Hunger

Hunger is important for faith.  There is physical hunger and there is spiritual hunger.  Emptiness.  Hunger places us in a state of human vulnerability in which we become more open to God, to powers outside of ourselves that can provide, fill the void.  We prefer to be full, satisfied.  But is that really possible?  Can we fill ourselves up enough? Our efforts are temporary and often riddled with unfairness.  If we are full, its because someone else is not.  There is sacrifice in the system that keeps some people in a state of vulnerability and others in a state of satisfaction.  Is the world a place of hunger and vulnerability or a place of fullness, abundance, and satisfaction? I suspect that those who are not hungry cannot know the full power of God’s love and grace.  Jesus seems to be for the sick and the hungry.  I suppose its when we are sick and hungry that Jesus matters.  Closeness to Jesus has something to do with how sick and hungry we are.  It’s good to be a little hungry.       

A hungry church is driven by a hunger to know the heart of God through the world’s hunger.  At community meals and food pantries.  At the Sunday gathering around the altar.  We enact feeding miracles.  We experience hunger and see the God who provides.  Jesus fed large crowds, turning scarce supplies into abundance.  So do we.  Jesus turned the Passover meal into the Lord’s Supper---in which the bread and cup are His body and blood, given and shed on the cross for the salvation of the world.  And here we are, about to receive Him again.  About a thousand years before Jesus did it, Elisha did it.  Before that, God sent manna to those barely freed slaves on the road to the promised land.  Before that, God put an imprisoned Hebrew in charge of the abundant food supply for all of the Middle East at a time of famine.  Before that, God created humankind and placed them in a garden with the covenant calling to till and keep the earth, to be fruitful and multiply.  Food is a sign of God’s presence, power, and provision.  Food, eating, feeding hungry people are visible expressions of God’s Word to the world.  God’s goodness and mercy, God’s grace and love are offered up to us in the bread and cup we share.  But this is not new news for you.  I have said this all before.  You get it.

This week I took the leftover bread from Peter’s Porch to Lancaster Council of Churches new food hub in the city.  It is an amazing place with large cold storage and ample space to organize food donations for distribution to hungry Lancaster residents.  The vision for that place is to serve the county’s food needs by becoming a central collecting point for locally grown, fresh food that is donated or bought to feed the hungry.  They are part of a broader movement called Hunger Free Lancaster County.  I sit on the board of this grassroots organization.  Our goal, under the leadership of former Senator Mike Brubaker is to end hunger in the county by 2018 by assuring that every Lancaster county resident has access to three healthy meals a day.  21.6 million meals will be needed to fill the gap.  My work on the board extends to the service committee.  I am working on food recovery and gleaning efforts.  I am meeting local farmers and growers to talk about acquiring more fresh locally grown food for anti-hunger food relief programs.  I spent some time on Friday at Lancaster Central market talking to vendors about the work of HFLC.  I’m hoping to organize two large field or orchard gleans for 2015. I have a lead on a tomato farm.  But not an orchard yet.  On Tuesday I will go to Root’s market to talk with vendors.  On Thursday, I’m going to Leola Produce auction to learn how to buy large quantities of produce there.  I feel like Joseph. We have to get a handle on the abundance, in order to address the scarcity.  There are hungry people here.  They are living on a very low income.  Many of them are seniors and children.  They are working families and people with disabilities.  Hunger is not racially discriminatory.  White, black, and brown people are hungry.  Any one of us are only a day away from hunger.  Do not eat for one day and you will taste its power.  Hunger drives behavior. Hunger, emptiness, scarcity causes fear, anxiety, mistrust, hoarding, even violence.

Today we are invited to pay attention to the hunger, the emptiness, the illness inside us and in the world God made.  Jesus came to reveal abundance, to satisfy our needs, to feed our souls with the bread of heaven.  But if we're not hungry, we won't eat.  Even Jesus knows that.  So, what are you hungry for?  

   

He withdrew

¹³Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.  ¹⁴When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.  ¹⁵When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."  ¹⁶Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."  ¹⁷They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."  ¹⁸And he said, "Bring them here to me."  ¹⁹Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.  ²⁰And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.  ²¹And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.  Mark 6

This summer was a season to withdraw, to get away.  Like Jesus modeled for his disciples and for us.  I’m grateful for the 2 weeks off.  I had very limited contact and received NO phone calls during this time away.  I returned to read this gospel, a text that has its middle action cut out to make a point.  Jesus provides retreat, rest, recuperation, and healing to people who need these things.  A church that imitates Jesus is called to offer them same to one another and to our neighbors.   It would be easy today to point to the gospel of Mark and say, “See, Jesus invited his disciples to retreat, to a little vacation across the lake.  We all need rest and renewal.”   While I was away, I learned that a colleague, the pastor I served with at my previous call (Grace Lancaster) recently had a heart attack and is recovering for the month of July at his 2^nd  home in New Hampshire.  That news was shocking because Steve is only 50 and in excellent health, an athlete really.   We must learn to balance work and rest, productive time and grace time; we all need renewal to continue the important work this church is called to do.  We are called, brothers and sisters, to embody freedom in Christ. This freedom is a freedom to serve our neighbors generously and joyfully.  This comes from the master’s work, work that is hidden from our ears today in the gospel.  I remind you that the text that was cut out of the gospel for today includes the feeding of the multitudes and the stilling of the storm/walking on water scenes.  Jesus actually delays their retreat in order to compassionately serve the sick and hungry people they encounter.  He takes his disciples into new territory, not only to get away from the crowds, but to encounter more strangers who are hungry and hurting. He took them away to show them the scope and breadth of the mission.  

