A meditation on Mark 8:1-21...offered in worship 2/5/12.
1.
They’re anxious, remember, rattled;
they’re bickering because they’ve gone off on retreat without enough to eat. Twelve of them, let’s say, and a single stale
loaf of bread. Probably been sitting in
their little rickety boat for days. A
single stale loaf. Hardly seems enough
for their extended retreat. So one
blames another, eyes are rolling, fingers wagging, others gossip on the side:
clearly someone blew an assignment, someone’s got to be responsible. That’s the vibe in their little circle. That’s how it is when resources seem scarce,
budgets stretched thin. The community
perceiving scarcity is so often overcome by anxiety. And instead of imagining new ways to feed
thousands, instead of envisioning new opportunities to serve, Jesus’ disciples
are finding fault with one another.
Blaming one another. The
community perceiving scarcity—so often overcome by anxiety.
And Jesus, well, frankly Jesus sounds
kind of disappointed here, exasperated: “Don’t you see the point of all this?”
he asks. “Remember the five loaves I
broke for the five thousand? How many
baskets of leftovers did you pick up that day?”
And the disciples look around the circle, then back into their own little
laps. “Twelve,” says one of them. “And just now,” Jesus says. “When we had seven loaves for the four
thousand—how many bags full of leftovers did you get?” Again, a pause, a sheepish, reluctant
pause. “Seven,” says another. Jesus lets the words settle, words and
memories, baskets of leftovers, bags of broken bread. “Then what’s with all the fussing?” he
asks. “Do you still not get it?”
So often we read this story—this
feeding of the hungry thousands—as mere miracle, as divine intervention, right,
Jesus against the odds, Jesus against the grain. Jesus being Jesus, and that kind of
thing. There’s not much for us to do,
really, except bow to a wonder-worker and beg him for another miracle now and
then. And God knows we can all use a miracle now and then.
But Mark has something else in
mind, something else entirely. Parenthetically,
this is why it’s so important for us to know the Bible and study the
Bible. Because you read Mark’s whole
narrative, these twenty-one verses, and you get a very different message. In the end, this is not a fantasy about
divine intervention, but a teaching about abundance and discipleship. In the end, this is a teaching about our
temptation to turn Jesus into a
wonder-worker; about how often we miss the deeply personal and profoundly ethical
content of Jesus’ ministry. Abundance
and discipleship!
This is a story about getting it,
or not; about following Jesus into the lives of the hungry, or not; about
choosing to share generously and trust abundantly, or not. “Don’t go chasing after guarantees, miracles,
holy rollers,” Jesus says. “Remember
what happened out there—with just those seven loaves.” There’s enough love. There’s enough compassion. And there’s enough bread. If you bless it. If you share it. If you bless it by sharing it. Remember what happened out there. That’s
what this is all about.
So there’s some economics going on
here. In Jesus’ ministry. In Jesus’ teaching. And I want to remind you of the meaning of
that word, the roots of the word ‘economics.’
It derives from two Greek words, biblical words: ‘oikos’ meaning household, and ‘nomos’
meaning order or organization.
Oiko-nomics—‘economics’—has to do with the ordering or the organizing of
a household. And Jesus is very
interested in how the human household, the human community is organized. Who’s included, who’s excluded and why. Who’s deprived of resources, food, shelter,
and why. How are the good gifts of a
gracious God shared and blessed, managed and enjoyed. Life should be a sacrament, an embodied
mystery, a feast for all. And Jesus is
very interested in how that works.
Oiko-nomics. Economics.
2.
I want to say a little more about
that and how it bears on our discipleship.
But first a little detour, a detour that relates, I think.
Now, I don’t know what other
delegates were expecting, but I was kind of subdued that afternoon. Bethlehem is occupied territory, after all,
and it felt that way to me.
Occupied. We’d passed through the
towering cement security wall to get in.
Young Israeli guards with huge machine guns had boarded the bus to check
us out. The youth center itself was
plastered with graffiti on a noisy city street. And just a block away—one of Palestine’s
largest and oldest refugee camps—one I’d visited three years before—a labyrinth
of busted buildings and broken glass and bullet holes.
So I climbed to the top floor of
that unremarkable building in a pretty unremarkable part of town—with low
expectations. It just seemed depressing
to me. A world of broken glass, deferred
dreams and unending despair. I expected
sad people in a sad place.
And then! And then, those twelve young Palestinians
started to dance. And they danced for us.
And there was energy and fire.
And there was rhythm and passion.
And arms and legs and elbows.
Young men and young women moving confidently, keeping time gladly. Their faces alive with sweat and joy and all
kinds of hope for their future. Behind
them, a huge Palestinian flag: red, black and green, hanging proudly from one
end of the room to the other.
The whole thing had kind of a
‘RIVERDANCE’ feel to it, but something else too. There was something sacramental about the way they danced, something tender and defiant
at the same time. ‘We know who we are,’
they seemed to say, every step, every move, every beat. ‘We are the living. We are the future. We are—children of God.’ Rhythm and passion, arms and legs and
elbows. It was an extraordinary
afternoon.
