WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
July 1st 2007
Communion Sunday
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Not Enough to Share?!”
Mark 6:30-42
It is a joyous scene. The disciples have returned triumphantly from their first solo mission of teaching and healing and casting out demons. After hearing of their experiences Jesus invites them to go away for a time of rest and reflection. However, the crowd has other plans. Seeing Jesus and the disciples, the crowd beats them to the other side of the lake. The vacation plans have to be put on hold.
When Jesus gets off the boat, he sees the crowd and responds with compassion. The Greek word literally means to have his guts ripped apart. It is a powerful emotional response which leads him to teach the crowd. As the hour gets late, the disciples tell Jesus to send the crowd away to so that the crowds may get something to eat in the surrounding villages. Oddly, the request from the disciples to Jesus is in the form of a demand. It leads me to wonder if the disciples are more concerned about getting away to rest than sharing real concern for the crowd. Once again, Jesus uses this opportunity to teach the disciples and the crowd about the sharing of resources with a powerful illustration.
“You feed them!” Jesus says to his now stunned disciples. I can only imagine what the disciples must have been thinking. It would take 200 denarii to feed this many people, they say. And, two hundred denarii is two hundred times the average daily wage. Jesus has stepped over the line. While he can credibly heal, cast out demons, and teach, it is clear he has no grasp of simple economics. However, what has really happened is that Jesus has exposed the disciples’ limited vision.
Jesus is challenging the disciples to see that the economic claims of the day do not trump the claims of faith. Ultimately, Jesus could have said, just share what you have, but instead he takes the long way around because there a number of lessons to be learned. When faced with this overwhelming challenge, the disciples immediately focus on what they do not have. Instead, Jesus teaches the disciples to begin with what they have. He does not challenge them or criticize; he asks them what food they have among themselves.
The tone of the disciples’ response is unclear. However, I imagine it might have been something like: “Jesus may be God’s son, but you have to be a fool to think that five loves and two fish is enough to feed this crowd.” If they share their limited resources, they will go hungry or worse die in this wilderness place. So, the prudent course of action would be self-preservation and let the crowds fend for themselves. In other words, there is not enough to share what they have.
But, before the disciples can straiten Jesus out, he has them organizing the crowds in groups of fifty and groups of a hundred. It is an odd action which ends up changing the entire gathering. Before this happened, the crowd is a mass of unconnected people. But now, they are in groups where people would begin to interact and get to know one another better. All this organization helps as Jesus prepares his final lesson for the day.
Once the crowd is organized Jesus begins with the resources they have. The first thing he does is look to heaven and gives thanks for what they have not complaining for what they do not. Then, Jesus shares it with the disciples. If we are not careful, we miss the amazing thing that is happening. The miracle in the story is not simply that Jesus feeds the people but that he shows them how to feed one another through the sharing of resources. Since we know that the disciples brought food with them, it is not a stretch to believe that many in the crowd had brought food as well. But when the crowd is unorganized and uniformed they will hoard and some will go hungry while others eat well. However, when Jesus organized them in groups they learned that pooling their resources and sharing what little they had created an unexpected surplus.
As we as a community of faith think about and plan for our future I believe this passage can serve as an important guide. While there is much we could focus on, I believe three things warrant our attention:
1) The first is how to respond when challenges arise. Instead of continuing to focus on what we do not have, the faithful response is to begin what we do have. Then, we should give thanks for those resources of people, time, and money which enable us to be more faithful servants. This simple practice has the amazing ability to create abundance in places where we so often see scarcity.
2) We should follow the lead of Jesus ordering our discipleship in ways which bring us closer together. There is no doubt in my mind that we are a welcoming place. Our calling is to go deeper than we have before. After all, when the crowd in the passage became organized 15,000 people learned the power of shared resources. What this means for us is that we should consider the following questions: Who do we spend most of our time with? Who do we speak with on a Sunday morning? Who to we invite first to participate in activities? And, Who is it that we invite into our homes to fellowship with informally? If we are really interested in growing more welcoming we must expanded our small circles of friends to include new people. Make it a habit of always including someone you do not know well when you seek out people to chat with, participate in activities and even when you gathering informally. In doing this simple action we will be a much more welcoming part of the body of Christ.
3) In the passage we have no record of Jesus’ teaching. However, the enduring impact is what he did to teach the disciples and crowd. In like manner, our community can teach most powerfully when people witness our beliefs in practice. For our corporate witness as a welcoming and inclusive community to have integrity our words must meet our actions, including when we are dealing with issues of economics.
So, as we gather at this table today let it be a sign of our commitment to embrace these three practices. 1) Begin with what we have not with what we don’t. 2) Expand our circle of friends inside and outside the congregation. 3) That we will live out our words in all we do. May God lead us in our continued commitment to more fully embrace the vision for the future of Westminster. Amen.
