Remembering the Past...
        Planning the Future

    Park Christian Church
                                                                    (Disciples of Christ)

July 26, 2009

Scripture:         John 6:1-15

Sermon:           “Fish Sandwiches For Everyone”

            Fish sandwiches for everyone.

            You’ve heard this story before, I’m sure.  Can’t hardly miss it.  A large crowd has gathered to be with Jesus, hear him teach, see him heal the sick.  I don’t know.  Five thousand people there.  And as it happens on a daily basis, folks started to get hungry.  So, Jesus fed them.  He fed them all.  Five thousand of them.  He fed them all.

            You’ve heard it.  Probably read it.  You can’t miss it.  It’s in the Bible five times.

            John tells the story.  We’ll read it in a minute.  And he has a few details nobody else has.  There was a boy with a little bit of bread and a couple of fish.  You know.  Luke tells the story.  Mark?  He tells the story.  And then there’s Matthew.  He tells the story twice!  Loved it that much did he.  Told it twice.  And Matthew said there were five thousand men.  Didn’t count all the women and children.  Don’t ask me why.  So you might imagine there were twenty thousand people there according to Matthew.  He loved this story.

            I do, too.

            This is the story as John tells it to us.  In the sixth chapter of John’s gospel, let’s read verses 1 through 15.  If you’d like to find it in the pew Bible, it’s on page 131 of the New Testament.  And this is the word of the Lord…

            After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.  A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.  Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.  Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near.  When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”  He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.  Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”  One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.  But what are they among so many people?”  Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.”  Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.  Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.  When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over so that nothing may be lost.”  So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets.  When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

            When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

            The Army Corps of Engineers had a motto in World War II:  “The difficult I’ll do right now.  The impossible will take a little while.”

            The difficult I’ll do right now.

            The impossible will take a little while.

            No one can say words like this without a, well, obnoxious faith.  Obnoxious.  Faith and hope.  Like everything is going to be okay.  We’ll get through it.

            There is a fantastic magazine called Sojourners.  If you are interested in connecting the gospel to issues of social justice, I highly recommend it to you.  It’s edited by Jim Wallis, who you might find on CNN every now and then.  He hosted a faith and values forum with Barack Obama and John McCain last fall during the election campaign.  This is a guy with one of those obnoxious kinds of faith.  He says, “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”

            Believing in spite of the evidence.

            The way John tells this story of Jesus feeding five thousand people, there are a couple of different attitudes among his disciples.  Really, they are two competing attitudes.  So much so, that I wonder which attitude it is that I usually have.  Faith?  Obnoxious faith?  Or, disbelief?

            A huge crowd has gathered to see and hear Jesus, bring him their sick to be healed.  It’s the stuff Jesus lives for.  And just so you know what’s going on behind the story, this is the high holy days of Passover.  No one in this crowd has made the pilgrimage down south to Jerusalem.  They had all stayed home.  Now, maybe none of these people couldn’t afford it this year.  Things were tight.  Maybe they had heard rumblings about Jesus.  You know, folks were talking.  Maybe they just weren’t all that religious.  It’s hard to say.  But, they were all a hundred miles away from Passover, and Jesus determined that they should share a meal together right there where they were.  It was still Passover on the calendar, even if they were up there in Galilee.

            Now, that could be any one of us, really.  Couldn’t it?  Can’t afford the big stuff this year.  I’ve heard about this Jesus and I’m curious.  I’ve come here today to get a better glimpse.  Not really all that religious.  It could be you.  It could be me.  Any one of those reasons on most days.

            Jesus is okay with all of that.  Perfect place to celebrate the ancient meal of Passover, recall how God has delivered people from slavery as far as he was concerned.  Perfect place.  Perfect people.  That’s what’s going on behind the story.

            Now, how are we going to do it?

            That’s when he ran into two different, two competing attitudes among his disciples.  How are we going to do it?  Where can we go and buy enough bread for everyone to eat?  Kind of suggests that Jesus himself believes it can be done.  Food for five thousand people out here on a mountain side?  Yes.  Where can we go?

            But, Philip didn’t catch the same vision, did he?  “There’s too many people!  We can’t do that!  How are any of us going to come up with that kind of money?  We couldn’t even scrape together enough to give out a crumb to each of them.”  And I wonder if I might have looked at Jesus the same way.

