Unimaginable Abundance – 6 August 2017 – 9th Sunday after Pentecost/ Lectionary 18

Jesus was host for a meal that showed God's love. This meal was also about God's justice. Sometimes we make an unholy separation between God's love and God's justice. The church caring for others is what we often call charity. We are expressing God's love, we say—believing that all we can do is pick up the pieces of broken humanity after the world has had its way.

But the church's life throughout history has also altered economic arrangements. It happened as the early church brought rich and poor together for weekly communion. It happened as religious orders were formed. It happened as a result of the Reformation. It happened in the twentieth century through Jane Addams' settlement houses in Chicago, Dorothy Day's hospitality in New York's Bowery, and through Martin Luther King, Jr. and the bus boycott in Montgomery. People of faith said, “It doesn't have to be this way. There is another way for us to live and work together.”

. . . Economics comes from a word in the Bible. In the Greek the word is oikonomia—the law or management of the household. Economics in the Bible deals with the question, “Will everyone in the household get what it takes to be human and live a full life?” Western economics defines economics in another way—“the art of allocating scarce goods among competing demands” (Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post-Industrial Society). Our most basic assumption is that there is. . . not enough to go around. The church is called by the Bible to live and organize its economics out of a different basic assumption—the sure faith that God is willing and is providing whatever is necessary for all.

Scarcity is not the starting point, because in almost all situations of human life scarcity has been caused by human injustice. The starting point of God's economics is the distribution of what is necessary for life in the creation. – Stephen C. Kolderup

Matthew 14:13-21

In a way that evokes a Eucharistic celebration, Jesus takes, blesses, breaks, and gives to the disciples, who then distribute [the loaves and fish] to the crowd. The crowd eats to their satisfaction as the disciples collect twelve baskets of leftovers.

Besides making the connections to Eucharist, there is a lesson here about the abundance of God that overwhelms what we need to be satisfied. – Andrew Keck

Isaiah 55:1-5 

Wisdom cries out “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters...” This is the great invitation to feast on the super abundance of mercy from the one who sees beyond all the things we think we know. The Holy One wants to make a covenant with creation. The desire for a promised kinship is given to everyone “who thirsts.” Who is not part of that crowd?

For those who think perhaps they do not thirst, the prophet has a question designed to make all of us consider our priorities: “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” It can be a jolt when we answer this question honestly.

I have a little sign on my refrigerator: What we love to do, we find time to do. It stares at me every day and makes me admit that what I love is often not bread and does not satisfy. Isaiah reminds us about living our lives on a deeper level than we can often manage, but the opportunity and the invitation is always there. – Melinda Quivik

Romans 9:1-5

This text from Paul's letter to the Romans is part of a larger section that considers God's election of Israel. Today's text is the introduction expressing Paul's deep confusion and concern for his fellow Israelites. Paul's anguish is so great that in the third verse, he expresses a willingness to trade his own salvation for the sake of “my own people.”

Stunned that the majority of his kinfolk of Israel are unmoved and unconvinced of Jesus as the Messiah. . . it pains him that this particular group of people, who should be closest to the heart of God, instead may be in fact excluded from salvation that comes from believing the Gospel. – Andrew Keck

“Ho, everyone who thirsts! Come!”

Andrew Keck, a deacon in the United Methodist Church, is the Director of Library Services and Institutional Effectiveness at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Stephen C. Kolderup is a pastor serving South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church in Florida.

Homily Service 41, no. 3 (2008): 128-137.

Miracles of Bread and Water – 26 July 2015 – Lectionary 17/ Proper 12

“The love of Christ,” Paul writes, “surpasses knowledge...” In other less elegant words, it is not with cognitive powers that we can take in the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 hungry followers of Jesus or understand the story of Jesus walking on the water. These astonishing images become fruitful for us when the eyes of our hearts are opened to mystery.

God’s Word means to make us shiver, to experience awe, to grasp what is beyond our abilities. No wonder people who do not enter into Christian fellowship (or that of other faiths!) find us a bit off-center. What we take in as narratives of hope and joy sound simply preposterous.

Let us rejoice this day in the sheer enormity of what God’s Word holds out to us as nourishment. Let the preacher name some of the many daily miracles that abound in our current lives, in the midst of the congregation. Where is hope emerging? Where is love making itself plain?