July 1st 2007
Communion Sunday
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Not Enough to Share?!”
Mark 6:30-42
It is a joyous scene. The disciples have returned triumphantly from their first solo mission of teaching and healing and casting out demons. After hearing of their experiences Jesus invites them to go away for a time of rest and reflection. However, the crowd has other plans. Seeing Jesus and the disciples, the crowd beats them to the other side of the lake. The vacation plans have to be put on hold.
When Jesus gets off the boat, he sees the crowd and responds with compassion. The Greek word literally means to have his guts ripped apart. It is a powerful emotional response which leads him to teach the crowd. As the hour gets late, the disciples tell Jesus to send the crowd away to so that the crowds may get something to eat in the surrounding villages. Oddly, the request from the disciples to Jesus is in the form of a demand. It leads me to wonder if the disciples are more concerned about getting away to rest than sharing real concern for the crowd. Once again, Jesus uses this opportunity to teach the disciples and the crowd about the sharing of resources with a powerful illustration.
“You feed them!” Jesus says to his now stunned disciples. I can only imagine what the disciples must have been thinking. It would take 200 denarii to feed this many people, they say. And, two hundred denarii is two hundred times the average daily wage. Jesus has stepped over the line. While he can credibly heal, cast out demons, and teach, it is clear he has no grasp of simple economics. However, what has really happened is that Jesus has exposed the disciples’ limited vision.
Jesus is challenging the disciples to see that the economic claims of the day do not trump the claims of faith. Ultimately, Jesus could have said, just share what you have, but instead he takes the long way around because there a number of lessons to be learned. When faced with this overwhelming challenge, the disciples immediately focus on what they do not have. Instead, Jesus teaches the disciples to begin with what they have. He does not challenge them or criticize; he asks them what food they have among themselves.
The tone of the disciples’ response is unclear. However, I imagine it might have been something like: “Jesus may be God’s son, but you have to be a fool to think that five loves and two fish is enough to feed this crowd.” If they share their limited resources, they will go hungry or worse die in this wilderness place. So, the prudent course of action would be self-preservation and let the crowds fend for themselves. In other words, there is not enough to share what they have.
But, before the disciples can straiten Jesus out, he has them organizing the crowds in groups of fifty and groups of a hundred. It is an odd action which ends up changing the entire gathering. Before this happened, the crowd is a mass of unconnected people. But now, they are in groups where people would begin to interact and get to know one another better. All this organization helps as Jesus prepares his final lesson for the day.
Once the crowd is organized Jesus begins with the resources they have. The first thing he does is look to heaven and gives thanks for what they have not complaining for what they do not. Then, Jesus shares it with the disciples. If we are not careful, we miss the amazing thing that is happening. The miracle in the story is not simply that Jesus feeds the people but that he shows them how to feed one another through the sharing of resources. Since we know that the disciples brought food with them, it is not a stretch to believe that many in the crowd had brought food as well. But when the crowd is unorganized and uniformed they will hoard and some will go hungry while others eat well. However, when Jesus organized them in groups they learned that pooling their resources and sharing what little they had created an unexpected surplus.
As we as a community of faith think about and plan for our future I believe this passage can serve as an important guide. While there is much we could focus on, I believe three things warrant our attention:
1) The first is how to respond when challenges arise. Instead of continuing to focus on what we do not have, the faithful response is to begin what we do have. Then, we should give thanks for those resources of people, time, and money which enable us to be more faithful servants. This simple practice has the amazing ability to create abundance in places where we so often see scarcity.
2) We should follow the lead of Jesus ordering our discipleship in ways which bring us closer together. There is no doubt in my mind that we are a welcoming place. Our calling is to go deeper than we have before. After all, when the crowd in the passage became organized 15,000 people learned the power of shared resources. What this means for us is that we should consider the following questions: Who do we spend most of our time with? Who do we speak with on a Sunday morning? Who to we invite first to participate in activities? And, Who is it that we invite into our homes to fellowship with informally? If we are really interested in growing more welcoming we must expanded our small circles of friends to include new people. Make it a habit of always including someone you do not know well when you seek out people to chat with, participate in activities and even when you gathering informally. In doing this simple action we will be a much more welcoming part of the body of Christ.
3) In the passage we have no record of Jesus’ teaching. However, the enduring impact is what he did to teach the disciples and crowd. In like manner, our community can teach most powerfully when people witness our beliefs in practice. For our corporate witness as a welcoming and inclusive community to have integrity our words must meet our actions, including when we are dealing with issues of economics.
So, as we gather at this table today let it be a sign of our commitment to embrace these three practices. 1) Begin with what we have not with what we don’t. 2) Expand our circle of friends inside and outside the congregation. 3) That we will live out our words in all we do. May God lead us in our continued commitment to more fully embrace the vision for the future of Westminster. Amen.
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