The Eight Sunday after Pentecost - 2006

Seminarian Cathy Dempesy preached this sermon on her final Sunday at Saint Matthias Church, July 30, 2006.

Give it to the people and let them eat. They shall eat and have some left. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It was perfect. After Fr Dan and I decided I would preach one last time, I took a look at today’s readings and I laughed. FOOD. Abundance of food. I have eaten very well here Whether the annual meeting luncheon,  winter picnic, Cinco de Mayo, the party after the Easter Vigil, the breakfast pot lucks or the spread laid out each Sunday by Jean and her coffee hour teams, I have never gone hungry here at St. Matthias, Of course the text for my last “official internship sermon” would be about feeding! The food you have fed me has not just been the food to stave off physical hunger pangs—you have given me nourishment for my soul.

But I will come back to that. Let’s take a look at today’s Gospel.

each time I have preached here the text has been  from John’s Gospel. ..today is no exception. And it fits, for this Gospel does not shy away from abundant love—even in the face of fear and doubt. Clearly John wants us to hear loud and clear: God loves us. Me and You. And just when we think we have really done it, that finally God will give up on us, never love us again, there God is, arms open-wide ready to envelope us in heavenly grace, once more.

That’s what I hear in today’s Gospel: never ending, abundant love.

I hear Jesus getting worn out from his ministry. He just wants a breather—to get away for awhile from all the demands on him, from the people lunging to touch even the hem of his robes, the disciples who claim to hear but do not understand, from the plotting of those who would tear him down, from the burden of his mission—to just get away for awhile. He figures he will head to the mountains where people of his time hesitated to venture –fearful of what lay beyond the predictability and familiarity of their towns and villages. Surely he thought, I can grab a little respite out here. Instead, he is followed—not just by his disciples, but by a crowd of onlookers, some believers, some still needing convincing, others simply curious to see what the fuss was about. A throng of close to 5,000 in all.

Have you ever had a dinner party planned for 6 guests, yet somehow you end up with a few extra folks? These were the dinners when my mother would sidle up to us kids and whisper, “family hold back.”  [meaning there may not be enough, make sure our guests, even the uninvited ones, get their fill]. Of course Jesus couldn’t say that to the disciples because it appears they hadn’t brought any food either.

What to do? While everyone is grumbling a bit about how much it will cost to feed the crowd and lamenting that it is an impossible task one not even worth trying to accomplish, up comes a boy. He has a few barley loaves and some fish---dried, no doubt—probably the meager meal for a poor family—but he doesn’t weigh the pros and cons, he doesn’t worry that his offering isn’t good enough or that the task is impossible—he just offers it up. He lets go of his family’s food freely and from what we are told without doubt. The gift is almost refused. Andrew is full of doubt and worry—what good could this pittance of an offering do?

So what does Jesus do with that meager offering from the boy? He feeds 5,000. And there are leftovers!!!!!  It’s EXTRA. MORE THAN THEY NEEDED. After everyone had their fill the remainder was gathered up and there was MORE THAN WHAT THEY STARTED WITH.

There is more. And more. Our gifts can, in our minds or in the minds of others, be meager. But when we give them freely they are turned into plenty. And then some.

Abundance comes—here’s the paradox of faith-- when we give up. All that I am and all that I have is given to God. Not my will God. Yours. Not, how can we afford it, but how will we address this need, what will be our plan, how will we implement it? The people are here, they need to be fed, we must feed them lets look for a way.

Fr Dan addressed this very subject in the most recent issue of The Apostle:

“To be born from above is to receive our new life as Jesus received his life as a gift from the father. To be born from above is to live not grasping at life not in endless competition to get the most but in thankful openness to the gift of abundant life.” (The Apostle July/August 2006)

Thankful openness is hard. We often want to mold our gifts to fit what we think are our needs. This happened to Jesus. The people weren’t content to receive his gifts, they wanted to make him a king. They wanted to invest him with earthly power and riches. He wanted them (US!) to understand and accept that the riches came from above and are bestowed endlessly and without currency. He knew that the gift of abundance surrounded us, dwelt in us and could ooze from us—if only we would be open to accepting it. Just open to it—no qualifiers, no yes but God if you could just make it a little neater, easier and sweeter---just open. Here God is, arms outstretched and here we are, with a list of what size, color and shape we want the gift.

I have a dog, Scout. Mine was her fourth home and she was only 9 months old when I got her. In nine months she had been beaten, neglected, thrown away and forgotten. At first she was so happy to be in her forever home—all wiggles and tail wagging delight. But then she started to get nervous, she started to cower if I moved too suddenly or raised my voice.  Her puppy exuberance was tainted by the experience of anger—by the bitterness of others. She doubted me. It broke my heart. That’s how God must feel when we say in the shadow of those outstretched arms—no there isn’t enough. No it can’t be done. When we do that we are cowering. Philip and Andrew cowered. Peter, when he denied his Lord, cowered. On the boat The disciples cowered and trembled. When we say forget it, it can’t be done, we are cowering. And God’s heart breaks.

My prayer for all of us, those of us gathered here in this wonderful village, those gathered like this across the world in churches, synagogues mosques and temples is to greet the abundance of God, so wonderfully incarnate in Jesus and bestowed upon us through the Holy Spirit with the exuberance of a puppy, new to the world, full of hope and love and trust, ready to leap into the outstretched arms of God.

With that image., I’d like to leave you with a love letter. Yes a love letter. When I read the Epistle for today I thought—this is a love letter it is what I want to give to the people of St Matthias as a way of saying that your abundant love, so graciously bestowed upon me these past six months, is most appreciated:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.  I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)

Thank you.