The Narrow Gate
Welcome to the continuation of my blog, post-seminary. Ministry and evangelism have brought me back home to Chattanooga. I welcome your company on my journey.
The original blog, Down In Mississippi, shared stories from 2008 and 2009 of the hope and determination of people in the face of disaster wrought by the hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, of work done primarily by volunteers from churches across America and with financial support of many aid agencies and private donations and the Church. My Mississippi posts really ended with the post of August 16, 2009. Much work, especially for the neediest, remained undone after the denominational church pulled out. Such is the nature of institutions. The world still needs your hands for a hand up. I commend to you my seven stories, Down in Mississippi I -VII, at the bottom of this page and the blog posts. They describe an experience of grace.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Day 601 - Where Do You Draw The Line
A sermon given at Mowbray Presbyterian Church, Mowbray, TN on August 3, 2014
Epistle Lesson: Ephesians 4:1-6
Gospel Lesson: Matthew 14:13-21 (Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17, John 6:1-15)
It is a positive reflection on Christian Education that most of us
learned the miracle story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 (Loaves and Fishes) early in life and it
sticks with us. On the other hand it has become such a common scripture that we
tend to overlook the truly significant part of the message this miraculous
feast reveals.
One of the reasons is often we do not read much of the surrounding
scripture to get the full picture of God’s relationship to humanity. In
reality, we need to read the whole bible to understand that relationship, but
we often take shortcuts.
One short cut is to use a single verse to make a point. This is often
called “using a ‘proof’ text” because the person using the quote is usually
trying to prove some particular interpretation, usually to the disadvantage of
someone else. It seldom works.
Since it is not really practical to search the whole Bible every time we
run into a question of meaning, we try to understand a problematic passage by
reading enough of the surrounding text to understand its context. I recommend
this strategy if you are having trouble understanding a passage: Go backwards and forward a few verses, or
pages if necessary, to see where the whole text is leading us relative to the
verses in question.
The main message in the miracle of feeding the 5,000 really isn’t about
Jesus performing miracles. The story of
the feast reveals the very high standard of discipleship and compassion for the
human condition Jesus expects from his disciples - and from us – since we all
are called to a common, unified task to spread the word about God’s redeeming
grace. Paul emphasized repeatedly that task demands intense unity among
believers. We are required to do the hard work to find compassionate
forbearance and charity towards everyone who thirsts for God’s grace, not just
towards our fellow believers. Christians are called to be Christ’s presence in
the world. We honor this duty when we put aside personal opinion and emotion
that causes us to nurture anger or indifference towards those who thirst for Christ’s
love but do it a little differently.
How do I get that message from this miracle of feeding the 5,000?
I expand the surrounding text. For example, if you look for all the
miracles common to all four Gospels, you would find only the feeding of the
5,000. important.
If we acknowledge that the Holy Spirit inspires and helps us interpret
Scripture, we cannot avoid the fact this feast very powerfully touches the very
core of what it means to say, “I am a Christian.” What exactly is it to be a
Christian?
Look at what Jesus and the disciples were doing before the great meal.
Matthew and Mark’s account are very similar; however, Mark accounts for the
nature and urgency of the ministry of Jesus and his disciples. Mark’s whole
Gospel leaves with us the message that the ministry of Jesus and disciples was
hard, demanding and urgent work. There was much to do and too little time to do
it; therefore, Jesus always acted in a way to magnify his action. So let’s see
how the magnification builds to the climax of the story.
The first three Gospels tell us two very important events preceded the
feeding of the 5,000. First, Jesus sent the disciples on a “trial run” called
“the mission of the twelve” (see also, Mark, Luke) to test their abilities. He sent them into the
countryside with nothing but the clothes on their back and their sandals. They
were to speak to everyone but preach only to those who were receptive and
welcomed them in their homes. They were not to argue but leave alone the ones
who refused to listen or offer hospitality.
By the time the disciples return from the mission they were exhausted
but had to begin again dealing with the crowds around Jesus. It is a very hard
job to be a disciple. Recall Jesus preached to the poor, the hungry, the
outcasts, the imprisoned, sinners of Roman and Hebrew societies. Jesus expects
these disciples to master compassionate response to everyone, including the
hostile and the outcasts in order to find and minister to those who thirsted
for healing grace. And, while being welcomed into someone’s home when you are
carrying no food is a blessing, being welcomed into the home of someone who may
be almost as destitute as you may give small benefit to a hungry stomach.
This mission is significant itself. Luke suggests Jesus knows he has
taught the disciples all his knowledge and this mission is the last on the
journey to Jerusalem and the cross. And, both Mark and Luke tell us after this
great feast Jesus told the disciples about his impending death. Perhaps this
feast done by the man Jesus who must grieve over his impending death yet be
overjoyed by his disciple’s success presages the Lord’s Supper?
The other important preceding event was the execution of John the
Baptist by order of Herod. Mark and Matthew tell us on their return to Jesus
the disciples bring this news to Jesus.
Luke says John is the cousin of Jesus, probably a childhood friend or as
I would suggest, bosom buddies. John the Baptist also heralds Jesus’ divinity
in the first three Gospels. The Gospel of John says the Baptizer proclaims that
Jesus will take away the sins of the world as a sacrificial lamb, that is,
Jesus will be a sacrifice. The death of cousin John surely weighed heavy on the
heart of Jesus both as the loss of a great relative and as a reminder of his
journey towards his crucifixion.
But there is more in this story. Not only does Jesus see his disciples
exhausted from their work, he is in the same situation. He is known throughout
the countryside. Every where he goes is beset by the poor, sick, downtrodden
looking for grace, the curious and those looking to trap him. Have you ever been panhandled? Imagine that
everywhere you go, every destitute person recognizes you and runs up pleading,
“Please help me!” and your compassion forces you to help them. It will wear you
out.
