A Thanksgiving Sermon (from 1992, but still . . . !)

[revdorothyl]

Looking back, I realize that I haven't posted a Thanksgiving sermon since the sermonette in 2011, and though I preached on this year's Thanksgiving Day lectionary on November 24th, I must confess that I didn't feel as confident in that sermon's worth.

So, in case anyone's interested, here instead is an off-lectionary sermon from Thanksgiving of 1992:

"I CAN'T GET NO SATISFACTION" -- Nov. 22, 1992
Mark 6:30-44

"And all ate and were satisfied."

Perhaps that is the most powerful line in the whole story. Especially since we are fast approaching the Holiday Season during which, all too often, we eat and eat and eat, but are not satisfied. During which we buy and give and receive gifts, all in the knowledge that what we truly long for will not be found wrapped in paper under someone's tree. Maybe we didn't find satisfaction during last year's holidays, either, or the year before that, but because we know of no other way, we will try, once again, to find peace and satisfaction through the turkeys and the pies and the cookies and the wrappings and, if all else fails, in the ever-hopeful expectation of the children around us. They may not get what they truly want, either, but at least most of them will go on hoping, for a few more years.

But, maybe this year can be different. Maybe, this year, we can give thanks and eat and be satisfied.

How? Well, let's look at how this seems to have been accomplished in today's Gospel lesson.

In order to do this, I think we have to look at three distinct angles in the story: First, the question of who really has a problem, here? Second, how the people of the world cry, "There's not enough!", while God says, "There is plenty." And Third, how 50's company and 5000's a crowd.


Okay, so who really has a problem here? Who really wants to be fed?

Notice that in vs. 31, it says that the disciples, just returned, flushed with victory from their mission work, had no time to eat, because of the coming and goings of the crowds. But notice also that later, in vs. 35, they come to Jesus to complain, not of their own hunger, but of the hunger of the crowds. Why?

Well, maybe you've encountered someone in your workplace or in your family who likes to speak for everybody else except themselves? You know, the kind of person who will come to you and say, "Everybody was really looking forward to this," or "Everybody is real unhappy about that." If you ask around, you often discover that what this person meant was, "I was looking forward to this," or "I am very unhappy about that." These kinds of people don't feel as though their feelings alone are worth much, or would be listened to, and so they hide behind that generic "Everybody."

In much the same way, I think the disciples are still uncertain of Jesus and his concern for them, so they hide behind a concern for the crowds. And maybe they had some reason for thinking that their own concerns might not carry much weight with him. After all, Jesus had brought them to this supposedly-deserted place for a rest, to get away from the hustle and confusion of the crowds. But when the crowds got to the place ahead of them, Jesus didn't ask them to leave, or stay on the boat and take the disciples elsewhere for their retreat. Jesus seemed to put the need of the crowds for his teaching ahead of his faithful disciples' need for rest and relaxation.

So, instead of honestly telling Jesus, "Hey, it's getting late, and we're hungry and tired -- how about sending this crowd on about their business, now?", they say, "Hey, you're worried about this crowd, and so are we -- it's late and there's nothing for them to eat here, so you'd better break this up and send them away to take care of themselves . . . for their own good, of course!"

What the disciples are missing here is something that we may also miss when holiday time comes around -- the fact that Jesus does care about each one of us, both the obviously poor and needy, and the faithful disciples who are beginning to feel burned out. Though the disciples didn't realize it, Jesus was planning to take care of their needs -- the appearance of the crowds hadn't thwarted his intention. But he was planning to take care of them through helping them to take care of others. When Jesus took their meager offering of five loaves and two fish and blessed it and gave it back to them to give to the crowds, he was taking care of his disciples. For, after that, they all ate and were satisfied. When Jesus sends us people in need during this holiday season, it's not because Jesus doesn't care about us and our needs -- doesn't care about how stressed-out we are and how tired and over-extended, and how much we deserve to take a break and enjoy life for a little while. No. Instead, Jesus knows that acts of unselfishness and love, acts of sharing in the presence of our own neediness -- things like including a stranger or a lonely neighbor or elderly person at our Thanksgiving table, or giving fewer gifts to friends and family, and more to the poor -- Jesus knows that these are what truly provide rest for our souls and refreshment for our spirits. These are what enable us to feel rested and satisfied, when all is said and done.


The second angle involves the world's cries of scarcity, versus God's abundance. Notice how the disciples firmly believe that food is scarce, especially there, in that lonely place, so their solution is to divide the people up, and send them away to fend for themselves in the marketplaces of the surrounding towns. When Jesus responds, "You give them something to eat," their answer borders on the sarcastic, considering how scarce their own resources are. They say something like, "Oh yeah, right, Jesus. After all, we've got eight thousand dollars here that we can spend on buying bread for this mob. NOT!" (That's from the alternate translation, the "Gospel According to Wayne and Garth".)