John 6:1-21

The common theme of the two stories is the response of the people who receive a gift of grace from Jesus. In the first story, Jesus meets the physical needs of the crowd by providing an abundance of food from a very limited supply. The crowd responds by trying to draft Jesus into their preconceived status quo notions of power structures. From this, Jesus withdraws. In the second story, Jesus meets the needs of the disciples by rescuing them from a storm at sea, and calming their fears of the unknown. The disciples respond by welcoming Jesus into their presence without condition or expectation. In doing so, Jesus does in fact join the disciples in the boat, rather than withdrawing as he did with the crowd. Following Jesus' lead, rather than insisting Jesus follow our lead, is the way we sustain our relationship with the Good Shepherd. – Stephen H. Fazenbaker

2 Kings 4:42-44

Reflecting the Great Multiplication in John 6, this short lection in 2 Kings recounts Elisha's miracle of feeding one hundred people with twenty loaves of barley and an indeterminate amount of grain from one sack. Although the miracle is in no way similar in scope to Jesus' feeding of the five thousand, we are reminded that God has always provided for us, and we may trust that God's provision, both physical and spiritual, is eternal. – Stephen H. Fazenbaker

Ephesians 3:14-21

Beginning a lection with “For this reason” automatically prompts a question: is the author saying, “because of the reason I just gave,” or “because of the reason I am about to give you”? If we were working through the entire letter, we would have to spend time on this question; however, for our purposes, we will trust that the lection we have been assigned is inclusive, and therefore the latter is the answer to our question. In fact, verses 14–19 comprise one sentence in the Greek, so we are safe in our assumption. If we substitute the word “pray” for “bow my knees” in verse 14, and read “I pray that …” as “I pray so that …” in verse 16, the meaning of the long opening sentence of this lection becomes clear; and when we consider the lection as a whole, we discover a prayer in the form of a traditional collect, containing all of the traditional elements: the address to God (v 14, “Father”); the attributes of God on which the prayer is based (v 15); the petition (vv 16–19a); the intended result of the petition (v 19b); and the final doxology (vv 20–21). – Stephen H. Fazenbaker

Steven H. Fazenbaker is director of the Wesley Foundation at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Homily Service 42, no. 3 (2009): 88-99.

Five Loaves & Two Fish – 3 August 2014 – Lectionary 18

Isaiah 55:1-5; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

Bringing together the kernel of each of these scripture readings, we find a challenging assertion: We believe and live, for the most part, as if we have nothing much and what we do have is not of much use because it is not enough. Yet, the truth of God’s power resident in our midst, is that we have a huge over-abundance, enormous gifts, already given to us by God and blessed for us to share.

The question preachers can always fruitfully ask is this: What is the risen one doing in the assembly by means of these texts?

Here, the story of Jesus’ feeding so many with so little pulls us toward a new understanding of creation as a gift filled with gifts.

Matthew 14:13-21

Even as he grieves the loss of John, his baptizer, cousin, and friend, Jesus turns to others, healing and feeding, blessing and even chastising (“… you give them something to eat.”)

 Actually, there are two meals laid side by side in this chapter [of Matthew], two contrasting meals. First was the birthday feast at Governor Herod’s palace. A gathering that features overindulgence and grasping for power is the setting for scheming and revenge—and the host orders the beheading of John the Baptist. In the next scene, we are with Jesus amidst a sick and hungry multitude and we see care and provision: the host sets a table for all . . .

The starting point of God’s economics is the distribution of what is necessary for life in the creation. God is love. And God also wills to set things right that are out of balance—to turn things around rightwise so that no one is left out. In today’s story, the pretense of scarcity is not tolerated by Jesus as the starting point for economics. The righteousness of God creates the justice that enables the five thousand to share loaves and fishes (M. Douglas Meeks, God the Economist [Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1989], 174).

–– The Rev. Stephen C. Kolderup, Interim Pastor, South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church, Jacksonville, Florida

  

Isaiah 55:1-5

 ‘‘Ho, everyone who thirsts come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!’’ Part of the very evangelical reason that the Lord’s supper need be celebrated in each church on the Lord’s day is this invitation. It’s a remarkable thing really. Regardless of class, gender, race, nationality, ethnic persuasion, on any given Lord’s day people may gather and eat without buying. This is of course rooted in the character of who Jesus is. The evangelical presentation Sunday by Sunday is just this: The table is spread; come and eat; come to the waters. All are invited, and any one can. What matters is that this presentation of the table, Christ, tangible grace, his church, and a new life with the people, are presented and offered each Sunday.

––John E. Smith

Perhaps the best question for this day is one that points to the fundamental fears that keep us individually and as communities from living in a way that enriches us.

God is offering such abundant goodness, what keeps us from receiving these gifts with open arms? Why spend money for that which is not bread? Why labor for that which does not satisfy?

––The Rev. Beth Herrinton-Hodge, Presbyterian minister

Romans 9:1-5

Paul’s anguished words tell of his sorrow that those he most desires to be bound to the Christ he knows are not, in fact, coming to see the way he sees. He speaks “in Christ.” This is a power position but not one that may conjure up more in our time than a distasteful top-down authority. Paul’s desire is that something might penetrate the people’s inability to enter into the gifts.

What are those gifts? They are adoption as the people of God, glory, covenants, the law, worship and God’s promises, the patriarchs and the Messiah. This list is another way to see the abundance of life on earth in God’s keeping. The church stands as witness to these things.

Quotes are from Homily Service 41, no. 3 (3 August 2008): 128-137