            That’s one attitude.  It might be mine.  I’m not going to lie.  I might be Philip.  (I’d still be a disciple, by the way.)

            But, then there’s the other one.  And he’s got one of those obnoxious kinds of faith, doesn’t he?  Andrew.  “I’ve got a boy right over here with five barley loaves.  Barley loaves.  Perfect for Passover.  And he’s got two fish.  What can this little bit of food do for so many people?”

            It seems to me like Andrew actually believed something was possible here.  The difficult I’ll do right now.  The impossible will take a little time.  I know a boy that’s got a little bit of food already.  What can we do with it?

            Competing attitudes.  “Ain’t no way.”  And, “Let’s get started.”

            “Can’t be done.”  And, “I can’t wait to see what happens.”

            I wonder which one I am.  You?

            Now, the way John tells it, Jesus has folks sit down and act just like they would if they had been able to celebrate Passover in the proper way.  Sit down and relax.  Right there in the grass.  And, why not?  You’ve got these folks who are there to witness Jesus for whatever reason.  Money.  Curiosity.  Desperation.  I don’t know.  And Jesus says, “We’ll just all celebrate here together.  The way we are.  With whatever we’ve got.  We’ll make it work, and that’ll be good enough.”  And that ought to say something to you.

            But, the truth is there are these doubts about it.  How can you feed five thousand people?  Between us all we’ve got just a few loaves of bread and a couple fish.  There are doubts.  And I get that.

            You ever stare at a church budget that’s coming in a few thousand dollars short for the year and notice all of the things that still need to be done?  I get that.  Doubts.

            Maybe it’s your own budget.  What with a parent in the hospital, a job that’s probably going to get downsized any time now, and children who need so much just to make it to the first day of school in a couple of weeks.  How are you going to get from A to B, you wonder.  How can you do so many things that need to be done when there just isn’t all that available to go around?  Ever ask that question?  Oh, and not to mention there is money to save for retirement, college educations, you know.  Ever ask that question?

            I might be Philip.  I’ll be honest.

            And Jesus says, “Make those folks sit down.  It’s Passover, people.  We’re going to do this right.  We’ve got some bread.  And we’ve got some fish.  Fish sandwiches for everyone.”

            I don’t know what astounds me more.  In the presence of Jesus, the little bit of bread and fish they had fed all five thousand people?  Or, there was one disciple that said, “I’m with you.  We’ve got a boy here with a few loaves and a couple fish.”  I don’t know what astounds me more.  The vision of Jesus or the faith of Andrew.  “Here’s what we’ve got, Lord.  What are you going to do with it?”

            Jim Wallis said, “Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change.”  Sounds like the Bible, doesn’t it?  “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  (Hebrews 11:1)

            Most of us long for the courage to have faith like this.  We’re just so afraid.  So afraid.  So used to disappointment.  Used to have our hearts broken.  Used to making do instead of dreaming big.  We long for the courage to have faith that says, “Here’s what we’ve got.  Show me, Lord, what you’re going to do.”  I think most of us long for it.  The difficult I’ll do now.  The impossible?  It will take a little while.

            I told some folks a few months ago about this crazy idea I had.  I’d like to try a few experiments with having our children join us in worship.  And we’d do things really differently on those days and see if trying to communicate in the language of our children all through our Sunday morning worship would make sense to them and to us at the same time.  Crazy idea, perhaps.

            But, I told some folks about it.  And the next thing I knew, the entire Christian Women’s Fellowship gave me a check for $500.  Out of the blue.  They said, “Here’s a little bit of what we’ve got.  You might need it to do what you’re doing.  We don’t need an accounting of it.  We just believe it’s worth our resources.”

            That’s the kind of faith most of us long to live by—all of the time.  I sure do.  The kind of faith that says, “May not have a great deal, but I believe.  And I’ll go along with it.”

            Oh, I pray for that kind of faith!

            In fact, it is my prayer for all of us.  To have more of Andrew’s faith.  Less of Philip’s.  To willingly take on the difficult now.  And have the courage to believe that the impossible will only take more time.

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)