Mark says (6:31) Jesus and the disciples are so busy with these crowds
that “many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat.” In all this exhaustion from the mission of
the twelve and grief over the death of John, they worked with the crowds so
intensely that they could not even stop to eat themselves.
So an exhausted Jesus stands here by the sea listening to his exhausted
disciples tell him of all the good and bad news with a crowd calling for him in
the background. Who would not be so struck with grief with this news that they
would welcome a chance to just sit down and rest,…or cry with a very heavy
heart?
And so, here on the shore of the Sea of Galilee among this turmoil,
Jesus finally says what you and I are already thinking, “Lets get in a boat and
sail away from here to a quiet, abandoned place on the other shore and a little
rest.”
What happens? The crowd sees them embark and everyone sets off on foot
along the shoreline following Jesus and the disciples to the place they
disembark.
When Jesus gets out of the boat he looks out at the crowd already
present there. We all know it is shorter to follow a diameter than the
circumference of a circle, so this crowd must have raced around the shoreline
with urgency.
Now we reach the climax of the story. Jesus looks out over this crowd of
miserable humanity, sick, crippled, possessed by demons, schemers, the whole
slice of human misery, and what does he feel? Matthew says he had great
compassion for them. Mark is even more pointed (6:34), “He had compassion for
them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach
them many things.”
“This exhausted, grief-stricken Jesus “had compassion for them because
they were like sheep without a shepherd and he began to teach them many things.”
We miss the power of this story in English. This one little word
translated “had compassion,” is the entire key to the story. It really means
“gut wrenching compassion,” but today we might say heart rending compassion.
The Gospel writers, or perhaps more accurately, the Holy Spirit that
inspired these writing, carefully reserved the use of this word to describe the
divine compassion of God represented in Jesus. It is used only to describe the
reaction of Jesus to crowds of sin-sick sinners seeking healing.
Only two instances in the entire four Gospels use this deep compassion
for one human towards another, both are parables of Jesus. One is the Good
Samaritan on his way back from Jerusalem who saw a man robbed and left for dead
beside the road and had compassion for him. The other is the father of the
prodigal son who espied his son on the road coming home a broken man and the
father felt this heart rending compassion towards him. If you have a child you
can imagine the joy and at the same time painful compassion over a son who
suffered so due to his own pride but remained tied by love to his parent. Jesus
tells us it is impossible to have too much compassion towards another human
whether he is your son or a stranger in a ditch, perhaps lying in wait to rob
you.
The two parables reveal a compelling expectation of us to have the
compassion that Jesus had at the feast. The message in this story is not the
miracle. The message is the feast of compassion is open to everyone who seeks
grace.
When the disciples say evasively, “there are so many people and nothing
to eat, let us send them away to get something to eat in spite of the fact they
are in the desert(!), what did Jesus tell the disciples? “You give them
something to eat,” (How tired and hungry you are is not the point is left
unstated but implied.)
You want us to give something to eat to the robber who probably wants to
rob us, to the fellow with leprosy who is ritually unclean, to the morally
degenerate that we loathe, even to the Pharisees who seek to trap and kill
you? Jesus didn’t put any qualifiers on
it, he just said, “Feed my sheep.”
I can’t speak for you. But my take on this is that following Jesus is
not living on easy street. You need heart rending compassion that nurtures
forbearance, patience and even charity towards those seeking grace whom you
dislike or disagree with over matters of religious interpretation. That is a
tall order under which we all chafe.
In my last sermon I talked about how the bad things of this world happen
to good people. Today at this feast at a shared table, Jesus has turned the
world upside down. Jesus tells us what good people do for someone in desperate
straights. Jesus demands unqualified compassion towards those seeking Grace
even when our inner feelings want us to do otherwise.
There is a high cost to discipleship. Paul captures the idea, “I know
the right thing, but I persist painfully in doing the wrong thing.” Doing the
right thing is a painful struggle.
Understandably, you might say, Well Pastor Henry, it is a nice
theoretical concept, but we are humans like Paul, we can’t help it.
I could remind you that also we have to heed Paul’s reminder to his
congregations about unity but I won’t for a minute. Paul said some of us are
smart, some skilled, some rich, some well situated, some struggle but bring a
great talent to the church, some struggle with a sin finding it hard if not
impossible to change but they give of themselves to the congregation as much as
they can. We are all struggling sinners but we are all called as parts of the
body of Christ, each bringing that special gift God calls us to bring. Paul
said unity of the congregation is the most valuable and divine thing we can
possess to keep those parts working right. Unity is sharing the compassion of
Jesus with those whom we may differ but share the same grace. Paul said you
only become a sanctified person by working at it every day, like a distance
runner in training.
This feast of Jesus tells us we cannot feed this flock of unruly sinners
without a shepherd who seek grace unless we have patience with them, unless we
find heart felt divine compassion to see everyone as a child of God not a
minion of Satan; unless we are ready for the hard work when we see some child
of God in need, and unless we don’t wait or pray for Jesus to do something, but
rather do as Jesus says, “You feed them.” We should all strive constantly to
attain the heart full of compassion because we do not hold it securely. In that
heart there is only room for love, patience and charity towards the sheep
without a shepherd.
I said earlier “I could remind you about unity of purpose,” but perhaps
I don’t need to. By happenstance I bumped into somebody who knows your
congregation and they said, “Those folks at Mowbray Presbyterian Church are really
nice people and take good care of each other.”
Keep on training for the long distance run to glory, and feed his sheep.
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