Good morning, Friends! Thank you all for coming here today.
A very special thank you today to Dr. Margaret Petty and the students from the string ensemble at High Point University! We love your music, and we appreciate the time and trouble you took this morning to come here and play for us.
My wife and I came to hear you at the concert you gave back in December. We were so impressed that I contacted Dr. Petty and thanked her for your performance.
We had a special worship service here, the Sunday after Christmas, with a lot of different carols from different parts of the world. Margaret and her husband Tom came. We talked afterwards, one thing led to another, and here you are!
I know you appreciate having Margaret as your teacher. Our hope is not only that you’ll share some of your beautiful music with us (which you already have), but also we want you to have an opportunity to get out into the community and visit off campus and see some of the people who live here.
When Nido Qubein was a young man, a student about your age, he came here and gave a sermon. Several young people from our church have been students at High Point University. One of them is now in your graduate school. A couple of our church members work at the university. So, we feel a connection with your school.
Today we’ve had a lot of great music, so my sermon is going to be very short.
This winter and spring we’ve been reading stories from the gospel of Luke. This one is a very famous story. It’s one of the very few which is repeated in all four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is Luke’s version.
Jesus had been teaching. The crowds found out about it, and followed him. Jesus welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God. And he healed those who needed to be cured.
Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to Jesus and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.”
Jesus replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They answered, “We only have five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” (About five thousand people were there.)
But Jesus said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” The disciples did so, and everyone sat down.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, Jesus gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people.
They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
Luke 9:11-17
As I said, this is a very famous story. Many of us have heard it before.
People always want to know, “How did Jesus do it?” The last time we read this story, we had a demonstration. Some of you were here that day.
I set up a table down front, right there where the musicians are. I pulled out a big cardboard box. It had MIRACLE BOX written in big letters on the outside.
I picked 12 people at random out of the congregation, called them all down front, and told them that they were disciples. Do any of you remember this?
I told them to open the miracle box. Inside it were two giant restaurant size cans of tuna fish, five big loaves of bread, a can opener, serving platters, and mayonnaise. I told them to get busy, they all had five minutes to do a miracle.
It worked! They worked like crazy people, they made a whole bunch of tuna sandwiches, and they passed them out.
Not only that, but we had leftovers. We sent sandwiches home with people. We even sent a whole platter of sandwiches down to the guys at the fire station down the street.
People talked about that sermon for weeks. Sometimes, if you do things just right, miracles work!
That’s not exactly how it happened in today’s gospel. It simply says that Jesus prayed, and somehow there was enough.
The prayer Jesus said was probably the ordinary Jewish blessing, giving thanks for bread.
The hamotzi prayer in Hebrew simply says, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has brought forth bread from the earth. . .”
That was it. That’s probably what Jesus said.
There’s a lot of things I could do to dramatize the story. There are always lot of questions people have. Today, let’s just head straight to the important stuff.
First important thing in this story: God doesn’t want people to go hungry. That’s something we always need to remember. It’s never God’s will that people go hungry.
Last week was our monthly food collection for a nearby food pantry that some of our people helped to start. People brought bags and bags of groceries. All the kids who were here helped to lug the groceries up front, right where the musicians are sitting now.
One of the things the pantry does, is provide backpacks of food for kids from our neighborhood school. The backpacks are to take home, so kids have something to eat on the weekend.
Here in North Carolina, almost 60% of the kids qualify for the free lunch program. Here in this neighborhood, it’s over 90%.
Most of the kids in this neighborhood get a free lunch and a free breakfast at school. Weekends can be a problem. That’s why we do the monthly food collection. Thursday morning, Gene filled up the back of his truck with food we collected, and took it over.
God doesn’t want people to go hungry, and we don’t, either.
Second important thing about this story: with God’s help, there is enough.
That’s actually pretty hard to believe at times. We think we’re small. We think we’re poor. We think we don’t have the resources to help. We give up even before we start.
The thing is, we believe that God literally has all the resources in the whole world. God made it all. God owns it all.
If we figure out how to do things God’s way in a given situation, there will be enough. Not just enough food. But enough energy. Enough people. Enough love.
If today’s gospel says anything at all, it’s saying that God has more than enough, whatever it is, to make good things happen. Doesn’t matter if it’s just two fish, and five loaves of bread. Doesn’t matter if it’s only 12 people who share what Jesus said. Doesn’t matter if it’s only one person who speaks the truth.
Jesus said that if all you can do is offer one cup of cold water to someone who’s thirsty, that’s the same as if Jesus was doing it himself.
Of course, we all want to do more than that. But remember: with God’s help, there is always enough.
Third important thing. This picks up on what I just said. Third thing is, there were lots of leftovers. Remember that part of the story?
They started out with two sardines and five pieces of pita bread. Everybody ate. Everybody was full. And there were twelve big baskets of leftovers.
Wow. Didn’t expect that to happen! Not really sure how Jesus did that.
The thing is, once you’ve been filled, pass the plate. Pass it on. Don’t keep it to yourself. Help somebody else. That applies to a picnic, like in today’s story. It applies to prayer. If you feel close to God, pass it on.
Prayer and meditation are wonderful. Not going to give you a long lecture, but peace and inner quiet are things we all need. Feeling the presence of God, feeling God close to you – those are things we all need, every day.
Mountain top experiences. Healing experiences. Feeling forgiven. Feeling that it’s all going to be OK. Feeling the presence of God wash over you, like waves on a beach, like wind in a storm.
Everybody needs those things.
But once you have those feelings, don’t keep it to yourself. If you keep all the good stuff to yourself, and never share it, it’s like you grabbed those two sardines and those little pieces of bread, and didn’t share. That’s not how miracles happen.
Miracles happen, not just when we receive, but when we share. When we pass them on.
If you have received anything good in you life, pass it on. If you have advantages in life, share them. If you are getting a good education, it’s OK for you to get ahead. But help someone else to get ahead, too. That’s how miracles happen. When we share.
When Jesus sent his friends out, he gave them very simple directions. He said, “Do what you’ve seen me do. Teach, and heal. Share God’s forgiveness. Wherever you go, take my peace with you, and share my peace with every house you enter.”
And Jesus said, “Wherever you go, tell people, ‘The kingdom of God is very near to you.”
That’s it. That’s what we’re supposed to do.
Receive the meal. Give thanks to God. Eat your fill. And pass it on.