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Sermon


Fourth Sunday in Lent
St. Stephen’s Anglican Church, Heathsville, VA
The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, March 18, 2012


Trust in God's Abundance


Text: John 6:4-15

Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.

Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.”

One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?”

Then Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. So when they were filled, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost.” Therefore they gathered them up, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

Therefore when Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.

Today’s reading from John’s Gospel is the story of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish. Outside of the events of Holy Week, this is one of only a handful of stories that all four Gospel writers tell. Why was this event indispensable to their narrative of the Good News of Jesus Christ? It is because, in performing this sign, Jesus showed us something that is central to the Gospel, which He embodied.

A multitude was following Jesus, hungry for His teaching, eager for His healing. It was time for food, and they had brought nothing to eat. Where were the disciples going to get the money to feed such a crowd? It would take eight months’ wages to buy even a small amount for each person. A boy was found who had five rolls and two fish. But what good was that among so many hungry mouths?

Jesus had everyone sit down on the grass, and he took the bread and blessed it and distributed it to the crowd. Then He did the same with the fish. Everyone ate and was satisfied—5,000 people, on five rolls and two fish. Jesus said, “Let’s not waste any of it.” So they gathered up the leftovers, and they filled twelve baskets.

A number of times I have heard teachers and preachers explain this miracle story by arguing that everyone in that crowd had some food hidden in their cloaks, and they didn’t want to take it out, because they didn’t want to share. But the small boy’s selfless act inspired the crowd to share, and everyone had enough to eat. Why would we torture the story this way? Is it because we believe that feeding a crowd of 5,000 with five loaves and two fish is too big a task for God? If so, what kind of God do we believe in? And how could we trust Him to give us what we need the most?

I think this timid explanation of the feeding of the 5,000 completely misses the point of why this story is in the Word of God. The point is that we don’t have everything we need, but God does. And it is in trusting in God’s abundant provision that we find life. Isn’t that the central point of the Gospel? We are fallen, sinful creatures hopelessly separated from God. We can do nothing that will reconcile us to Him. But He can do it, and He has done it, by sending His only Son, Jesus Christ into the world, so that we need not be lost, but by believing in Him, have everlasting life.

This story is in chapter 6 of the Gospel of John. It is a chapter where people are coming to grips with who Jesus is. Toward the end of the chapter, Jesus says the famous words, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35)

He also talks in this chapter about the ancient miracle of God feeding the people in the desert with manna. There was a multitude of God’s people wandering in the desert between Egypt and the Promised Land. There is virtually no food in the Sinai desert. Manna was a substance that mysteriously came with the dawn to feed God’s people. They could pick it up off the desert floor, and they could eat it and meet all their nutritional needs. Each day it would come. At first, the people wanted to hoard it, so they would never have to worry about being hungry. But it would spoil in a day. They had to trust God would provide it. There was nothing they could do to meet their needs for food. But God could, and He did.

The stories about the manna and of Jesus feeding the 5,000 people are messages about what we can and can’t do, and what God can do that we can’t. We operate in a world of limits. God operates in abundance. We run out of resources of every kind:

But what God has to give is inexhaustible. And He offers it all to us, if we will put our trust in Him.

We have been confronted with this truth, haven’t we?

We say these things to ourselves when we are confronted with scarcity or loss or guilt. But the God whom we know is not limited by any such scarcity. Nothing is lost to Him. Nothing is beyond repair. Nothing is hopeless. God, in His abundance, can forgive the worst things we could ever be guilty of. And He invites us to put our trust in Him, and to throw ourselves on His mercy and love. Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10) God wants us to have that abundant life.

Gladys Aylward was a missionary to China. Her story is told in the book, The Hidden Price of Greatness, by Besson and Hunsicker. Gladys was serving at an orphanage in China during the late 1930’s. When the Japanese invaded Yenching in 1938, Gladys was forced to flee over the mountains. She took 94 children with her. It was a grueling ordeal, and she struggled with despair. One morning, one of the 13-year-old girls found Gladys crying hopelessly. The girl tried to cheer her up by saying how much their journey was like the story Gladys loved, of Moses leading the Israelites to safety across the Red Sea.

“But I am not Moses,” Gladys Aylward cried in desperation.

“Of course you aren’t,” said the young girl. “But God is still God.”

This Christian missionary didn’t have what it took. But God did. And He got them across those mountains to safety.

God often confronts a Christian congregation with the demand that we trust Him. Especially in a time of an economic downturn, we start to think from a vantage point of scarcity.

But let me tell you a story about how God provides.

In the latter part of the 19th Century, Hattie Mae Wiatt went into Grace Baptist Church in Philadelphia, hoping to go to Sunday School. Hattie Mae was seven yeas old, and she came from a very poor family in the nearby tenements. The teachers told Hattie Mae they didn’t have room for her. The pastor happened to see her crying in the hallway, and he asked her what was wrong. “There isn’t room for me in Sunday School,” she sobbed. Looking at her tattered clothes, the pastor suspected that the problem wasn’t the lack of room. So he walked her to the classroom, and made sure they had a place for her. He and the little girl became friends, and she became a regular at Sunday School.

Two years later, Hattie Mae died of diphtheria. When her parents went through her things, they found a little purse with 57 cents that she had saved up. With it was a note that said, “Money so there will be room for all children to go to Sunday School.”

The parents took the note and the money to Dr. Russell Conwell, the pastor who had befriended their daughter. Her gift became the catalyst for the congregation to become mission minded. This little girl’s trust in God’s abundance was contagious. That congregation became the Baptist Temple, a Philadelphia mega-church of the 1880’s. In their campaign to build a larger church and a big Sunday School building, the story of the little girl and her 57 cents hit the newspapers. A realtor offered them a piece of land. When they said they couldn’t afford his price, he sold it to them for 57 cents.

Today, Temple Baptist Church has a sanctuary that seats 3,300 members, and a Sunday School building that houses hundreds of students. And out of that congregation came Temple University and Good Samaritan Hospital of Philadelphia, and Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts.

They didn’t have room for a little girl in a tattered dress. But God did.

They didn’t know how to love this child. But God taught them.

They didn’t have the money to buy the land for their big vision. But God did.

The history of the Christian Church is full of such stories. God has buoyed us up, bailed us out, rescued us, carried us and provided for us time after time when we have put our trust in Him. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? He is the sovereign King of all creation. He is writing the story, and it is His to make of it whatever He wants. Once we are in synch with God’s plans, He is going to make it happen as He wishes.

We as a congregation are leaning on God’s abundant provision right now. We will be moving out of these buildings in less than two weeks. The first part of God’s plan is the wonderful relationship we have with First Baptist Church, who will be putting us up for the next couple of years. Then what? Our plan is to build our own church home.

Well, the answer is, whatever God’s plan is will come to pass. And if we can get in synch with what God has in mind, then He will make it happen, no matter how hard it may look to us. No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. (I Corinthians 2:9) God’s storehouses are filled with blessings of incalculable abundance.

So why would we want to believe that Jesus could not feed 5,000 people with five crumby rolls and a couple of sardines? My suspicion is, that it is part of what has led to the estrangement of our human race from God. It is part of what God sent His Son to rescue us from.

But if you take the event of the feeding of the 5000 at face value, what you see is a big crowd of people who did not have what they needed. And Jesus, the Son of God, took what little they had and provided for them abundantly, with twelve basketfuls left over. The message of this story, and the reason the Gospels all consider it essential to tell it to us 2000 years later is this: We don’t have everything we need, but God does.

Hang on to that truth. Believe in that Jesus. Trust in that God. And you will have all you need.

© Jeffrey O. Cerar 2012

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