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From the Pulpit:
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 The Rev. Margaret Waters |
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I’m
going to ask you all a very pointed question: How many of you all are fans
of Jesus? Now
here’s another: How many of you are followers of Jesus? There’s
a difference. Being a fan doesn’t make a single difference in our lives.
We can be fans of the Texas Rangers, of Justin Bieber, or Glee or crème
brulee or roller derby, but they don’t in the least change who we
fundamentally are. Being
a follower, on the other hand, is costly. It involves becoming vulnerable.
It involves a relationship with another person. It involves opening
ourselves to be transformed into the influence and likeness of the one we
follow. If we are truly followers of Jesus, then we are offering ourselves
to the possibility that we might in fact become more like Jesus. So, are
you a fan or are you a follower? The
story of the feeding of the multitude is so essential to the Christian
gospel that it is told six times in the New Testament. Some of the details
vary from telling to telling, but every one of the evangelists includes
it. Great crowds have followed Jesus and the disciples into the
wilderness, and the day has gotten late, and the disciples point out to
Jesus that these people have been here all day without eating and that he
should dismiss them so they can go into the nearby towns to
get some food. We all know what happens next. Jesus turns to them and
says, no, let them stay. You give them food to eat. Well,
we can just about see the expression on the disciples’ faces. They look
out at the five thousand men plus their wives and aunties and children and
they are struck by their poverty in the face of hunger. No, Lord, we only
have five loaves of bread and two fish. No, Lord, we can’t do your work
because we don’t have enough. Every
day we have 86,400 seconds in which to do what we have to do, and
haven’t you said – I have – I don’t have enough time? As we set
out to do all we have to do, don’t we get overwhelmed? What is on your
to-do list for the week? Is time with Jesus on it? I mean time apart from
the hour we spend in church, time to spend in the company of our savior,
the one we say we are following, the one we are emulating, the one we are
offering ourselves to for transformation. Time of prayer or meditation,
time of conscious service in his name, time of study or deep reading or
Christian fellowship. I let my priorities get topsy turvy, and especially
now in the age of way too much information and all the various ways that
we are technologically connected and of instantaneous communication, time
does get away from us. But can we really say we don’t have enough of it? George
Gurdjieff and Carl Jung were pioneers in soul work. Gurdjieff died in 1949
and Jung in 1961, but they both said that the pace of our lives in Western
culture along with our exterior focus will lead us to a place where we
lose touch with the soul and with the values of the soul. (1) 1949. 1961.
And think how much more slowly life moved back then. No Twitter. No
Internet. No smart phones. Now
you all know perfectly well that I am not preaching against technology. I
use it and enjoy it and participate in it, and it is a very useful tool
for many things, but I think it is the very excess of it that overwhelms
us and leaves us standing before our precious lives and saying, I don’t
have enough. No, Lord, we can’t feed your people because we don’t have
enough. No, Lord, I can’t do your work because I don’t have enough
time. Be honest. Do you have time to tweet? We
come at this story the way I watch the magicians on America’s Got
Talent. The lady who was in the box ends up in the tiger’s cage, and
I’m a little uneasy about where the tiger went, but what’s really
going through my mind is How did he do that? Scholars over the years have
come up with various ways of dealing with the miracle of feeding the
multitude. Some say Jesus really did it. That he essentially did a divine
abracadabra and five loaves of bread and two fish turned into plenty of
food for everyone and then some. Some say that the people had been
hoarding food that they had brought with them, and when Jesus asked them,
they decided to share. I’m sure there are other ways of explaining what
happened, but explanation isn’t the point. The
point is that if we are followers of Jesus, if we are his disciples, then
we can’t stand dumbfounded at his calling and say we don’t have
enough. Our God is the God of infinite abundance. When we say there
isn’t enough, we deny the very essence of our God, the God who has been
so generous with us. Richard
Foster says that the new tools of the devil are muchness and manyness and
noise and crowds and hurry. Think about it. Muchness, manyness, noise,
crowds, hurry. Where is there space for transformation in that? What
does transformation look like, and I’m talking about our transformation
as disciples of Jesus? It has to look like taking time to know him deeply
and intimately. It has to look like letting go of what we believe to be
our own inadequacies. It has to look like resetting our priorities,
choosing from the avalanche of what the present world offers us -- and
much of what it offers us is good, but it is just too much – choosing
what we will allow to occupy those 86,400 seconds a day.
What are we spending our time on? And how are we choosing? There’s
a whole lot to be said about this miracle story and a whole lot of ways to
say it, and I don’t want us to Let’s
be quiet for a moment. Let’s be present to this moment in this holy
space, this time in which we are in each other’s holy company, and
let’s not let our minds wander towards what we need to do when we leave.
Let’s not wish this moment away, but be present to it in gratitude
because presence is a kind of prayer. Mary
Oliver wrote a beautiful poem for just this day. It is called The
Summer’s Day. You probably know it. Who made the world? Amen.
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