Trinity – Last Sunday Before Advent
Text: John 6:5-14
X In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, one God. Amen.
In the Gospel lesson of today, we heard of the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Actually, it was more than that. The Scripture says it was 5,000 men. If you gave every man a wife and 2 kids, there were at least 20,000 people who were fed by the initial 5 loaves and 2 small fish belonging to a boy. And at the end of this impromptu feast there was enough food left over to fill twelve baskets. They ended up with considerably more than they had started out with.
In the Gospel of John, there are seven miracles that he tells. The first was the miracle of new wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, then there was the healing of the ruler’s son, then a lame man was healed by the pool of Siloam and this, the fourth in the series, happens to be recorded by all four of the Gospel writers. It’s the only one of them which is written by all. What might be the significance of this particular miracle that it is mentioned by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John?
May I suggest that it is the first time that Jesus actually permits his disciples to participate in its fulfillment themselves. You know the story. Jesus has a little fun at their expense and sets them up by asking Philip, “Where are we going to buy enough bread for all these people to eat?” Philip responds with, “What do you mean buy? There’s not enough money in our bank account to buy them food, we’re going to have to do what those chariot manufacturers are doing and ask the Congress to bail us out of this mess!” We laugh, but isn’t this us? We don’t have the money to buy 70 kneelers for each chair in our new location! We don’t have the money to do the build-out that will be needed! Whoa is me! What will we do?
Back to the Gospel…our Patron, Blessed Saint Andrew,
answered Jesus’ question just like you or I would. He said, “Well, there’s this kid over here,
named _____, with five barley loaves and two little sardines, but what good is
that with this standing-room-only crowd at the
Jesus takes the small offering of bread and fish and “gives thanks.” The Greek word for that is eucharisteo – from which we get the term Eucharist, for the act of communion. Jesus is giving a hint of what is to come at the Last Supper, when he gives thanks and blesses bread again. In a few minutes, listen to the prayers of consecration when the priest takes the bread, gives thanks for it and then gives it the people.
Now, after giving thanks, Jesus gives the bread and fish to these men of [with sarcasm] such great faith – Philip (”there’s just not enough money”) and Andrew (“we’re just kidding ourselves - this pittance will do us no good”). Can you even begin to imagine the emotions that began to go through each of these disciples? No doubt they felt a soaring sense of excitement which each handout by seeing the joy of everyone getting more than enough to eat. I can imagine that they were all probably laughing their heads off by the end of the cleanup, with each one of them going home with a full basket of leftovers.
Can you hear them telling their wives, “Hey, honey, you’re never going to believe what happened to me today at work!” But as they kick back and have their snack of beer and chips, each of them begin to realize what had happened and they would never again be the same men. They would never again look at their circumstances in the same way.
That day, they began to learn what it meant to live from the
infinite supply of the life of Jesus. Our
true life can only be found as we are in union with Him.
Jesus called each man to himself. And by doing so, Jesus called men who were not naturally of the same personality, education, or social status to be working together. In order for this miraculous feeding to take place, these individual men had to see their personal relationship with Jesus in the context of being joined to one another. My hand has life because it receives its blood-flow and instructions for movement personally from the brain (in the head). Yet, it can only do so when it is in a corporate relationship with the writs, the arm, the shoulder, and the thorax.
Jesus not only used this miraculous feeding of the 20,000+ to show his disciples’ how they related to him; he used it to change how the crowds did too. He specifically told them to sit in groups of fifties and hundreds. Yes, each individual received their meal, but it was in the context of a larger group; a family if you will. You know, not one of us will ever be “lost in the crowd.” The amazing quality of Jesus is that though He is the Head of the body, He knows each and every cell by name. Though you be in a crowd, if you touch Him as the woman with the issue of blood did, He knows! He knows your name. He knows your need. HE KNOWS!
This day, these disciples, Philip, Andrew, Peter, and all the others had a radical paradigm shift in their understanding of who Jesus is and how they were to view their circumstances in light of their relationship with Him. Never again, would they look at the smallness of what was in their hands to work with. Not as long as they knew that Jesus had “given thanks” and blessed it! Never again would they look at one another and say, “I really don’t need your help. Me and Jesus have a good thing going.”
You and I – WE –
have been called by God to Himself. We
have been baptized by the Holy Ghost into the body of Christ and made one body
with Him and each other; but for what purpose?
We are to grow into the likeness of Christ and thereby extend the
Through His Grace, Bishop BASIL, I have been called to plant a community of Orthodox believers. And like Gideon, I looked up and said, “who, me? No, I think you have the wrong guy. I don’t have the ‘Type A’ personality that pioneers have. It’s a whole lot easier for me to sit, instead of stand; to stand instead of walk; to walk instead of run.” Besides that, how am I supposed to spiritually feed these people? How am I supposed to provide a building for them? Really? I mean I only have five….crackers and……..two……..sardines.” Ooohhhhh… I see.
Do you remember Jesus said (Lk. 13:6-9) that the fruitless fig tree is to be either uprooted or fertilized. Fertilizing a fruitless tree into fruitfulness is difficult at best. God wants fruitful churches. As it is easier to have babies than to raise the dead, it is easier to plant new churches than revive existing ones. This is not to say that we should not try to administer CPR to a dying church, but the church with its self-imposed limited resources (“I only see 2 fish and 5 crackers”) must choose its battles with care. If it is our mission to spread the Gospel, the Good News, if this is a primary function of the Church in this world, then we must get busy; busy fertilizing, or uprooting and planting. Next Sunday begins the Season of Advent. This is the season that we not only re-present Christ’s first advent, but we prepare and look forward to His Second Advent. Let us work to provide our Lord a harvest at His second and glorious coming.
Just as the disciples worked with Jesus in the feeding of these 20,000 people, St. Paul shows us in I Corinthians (3:6-18) that a church is planted in synergia (cooperation) with God (“for we are God’s fellow workers” vs. 9) and we can only succeed where Christ is the foundation (vs.11). This requires expert leadership (wise master builder (vs 10) – architect (Gr) the right attitude, with a spirit of excellence (let each man take care how, vs. 10) with humility (vs. 18) and proper planning and core values (taking care of how he builds. vs. 10 & I Cor. 9:26).
When your resources are small it is easy to be stopped in your tracks and stare at the emptiness of what’s in your hand as you look at the vastness of need in front of you. The challenge for each one of us today is to (a) acknowledge the tangible scarcity and (b) be confident that He who called you to Himself through His body, the Church, is more than able to make you a conqueror of the enemy who says you can’t do it.
Taking this ‘start’ of St. Andrew, the First-Called and
transplanting it to the new patch of ground at
You are in Christ’s hands. Christ Jesus has given thanks for you. He has blessed you. Now go bless others and you will be fruitful and multiply.
X In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, one God. Amen.