August 3, 2008 Sermon
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Proper 13 – A
Gen. 32:22-31; Matt. 14:13-21 Emmanuel, San Angelo
August 3, 2008 Allan Conkling
In what looks more like a page out of the FLDS journal, the First Lesson written nearly 3,000 years ago tells of Jacob fleeing into a middle-eastern desert. Along with him Jacob takes his two wives Rachael and Leah, his two maidservants and the 11 children sired by these women. The family feud covers several chapters in the Bible and has a Hatfield and McCoy flavor to it (so I won't go into it in detail); save to say that in the end Jacob is established as Patriarch of tribes of Israel. For a Jew of antiquity this was a story of profound hope and promise. Despite the details which, for modern readers keep us from taking it literally, God does protect us. God is with us. We may wrestle with God at times but always are we blessed in our persistence.
Fast-forward then to another time in antiquity, a time of intense persecution during the age of the Roman Empire. In the early days, Christians were periodically rounded up and forced to declare not just their allegiance to, but acknowledge as divine, such unsavory characters as Nero, Domitian, Decius or Diocletian. When early Christians read that Jacob met the God face to face or that Jesus fed 5000 it was powerful in its implications. As Marcus Borg says,
"To affirm the lordship of Christ is to deny the lordship of Caesar."
Or to put it another way, the world belongs to God and not the other way around.
What does this mean for us today? Amid all the trials and persecution the early church often described God's Kingdom as being like a huge banquet, a place where everything is provided. In God's kingdom all sit down at God's table. It is a place where there is no hunger or nor thirst; a place with no suffering, no more pain, no more sickness. Sadly, they knew that this world is not heaven.
How little things have changed! War, terrorism, disease, and suffering all remind us that the world is a dangerous and hostile place. One trip to the emergency room or to the oncologist reminds us that our hold on life is tenuous at best. Technology has allowed us to minimize the risks: We have better security, better medicine, and stronger locks. But look around: In fact we are very vulnerable! This awareness of "the shortness and uncertainty of human life" leads many to fear, desperation, depression and cynicism. What is the point? Is there an answer? Christians say the answer is here.
Two words are operative in this fellowship of the church: The first is Compassion. The story of Jacob in the Desert, and Jesus feeding of the 5000 are not about retreat or withdrawal from life's danger or pain. God groans and suffers with human pain. Sadly, then as now, much of the pain in life is the result of human rebellion against God's will, human neglect, self-centeredness, and "man’s inhumanity to man." But God has compassion. Jesus, the Messiah, embodied God's love and mercy, and he challenged his disciples to model that "God-compassion" as well.
The second word is Companionship. As Christians we believe that we don't have to go it alone in this life, for God is our companion. Companionship (Latin: com + panis) means "one who shares bread with another". This isn't simplistic. As an aside I note that we follow a leader who, in response to danger, hatred, and political powers, fed the multitudes instead of amassing an army in retaliation, or building a fence, or passing laws of exclusion. What does it say about the way we conduct our lives or set our priorities and treat other people? And what does it mean to put our trust in one who fills our inner hunger, our hunger for wholeness and self worth, our hunger for justice and wellbeing? Do we believe God does that? Can we risk that much openness, or surrender that much?
Every time we say the Lord's Prayer we say, "Give us this day our daily bread..." These are not just words but can be for us the Word of Life. When we come forward to take Communion, it is not just a ritual. We are in the presence of our greatest "Companion" ever! This isn't just a great story it is the food for our soul, something that everyone needs to hear.
What we do here, our songs, our prayers, in our reverence for God’s creation can brings us to a heightened outlook , an attitude of heart that draws us beyond ourselves. Life, as tenuous and unpredictable as it is, is never wasted, as long as it is lived for God. In Christ, life is filled with wonderful possibilities, full of grace.
Here is the invitation: Come to the table. See the bread taken, blessed, broken and given to you. Then leave rejoicing as you "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, and all of God’s children." Do I believe in miracles? You bet. Miracles happen every day.
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Revised: 08/25/08