compassion inexhaustible but there was
plenty to go around, more than enough. At first the disciples wanted to send
them home. Jesus response feed them.
I stand before you my fellow Christians this day with a
story about worn torn countries and personal struggles in the midst of conflict
where an opportunity as Christians is to believe and behave as if Love is
inexhaustible, abundant, overflowing. A story about “Children”, so desperate
and hungry that their parents send them off on a dangerous and undetermined
path in the hope they might be met by something different.
I am a parent of teenage children, the same age as many of
these refugee children coming to our borders. Can you imagine, can you begin
with compassion to imagine the despair that would lead to a heartbreaking
decision to send your child on such a dangerous journey? Like those on a hillside
thousands of years ago, they too wonder how their hopelessness might be met?
How would you like your child to be met in the moment of their deepest despair
and need? Would your children be met with protest signs, with racial slur, with
threats, and even with camaflouged militia with rifles? Or is it possible would
they be met with compassion and resource-filled belief that their just might be
enough mercy, enough care, enough love, enough food, enough grace for today,
And even for tomorrow?
I stand before this day now speaking of a particular circumstance
that I know politicization takes us to one place. The place of politicization
is predictable and tried and true; it takes us to a place of divide and a
mentality of scarcity. I confess to you
that I know such issues are complex and these refugees lives are mixed deeply
in our great divide as a country around immigration reform. I confess to you I
am not smart enough about Caesar, by that I use the term as Jesus pragmatically
used the term in his teaching about what is owed and expected of the power
structures of the day, I speak of our government- elected representatives; republican,
democrat, independent who are elected to struggle and I pray constructively
resolve this debate. I confess to you I
am not interested in this sermon with that debate and I do not know how this
debate plays out.
But I do dare to be
so bold to say that I do know, and I believe you, my fellow followers, do know
enough about our Lord Jesus to say, that there is ONE and only ONE response to the
marginalized, the struggling, the desperate, the hungry, CHILDREN, of God who
come to us as hungry strangers; that one response is compassion. It is the response of compassion that flows
from that deep pool of belief that in God there is after all enough to go
around, in fact, more than enough. Abundant, extravagant, inexhaustible.
Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and wonders of
all wonders- it was enough! And not just enough but twelve baskets full were
taken up of leftover.
See, the thing is there wasn’t just enough, there was more
than enough.
Let that be a lesson for us.
