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P I R I T U A L F O R M A T I O N |
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CHILDREN'S EDUCATION |
SERMONS The
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost By David Christian It is good to be back home. We had a great time on vacation. The mountains were warm for the mountains, but still cooler than here. I did as little as possible, and enjoyed every bit of it. For me one of the really great things about a vacation is the lack of news. For ten days I watched no television, heard little radio, and barely saw a newspaper. It is helpful sometimes for me to remember that both the world and I can survive even if I don't know absolutely everything that is going on. Of course, as soon as I got back I tried to catch up on everything that had happened while I was gone. And things are no better now than they were two weeks ago. Violence is spreading in the Middle East and the cities. Infants continue to die in Mississippi at a disturbing rate. There are more hungry and more poor. The needs are too great. Somebody needs to do something. Sometimes the demands for help from those around us become overwhelming. The needs far exceed our capacity to provide help. Consider the disciples in today's gospel. A large crowd has followed Jesus out into the wilderness. Moved with compassion for them Jesus spends the day curing their sick. As evening approached the disciples realize that a potential problem is developing. All of those people are going to start getting hungry, and they are a long way from food. Somebody is going to have to do something. So they bring the problem to the attention of Jesus. "Jesus," they say, "somebody is going to have to feed these people. Send them to the villages so they can find some food." And Jesus replies, "You give them something to eat." Can you imagine their surprise? They are in the wilderness, for goodness sake. They don't even have enough food for themselves, much less for five thousand hungry men, not to mention women and children. What does Jesus mean, "You do it"? With what? "All we have are these five loaves of bread and two fish," they say. Jesus says, "Bring them to me." And he blesses them. And he breaks them. And he gives them back to the disciples. And the disciples feed those five thousand hungry men, not to mention the women and children. I have spoken before if an account I read of a young man's encounter with Tony Campolo, an Evangelical activist. Campolo had come to speak to the high school youth group at this young man's church in New Jersey. The man had become so excited about what Campolo had to say that he had volunteered to work for an evangelism project in inner city Philadelphia. Well, they arrived for the first day of this project. They gathered together in a church and sang some songs, prayed some, and Campolo preached. Then they sang some more. They were getting more and more excited. Then Campolo asked, "You want to witness for Jesus?" And they all shouted back, "Yeah!" "Okay," he said, "let's get on the bus." They loaded up the bus and began to drive. The part of Philadelphia that they had been in was not a good part of town. But as they drove things got worse and worse. And the people on the bus got quieter and quieter. Eventually they stopped in an area that looked like a war zone: burned out buildings, rusting hulks of stripped cars, boarded up windows. Campolo stood up and said, OK gang, get out there and witness for Jesus. I'll be back about four o'clock." The group filed very quietly off the bus. They stood huddled together for a few minutes, had a prayer, and then began to wander off, pale with fright. The young man wandered into a tenement and climbed a flight of stairs. Everything was dark and filthy. And it smelled worse than it looked. On the second floor he heard the sound of a baby crying. He followed the sound to a closed door. He knocked and a woman holding an naked baby and smoking a cigarette opened it. "What do you want?" she demanded. "I want to tell you about Jesus," he replied. And she began to yell. She cursed him down the hall, down the stairs, and out the door. He found himself back on the sidewalk, still able to hear her voice. He sat down on the curb, stunned and crying. After a few minutes he stood up and began to walk. Down the block there was a rundown, boarded-up grocery store. He wandered in and as he was looking around he saw a box of disposable diapers. He bought the diapers and a pack of cigarettes and retraced his steps-down the street, into the tenement, up the stairs, and down the hall to the door. Once again he knocked. Once again the voice demanded "What do you want?" as the door opened. Silently he held out the diapers and the cigarettes. She looked at them for a minute and then said, "Come in." He put a diaper on the baby while she lit a cigarette and offered him one. He spent the rest of the day in that apartment, listening to the woman and playing with the baby. Finally, late in the afternoon, she looked up and asked, "What is a boy like you doing in a place like this?" And he told her why he was there, and he told her about Jesus. "Pray for me and my baby," she asked. He prayed with her and then he left. People are hungry we say; somebody should feed them. People are homeless we say; somebody should house them. People are lonely we say; somebody should visit them. People are sick we say; somebody should care for them. People are dying without hope we say; somebody should comfort them. And Jesus replies, "You give them something to eat. You give them a place to live. You visit them and care for them and comfort them." "But I am only one person," we say. " And I have little enough." "Bring me what you have," Jesus says. "Bring me your lives." And he takes what we have and he blesses it, and he breaks it, and he gives it back to us. And by God's grace, it is enough. David
Christian
Proper 13A
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Chapel
of the Cross · 674 Mannsdale Road · Madison, Mississippi
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