But Jesus doesn't get offended, nor does he take their ridicule for an answer. He says, "Don't tell me what you don't have. How much food do you have? Go and see." Their second answer is even more damping: "Five loaves, and two fish." In other words, "See how ridiculous this is, Jesus? Now, will you listen to reason?"

Not hardly.

The world's reason teaches the disciples, as it teaches us, that everything people need is scarce. The world teaches us that, because scarcity means power. If you can convince people that what you have to offer is scarce, then they will need to come to you for it, and you will have power over others as you control how much they can get and what they have to pay for it. A few things, like fossil fuels and old growth forests, truly are limited in this world. But we know that food is not truly scarce today -- it's just that the hungry are cut off by geography or politics or lack of money from the food that the world produces in abundance.

Human intelligence is a resource that the world would try to tell us is scarce, because that gives power to those who have it and who can decide who else has it. Way too many of our children only learn in school that they are stupid, because their intelligence is not of that one kind that most schools are set up to recognize and reward. In reality, there are many kinds of intelligence -- some people have genius in their hands for making things, or genius in their souls for getting people to work together in harmony.

So, since we, like the disciples, have been trained by the world to think that we have way too little of whatever it is that is needed, Jesus does not wait until we are sure that we have enough to share. When we cannot trust ourselves, Jesus trusts what we have. It is almost a language of communion that he gives to us, as he blesses those five loaves and breaks them and hands them out: it says, "Maybe I don't have much to offer by worldly standards, but what I have comes to me as pure gift from God, and so, out of gratitude, I pass the gift on to you -- because that's the only way to keep the gift alive."

Just as God answered the disciples cries of scarcity with an abundance of loaves and fishes, God answers our cries of "Not enough!" with "There will be plenty -- you have only to share what you have with others."


The third and final angle for us to look at is how 50's Company and 5000's a crowd in this story.

If you'll remember, in verses 39-40, as Jesus was preparing to divide the disciples' measly five loaves and two fish among the vast crowd, he had the disciples get all the people to sit down in groups, or in companies, on the green grass. So, it says, the people sat down in companies of hundreds and of fifties.

Well, now, why did Jesus consider it necessary that the people divide their 5000 into smaller companies? Was it just so that the disciples could have an easier time passing among them to distribute the miniscule portions that would be each company's share of the food? Or was there something else? What happens when a huge crowd divides into and sits down as groups of fifty or even a hundred?

Well, I think that the first thing that happens is that, instead of a faceless mob, you've suddenly got people noticing and getting to know one another, looking one another in the face. Instead of a huge mass of people, elbowing each other out of the way, perhaps, in their focus on getting close to Jesus, all intent on hearing his words and seeing what he did next, you begin to have people focusing on one another, hearing and seeing their neighbors, perhaps for the first time. You begin to have little communities, where people can actually get to know and perhaps even to care about one another.

And what does this accomplish? Well, some have argued that it would have been customary in those days for many of the people in that crowd to have brought some provisions with them in their day-packs. Remember, it was the disciples who said the people should go away to find food. Nobody in the crowd is shown saying that they have nothing to eat. But, if some of those folks did have food, who among them was going to open up and start eating in the midst of a huge and probably hungry mob?

However, sharing with your neighbors is a different thing, especially with the example of Jesus and his disciples there, sharing what little they had.

When you can put a face and maybe even a name on human need, when the hungry , or the lonely, or the disheartened, or the abused, become not just numbers, but faces, faces of people you know and care about, miracles of sharing can occur, and all can be satisfied at last. Remember, the Gospel story in Mark doesn't say how all those people were fed -- whether the loaves were multiplied before their eyes, or whether neighbors in the companies quietly began to break and share their own bread with one another. Either way, it is a miracle -- a miracle that God says can take place whenever we begin to see one another as individuals, people for whom Christ died, and not just as faceless crowds who overwhelm us with their vast needs.

Comments

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

Excellent sermon. You have such a wonderful way of mining the biblical stories for deeper meaning. I'd really like to show this to my pastor. May I?

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your kind words. Sure, go ahead and share it with your pastor, if you'd like!

I no longer have the rough notes I used in preparing this sermon, but I think I remember that at least some of the interpretations of this passage from Mark were inspired by discussions at a Presbyterian pastors' retreat led by Parker J. Palmer (http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker) at Camp Wyoming in Iowa earlier in the fall of 1992 (in the interests of at least partial disclosure of source materials!).

[apeygirl.livejournal.com]

Wonderful sermon. This part also struck me with Christmas coming and all the drama and panic people assign to Black Friday.

"The world teaches us that, because scarcity means power. If you can convince people that what you have to offer is scarce, then they will need to come to you for it, and you will have power over others as you control how much they can get and what they have to pay for it."

With everyone rushing to get the new thing before anyone else or at a lower price. I've never bought into that, but I have friends and family that do, as if it's a status symbol they need to display for them or their kids.

And Hi! You're new to my flist and I'm looking forward to getting to know each other more. :)