Saugatuck Congregational Church
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
July 26, 2015
Scripture: John 6:1-21
What would we know about Jesus, if we only had this one scene as reference? That he traveled, and taught. That he plied his trade between the mountain and the sea, between crowd and solitude, between green grass and stormy sea. That he valued the gifts of children; wanted to feed hungry people; that he had no interest in being king but was keenly interested in saving the leftovers… That he gave thanks before meals.
Also, that the people admired and feared him by turns. That his relationship to bread, water, and people, defied logic somehow. That there was power in his touch, his words, his footsteps. That he could perform miracles.
At least, that’s how the story goes, the one that has been passed down for two millennia. Some of us might shift uneasily at the ‘m’ word, (‘miracle’) noting that those first century folk lacked the benefits of modern science. We scrutinize the scene and offer up one explanation after another: Maybe the people shared their food; maybe Jesus walked by the sea, not on it; maybe the story is a bit exaggerated…It’s tempting to analyze, criticize, rationalize the odd interpretations of people from another time, so very far removed from our own.
This morning, I invite us to resist that impulse. With the sounds of the Sound lapping on the shore; with your feet sunk in the sand and the sun warm on your back, I invite you to approach this scene as poets, not scientists. To wonder what it was about this one episode that so captivated the people that it became the only scene to be included in all four gospels. Clearly, there was something electric about that day, something that seared itself into the memories of those who passed it along, person to person to person, until it was written down.
What was it? Take a journey with me, if you will. Imagine that you’ve found these verses hand-written on a piece of papyrus, aged and delicate. Pick it up. Feel the excitement as you realize that you are holding something that was first handled by the author 48 generations ago. Like a Westport-born Indiana Jones, or the doctoral student who just discovered tucked away in a library book, two pages of the Quran written during Muhammad’s lifetime: imagine the connection you might feel across time and space. Scan the scroll (your Greek is excellent!); the words on the page whisper in your ear: “After this, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee…” Allow yourself to be drawn right into the story.
…Until you are standing on that grassy hillside, above the rocky shore. You are there with 4,999 other sojourners, (give or take) every one of them with grubby feet and shining eyes. You’ve been following this man Jesus, because you have seen what happens in his presence, how lives get turned around in incredible ways. And though you can’t quite put your finger on it, you know that he has something for which you would give everything, if only you dared get close enough to ask. But somehow you know that he would look right into you, would see all of you: the times you are sure you failed as as a parent or as a friend; how you get impatient when your partner needs help; the way anger feels good sometimes, so you don’t want to let it go; your irrational fear of flying or public speaking; the way you hold onto your stuff; or how you rely on that little pill to help you keep up with the demands at work, because underneath it all you are terrified that you don’t have what it takes to hold it together…
You are sure that Jesus would see right into the boxes you’ve crammed into dark corners, boxes labeled Grief and Failure and Shame. So you hang back in the crowd, allowing the more pious pilgrims to take the front row seats, the ones who clearly do have it all together. The sun is high in the sky; it makes your skin prickle with sweat. An ache in your stomach reminds you that you are hungry. When was the last time you ate?
You look around, and see Jesus kneeling on the hard ground, deep in conversation with a small boy. You notice that he makes eye contact with the boy, as if addressing an equal. His dark face smiles, then he bows his head like he’s saying thank you. The boy has handed him a sack. Together, they speak the Jewish prayer of thanks that we say before meals: Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam hamotzi lechem min ha-aretz. Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, who brings forth bread from the earth.
Funny how sound travels in the foothills, how you can hear their voices, one high, one lower, speaking those words of gratitude. A rustling murmur runs through the crowds. The fishermen who seem always to be with Jesus are urging us all to sit, so you find a patch of grass near a few companions. Jesus is making his way through the crowd, headed your way. Your heart skips a beat. The boy’s lunch is in a basket now, and Jesus is handing out chunks of the barley bread, the fish to each person he meets. As he gets closer, you can see that his basket is full.
… You have no idea where he got it, but there it is: lunch. And as he draw even with you, as he extends his calloused hand to offer you a piece of dried fish and bread, he looks right at you – just like he did with the boy. He has piercing brown eyes in a fierce/compassionate face, and it’s just like you feared, and unlike anything you imagined. Because he does see right into you, but rather than feeling mortified, you are taken aback, because it’s like you’ve been truly seen for the first time, all the bad and the good and the ordinary/in between stuff, and rather than feeling ashamed, you feel loved, unconditionally loved – like there’s no question: of course you belong here, on this hillside, in his company.
“God bless you,” he says, by way of greeting. Or maybe he is silent. He touches you on the shoulder, or maybe it was the hand of God, or maybe just your neighbor, asking you to pass the bread. You can’t be sure. But your whole body trembles with something like awe and pleasure because you know you won’t ever be hungry again, not the same way, not hungry for approval; not hungry for possessions. Not hungry for meaning or purpose…
Because for a moment you glimpsed the cosmos in those deep brown eyes – singing stars and laughing children and also weeping widows, barren landscapes, desperate young men. You saw suffering and kindness and a fragment of God in those eyes. It was a little like looking up into the sky on a moonless night, out in the country where you can see so many stars, and being overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe. But also like knowing you have a place in that vastness.
And it dawns on you, as you chew on that barley loaf, that anything is possible, fear is irrelevant and you’ve got a job to do. Because that kind of love, it doesn’t stay contained inside. It overflows. You know, the way you feel after an extraordinary night, after you’ve fallen in love or found out that the cancer is in remission or held a brand-new-still-damp baby or finally, finally been forgiven? Like Gene Kelly dancing in the rain, or Serena Williams balancing her 6th Wimbledon trophy on her head; or poet ee cummings declaring
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
When you meet Love face to face, it makes you want to say ‘Yes!’ to the universe. And when you look around, you realize that you are surrounded by 4, 999 other people who feel the same way. Turns out, they were all just as mixed up as you, and just as beloved. You make eye contact with each other, and you’re all thinking the same thing: Just imagine what we can do, together!
Ok sure: you might be so determined to hold onto that feeling that you join the movement to make Jesus king. But maybe, later, after he has slipped away to pray; after you’ve returned home and thought for a while about the care with which Jesus gathered up all those leftovers, so that nothing would be lost, nothing, and no one… Maybe then you decide that what you really want is to spend the rest of your life being that person that Jesus saw – fully human; divinely loved… Maybe you decide to live less afraid and more faithful; less grasping and more generous; less alone and more connected…
Maybe that’s the miracle.
Maybe that’s the gift, then as now: Christ’s love unleashed into a world desperate for healing. That we are swept up in it, children of the Most High, cousins one to another, called to love as we have been loved, unconditionally; called (says Walt Whitman) “to contribute a verse.” In the words of the singer/songwriter Jewel: “Suffering is everywhere. Don’t ever think it isn’t. So are miracles. Don’t ever think they aren’t.” This season, may we keep our eyes peeled and our hearts tuned to perceive the miracles in our midst, and to live by them: faithful, joyful, unafraid. If you’re not sure where to look, ask the poets… Surely, they will guide us.
May it be so. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Scripture
John 6:1-21 – New Revised Standard Version
6After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5When 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?” 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9“There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” 10Jesus 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. 11Then 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. 12When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” 13So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14When 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.” 15When 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. 16When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.