I’m watching these kids dance, I’m
watching them honor their bodies and their gifts and their spirits that
way. And my jaw is just hanging all the
way to the floor and back. It was like a
great feast, a holy communion, abundance beyond imagining, abundance and
reverence and grace! What twelve kids
can do with their bodies! What twelve
kids can do with gratitude! What twelve
kids can do in an occupied land, with all kind of reasons to give up, in the
long shadows of so many walls. When it
was over, when they had danced for us and we had sung for them, we asked about
their futures, what was ahead. And one
young woman, I’ll never forget her, one young woman said, calmly and
decisively: “Whatever happens, I will be a leader here. I will be a leader for my people.”
I think about that afternoon all
the time. I think about that young
woman, living in Bethlehem, dancing in occupied Palestine, dancing with her
friends. And I’m reminded: There’s enough love. There’s enough compassion. There’s enough bread, enough energy, enough
power. If only we bless it. All of it.
If only we share it. All of
it. That’s what that dance, that’s what that
youth group was all about. And they made
a believer out of me.
And I have to believe that’s what today’s
story, that’s what discipleship is all
about. “Do you still not get it?” Jesus
asks. “Do you still not get it?”
3.
It’s worth noticing how this whole
story begins. The first couple of verses
in chapter eight. Jesus again finds
himself in a hungry crowd—it’s where Jesus so often is, where Jesus chooses to
be. He takes the disciples with him, and
he calls them together, and he says to them: “This crowd is breaking my
heart.” This crowd is breaking my heart.
He does not say, ‘I’m tired of this crowd and their neediness. Let’s get out of here.’ He does not
say, ‘I’m overwhelmed by systemic poverty, all these hungry children, how
powerless we are to fix it. Let’s get
out of here.’ What Jesus says out there,
in the wilderness, finding himself in another hungry crowd is just: “This crowd
is breaking my heart.”
Everything that follows—Jesus
taking seven loaves and giving thanks for them, Jesus blessing the couple of
fish they have and handing them out in pieces, this economic vision of enough
for all—everything that follows follows from compassion. Jesus is the Son of God because his heart
breaks in a hungry crowd. Jesus is the
Son of God because his heart knows there’s a better way. Jesus is the Son of God because blessing
means sharing and Jesus does both.
There’s enough love. There’s
enough compassion. There’s enough
bread. Jesus says bring it on. And please, please, please, pay attention. Don’t miss how important this is.
4.
This hits home for me, just this
week, in a couple of ways. First, we
have our seven loaves of bread, our opportunities to bless the poor and
cultivate compassion right here at FCC. We
can throw up our hands in despair, as the disciples are tempted to do, or we
can share what we have, go ‘all in’ with gratitude. But we have
our seven loaves.
Just this week, we were again
approached about joining six other churches in reconstituting a rotating
shelter for ten homeless women and their children. And we can do that. We can step forward as partners with these
other congregations and as neighbors to ten hungry families. Is there any doubt that we have the hearts,
the hands, the compassion to do just that?
We are so blessed, so richly blessed.
Now some might wonder if helping just
ten women, one night a week, is really going to make a difference; and I’ll
suggest it’ll make a difference to them, to their children. Every night they’re here. Every meal they eat with us. And who knows where the ripples of generosity
end? We just begin with our seven
loaves. We just begin with the choices
available to us. We just begin by giving
thanks to God for the gifts available in a church like this one. Isn’t that the kind of church we all want? The kind of church that goes ‘all in’ with
gratitude. The kind of church that turns
seven loaves into a feast for thousands.
And there’s just another thing on
my mind this morning. And that’s the
ordination we’re hosting next Sunday for our friend Yael Lachman. Yael first sat down in one of our old pews,
maybe six years ago. Her heart was
alive, open, even breaking in places.
Breaking in love. Breaking in
hope. She wanted to believe there was a
church, a community of Christ, somewhere for her. So she sat down in a pew and listened. And she reached out to share peace and
receive it. And she found, among you, a
God of tenderness and grace, a God of passion and fearlessness. I’ll never forget Yael’s baptism in this very
place. Many of you gathered round.
And because she found grace here,
because she believed you when you told her you loved her, Yael knew she could
pursue a dream, her dream of ministry, a dream she’d first dreamed as a very
young person. Her time had come. So she went to seminary, in Berkeley; she
prepared for the call she knew was coming; and then she listened, listened to congregations
near and far; shared her dream with them and listened some more. And yes, just last week, Yael Lachman—our
friend—accepted a call to be the Senior Minister at First Congregational Church
in Bridgton, Maine. How about that? When a community of disciples share
everything they have, when a church of believers turns it all loose in love,
when Jesus’ friends bring forth those seven loaves of bread, all kinds of
things are possible. In every imaginable
way, Yael Lachman is a living sign of that.
A living sign of grace.
So this morning, this very morning,
in our hearing, in our hearts, Jesus says to us, to all of us at First
Congregational Church in Santa Cruz: “Do you still not get it?” Sure, he’s a little exasperated, but mostly
he’s egging us on. Mostly, he’s urging
us to believe in the power of love.
Mostly, he’s inviting us to see the opportunities, the amazing
opportunities before us. God’s economy!
Jesus says. The economy of grace. The economy of creation. The sacramental economy of abundance and
justice for all. “Don’t you see the
point of all this?” Always a teacher,
always a provocateur, always coming at us with a question. “Don’t you see the point of all this?”
‘Remember the five loaves I broke
for the five thousand. Remember the
seven loaves we shared with the four thousand.
Live abundantly. Believe
generously. Share everything. Because there is enough love. And there is enough compassion. And there is enough bread. If only we bless it. If only we share it. If only we bless it by sharing it.’
