Sermon for August 2nd

For those of you who remember, I skipped over the gospel lesson last Sunday in order to focus on lessons that talked about the gifts that God has given you for ministry. If you don’t remember that, might I suggest that one of your gifts might NOT be having a good memory. In any case, this week’s gospel lesson builds on last week’s so I’ve got to give you a quick summary of what happened in the story in order to get you up to speed.

Jesus was traveling with his disciples and was being followed by a large crowd of people. About five thousand people in all the story says. Jesus asked one of his disciples, Phillip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” Phillip admitted that six month’s wages would not be enough to feed everyone. Andrew, however, did find one boy with two fish and five loaves of barley bread. “But what are they among so many people?” He asked.

After Jesus had everyone sit down, he took the five loaves and gave it to everyone, along with the fish, and everyone ate, all five thousand of them. . . AS MUCH AS THEY WANTED it says! Let me repeat that, just in case you weren’t paying attention. According to the story, five thousand people ate AS MUCH AS THEY WANTED! And from the fragments of the two fish and five loaves they filled twelve baskets full. One full pan of deviled eggs usually can’t last through an entire potluck here, but five thousand people ate five loaves of bread and had leftovers. Amazing.

But there is a definite difference between last week’s story and this week’s. First of all, God is a God of social justice, he wants people to be fed, loved, free and respected. God doesn’t turn a blind eye to the poor, the hungry, the homeless or the oppressed. Even though he probably knew his efforts might be misunderstood, Jesus didn’t send five thousand people away when they were hungry. However, while God is a God of justice Jesus never lets it take center stage in the story “Seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” he says, “and all these things will be added unto you.”

How might we, as God’s people, be radical in our efforts to feed the hungry while, at the same time, being just as radical in our efforts to feed people who are hungry for spiritual nourishment. Most of us are more comfortable doing one to the detriment of the other. You may even have a specific gift related to evangelism, or the gift of mercy, inviting those less fortunate into your home and into your heart. But all of us as Christians are called into relationships with people where they both need to hear about Jesus and need to find a place to eat. This is a universal Christian responsibility, not just to do one, but to do both.

Pope John Paul once referred to the “gospel of feeding the poor”, but it is critical to distinguish between what we mean by “gospel” and what is meant by “feeding the poor”. Even if every man, woman and child on the face of this planet were fed, nourished and free from hunger, this does not mean that they are free with respect to sin. Life on this earth does not equal eternal life. Feeding the poor is NOT the gospel, it is the law. Bread cannot free you from hunger forever. This is why, despite Jesus’ love and compassion for the hungry masses, despite his passion for social justice, today’s gospel lesson is not about filling people’s stomachs with bread but, instead, about filling peoples’ hearts with faith in the bread of life, Jesus Christ himself.

That brings us to today’s story. What you might call Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner: Part Two. The same crowd of people that followed Jesus before is still following him. The question is: why are they going through so much trouble? For you and I we might think, well that’s obvious isn’t it? They’ve just seen the power and majesty of Jesus Christ after all! Who wouldn’t follow him after a miracle like that? But Jesus tells them, and us, the truth behind the crowd and their actions: “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “you are looking for me NOT because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” In other words, when five thousand people were fed off of two fish and five loaves of bread, these people did not see this as a sign of Jesus’ divinity—they saw a free meal ticket. They saw Jesus as a walking, talking free buffet line and they were lining up to partake once again.

You know these types of people. Perhaps you are this type of person. How many times do we pray to God to get us out of a big jam (just this once!) and then we’ll start going to church, or start praying or start acting more “Christian-like” only to let the moment pass without anything changing in our lives or in our hearts. “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “You are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” It appears that the crowd in the story DIDN’T actually SEE the signs. Well, they saw the sign saying “Free Buffet!”, but they didn’t really SEE who Jesus was and couldn’t appreciate what was actually happening.

We keep asking Jesus for money to pay our mortgage, or a better relationship with our spouse, or for the government to focus more on our favorite social issue. But how often do you pray for a closer relationship to God? Jesus says, “Do not continue working for the food that dies, that perishes, but work for the food that endures, the food that lives and continues all the way into eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”

The crowd asks Jesus, “What must we do then to perform the works of God?” Jesus says, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” They don’t have to DO anything—it’s a gift.

It’s hard to believe that something like eternal life or forgiveness could possibly be a gift, something given and not worked for. A few months ago, my wife and I were staying up late and she had to call customer service about a problem with a bill. She was being kind, but direct, about getting a refund that we expected to receive. After forty-five minutes of not winning this battle I felt the need to throw in MY two cents. But once I was on the telephone and felt that all of my rational arguments were not winning the day, I started getting really frustrated and angry and mean. When my rant was over, the guilt flowed over me like water pouring down from Kent Falls. Kristy’s eyes were big and I just started feeling sick to my stomach. I told the woman that I was sorry and then handed the phone back to Kristy while I began beating up on myself.

After berating myself both out loud and within my own mind for being an awful person, an awful pastor, and an awful Christian, my wife told me that she forgave me and reminded me that Jesus forgave my sins as well. He didn’t die for perfect people, but for sinners. And what did I do with that free gift of forgiveness and love? Well, I kept beating up on myself of course.

This is called penance, and even though the Lutheran Reformers thought they put it to rest in the 16th century, my own heart and mind dig it out of its grave all too often. Penance means that you can only trust God’s forgiveness if you do a little work first, say a few Hail Mary’s say a few Lord’s prayers, do community service, that type of thing. Doing the work is thought to help you know that you are truly sorry and, thus, truly forgiven. But, in fact, it only makes you trust in your own work rather than in God’s word of forgiveness.

After doing such a horrible thing on the phone, I wanted to do something, earn God’s forgiveness, so that I felt that I deserved it. But no matter how much you beat yourself up, you don’t deserve forgiveness any more than before. Jesus points out quite clearly, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one that was sent.” If you are still beating yourself up for some sin along the way: feel free to stop and believe that Jesus Christ died for that sin too. Yes, he died for even you, though you do not and never will deserve it.

In one of my favorite movies, Bruce Almighty, there is a man, played by Jim Carey, named Bruce, who feels like God hates him because God doesn’t give him everything he wants. God, played by Morgan Freeman, decides to let Bruce be God for awhile and try to answer the prayers of everybody asking for miracles each day. Bruce decides to just answer “yes” to every prayer request (there are so many after all). Within a week, everything is messed up. In one of the last lines of the film, God says this, “A single mom who's working two jobs, and still finds time to take her son to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager who says "no" to drugs and "yes" to an education, that's a miracle. People want me to do everything for them. What they don't realize is THEY have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.”

Today, this week, this month, this year, be radical in your passion for social justice. Work at it. Don’t just pray for a miracle from the Jesus Christ buffet line, pray and then BE the miracle. But when it comes to your salvation, take a vacation. Stop working and receive as a free gift that which is more important than anything else you could ever work for, the gift of forgiveness that is yours in Jesus Christ. Amen.