Kendall's Notebook, Page 55
Title: Enough for All
Text: John 6: 1-21
Date: July 30, 2006
By: Kendall H Brown
The reading of today’s story about Jesus’ feeding the multitude is one of those readings that has many affects on me whenever I revisit the story. Like a holiday morning – Christmas or Thanksgiving – the story brings to my mind a flood of memories.
One of those memories is that of my mother who lived with the philosophy that there is always room for one more. And there always was. The majority of our meals – especially supper – were eaten with company at the table. Some of the guests had been invited days ahead of time. Many of the guests arrived a half hour before supper and my mother would simply add a couple place settings to the table. No problem. There was always more than enough.
This reading brings a memory of a moment when the behavior of a parishioner embarrassed me and many other parishioners. That memory and embarrassment lives on many years later. We were having a supper at the church as we often did to raise money. One night, making money became more important than being church. The supper was going full-swing. A homeless person showed up at the door wanting something to eat. At the door was a card table where tickets were being sold. The person selling tickets would not let the man in and turned him away. Sometimes just a little elasticity combined with a pinch of charity is all that it takes to make sure that the church when gathered is the church and acts like one. That flexibility wasn’t present and because of it the church received a black eye that it lived with for quite a long time. There was more than enough in the kitchen that night. But sometimes it takes something more than just the presence of more than enough. In this case, there were plenty of people waiting on tables and working in the kitchen, who if it had been there turn to sell tickets, the man would have been simply given a ticket and shown to a seat.
Sometimes it is hard to imagine what the problem is here. There is plenty of food. We have plenty of stuff. And we believe, or at least we say we believe, that if we are faithful God will provide. So what was missing in the ticket taker’s heart that night? Why couldn’t that person simply pick up a ticket from the card table, hand it to the migrant worker who turned up that night hungry and said “Sir here is a ticket, You are welcome here.” Why did a man go out into the world hungry for a church where there was plenty of food and that night in the business of latterly feeding people?
I think that we have all known those moments - where some inflexibility has made us stumble. We know those times when instead of being the Good Samaritan we have been the scribe, walking to the other side of the road.
Knowing that a lot of people can really put themselves on guilt trips when they hear a sermon like this, I am going to digress a little – add to the message a bit of a footnote – which by itself could be a whole sermon.
What quickly comes to mind is that guilt trip that can grip our hearts by simply walking by a beggar on the street asking for change. The simplest solution to this is if you know you are going someplace where beggars abound and you know walking by them and looking the other way puts you on a guilt trip, then carry some spare change specifically for hand out purposes when the need arises and give it to the beggars. That way you will take care or your guilt urges and you will be giving the beggar all that is being asked of you. Buddy can you spare me a dime.
The beggar is not asking you to be a good Samaritan in the first place. Remember the story of the Good Samaritan. In the original story the good Samaritan does not give a dime to a buddy beside the road. He picks up the man, takes him to a hotel, pays the bill and gives the desk clerk his phone number in case the beaten man needs more help or a couple more nights to heal. The good Samaritan took the man off the street and put him into the care system that he needed to be restored to his life. Most beggars by the street who say Buddy can you spare me a dime only want that from you.
There are still reasons for our consciences to be pricked by the presence of beggars on our street. A world where hunger exists, a world where all across the board, there is enough, the problem is that enough for all gets spread around, is a world that challenges us. We need to be good Samaritans on other levels, working for and supporting social change that enables enough for all.
I can’t preach this message this morning without being reminded of an appeal that we have heard about today. We have been asked to collect school supplies for Vanderburgh County students as the time comes for them to return. The call for us to be good Samaritans is on two different levels. First, let us take care of our children, their immediate needs, collect an abundance of supplies and send them off with our children. The second level is to the political level – or the organized level. There is just plain something wrong about a school system which is a part of a wider system that can’t produce pencils and paper for its students.
If we want to feel guilty about not being good enough good Samaritans, our guilt is misguided when we beat ourselves silly over not having a dime for a beggar. There is a larger call, one that is being avoided more and more by the growing tendency for Christians wanting to go to church and be entertained and not subject the political system to the light of Christian reflection in the process. That larger call is for us to operate as Good Samaritans in the political system working for the change that works towards there being enough for all.
Some of you may be wondering, “How do I get started?” Where can I plug in to a church based group that is working for justice and equality? For the past couple years here in Evansville, there has been a group emerging that is just the place. It is called CAJE, Congregation Acting for Justice and Equality. The group has made the news during the past few years and has had one very successful initiative and one that totally failed.
The successful effort was to bring a dental care program into the community for poor people. The unsuccessful program – in fact a complete bomb– was an effort to get the attention of the Vanderburgh County School System to even listen to the group.
CAJE’s proposal for the school system was about introducing a program to increase reading skills and reading test scores for under-privileged students in our system. The program is one that has worked with great success in other cities such as Louisville, but was unable to even get an ear in Evansville school system. If you would like to learn more about CAJE speak to me or a member of our Outreach Board. We have the info. And would love to share it.
In our class last Monday, we explored two different ways to read the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. At the heart of the two different approaches in the question, “What was the miracle that happened on that mountainside?” Was it miracle of sharing or the miracle of Jesus creating a pile of fish and bread out of one basket full.
For me it is hard to imagine that out of a crowd of 5000 people following Jesus around there was only one boy whose mother had enough sense to send him off for the day with a lunch. I think that in that crowd there were a lot of picnic baskets and a lot of knapsacks and a lot of Coleman coolers and water bottle bottles. Yes some folk may have forgotten to pack a lunch. But that didn’t matter. There was as Jesus know, and the little more, more than enough for all.
This story becomes much more important to me and has much more to say to me about how I am to live my faith, if I see the miracle not as some magical stunt that Jesus performed but as the miracle of sharing that Jesus’ presence and leadership opened the crowds hearts to.
God has given us more than enough. We diminish our faith and we diminish God’s presence in the world when we act as if we have anything less. Let us be thankful and generous for we do have more than enough.