Americans are not great at maintaining healthy rhythms; daily, weekly, annually.  We tend to overwork, vacation, overwork, repeat…until we retire or die.  Bad stress causes heart attacks and anxiety for many of us.  For so many of our friends and neighbors, the constancy of labor without vacation or breaks is necessary to sustain their households.  Between hard work and household chores and child-rearing, many of our friends and neighbors get no physical or mental breaks ever.  What would a church that took seriously the need to create time and space for people to get time off look like?  What if some adults here offered a free parents night out, in which we served dinner and a movie to kids from 6 to 9 pm?   

We know that time heals. And although I’m dealing with some back pain probably soft tissue or muscle related that I incurred during vacation, I know that healing takes time.  Often, the doctor tells us we need to take more healing time than we are willing or able to give ourselves.  We are impatient patients.  And we do not take seriously mental and emotional health care, requiring times of silence, stillness, and self-reflection. We prefer quick fixes.  But time heals. How do we give people permission to enter into a season of prolonged healing and renewal?

While we were in Williamsburg, we pulled into a gas station.  We pulled around an elderly man who was having some difficulty at the pump.  His car was not close enough to the pump and he was moving very slowly.  We watched this scene unfold.  After I was done filling my tank, I noticed people passing by, shaking their heads or ignoring the scene.  The man got back in his car and attempted to move it closer to the tank.  He moved it further away.  He couldn’t back up to the tank.  I decided to intervene.  I asked the man if I could help him.  He said he would be grateful.  He gave me his keys and I backed the car to the pump.  He didn’t know how to use the credit card machine, so I helped him with it.  He said, its hell getting old.  And he said thank you.  He gassed up the car and we drove away.  I couldn't help but think that part of my vacation was for him.  I was where I was needed, even when we were on retreat.  Because the mercy mission is evreywhere, for everyone, at any time.  I was grateful for the time away.  For the injured back that slows me down.  And for the elderly man who needed someone to pay attention to him and lend a hand. 

Talitha Cum

A sermon preached on June 28th, 2015.  On  Mark 6;  raising Jairus' daughter, healing the bleeding woman

This has been a week of social change.  SCOTUS rulings on gay marriage and health care; confederate flags, the symbol of persistent and unrepentant racism, removed from southern capitols and Dukes of Hazzard merchandise.  Even Walmart has banned the flag, thus offending the innocent and ignorant who proudly flew her from the back of pickup trucks or wore her on Tshirts, hats, and boxer shorts.  The flag is only a symbol and we daresn’t believe that racism will go away as quickly as it has. However, it may be a sign of remorse, long-overdue repentance that finally got through to us when an historic black church---a place that stood for peace and justice and prayer---was the scene of violent death.  Rev. Pinckney and the 8 other innocent brothers and sisters who died there at the hands of an angry white man somehow broke the spirit of overt racism.  I believe a new day is dawning, a day Dr. King dreamed about. A day when freedom could be for all men, women, and children-regardless of race or sexual orientation.  A day when oppressed minorities could be free to prosper in safety.  I believe we are witnessing hope rising. 

But it is not easy. One person’s greatest blessing is another person’s curse.   History tilts and some people lose their balance.  The pace of change can be dizzying and provoke anxiety and fear.  We may feel as if we are thrown into chaos with no mooring, no anchor to hold.  This is why faith is necessary in challenging times such as these.

The two girls in this story are inextricably bound together by the storyteller and by the one who touches their lives on the same day.

One, a 12-year old daughter sick on the brink of death. Her father, a synagogue leader comes to Jesus and begs him to come and heal her.  Jesus goes willingly.  On the way, a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years crawls up behind him and touches his cloak.  If she could only touch him, his power would heal her,  she hopes.  She bleeds. She’s not a hemophiliac with a paper cut.  She’s a bleeding woman.  She is infertile, unclean according to the law, and therefore cursed.  She has been cast out of the synagogue, labeled as broken.  She can’t be cured.  God has abandoned her.  She has no one.  No family. No friend.  No husband.  No child.  No resources.  She spent all her money on health care that did nothing for her.  She is at the end of her rope and the end of her hope.  Her last and only hope is Jesus of Nazareth, a man who can heal. 

She distracts Jesus, interrupting his hasty journey to his friend Jairus’ home.  Who touched me?  The disciples couldn’t care less.  Everyone touches Jesus.  Move on master.  There isn’t time.  But he stops.  And looks around.  Who touched me?  And there she is, on the ground.  Crying.  It was me.  I’m sorry, Lord. I needed you.  He takes her hand and lifts her up.  Daughter, your faith has healed you. He claims her when no one else would claim her.  He touches her when no one else would touch her.  He sees her and hears her when no one else would see and hear her.  Her lets her in, this one who had been left out to bleed to death.  After 12 years of suffering, she is free to live.  Thanks be to Jesus.

Too late.  Jesus is too late.  Death has come and taken the girl.  He cannot heal her now.  Do not fear, only believe.  He says.  He goes in and touches the girl.  Talitha cum.  Little Girl, Rise. Ad she sits up. Feed her, he says. Maybe she was only sleeping as he suggested.  Maybe she’s just hungry, underfed., malnourished.  Maybe she was a diabetic who needed a little sugar in her blood.  Jesus knows.  What we see and hear is mourning turned into joy.  Despair turned into elation.  Death reversed and life restored.

Women were inferior to men.  They had value, but they were inferior.  They were household servants and bearers of children, hopefully boys. A daughter was a burden, a blessing and a curse.  All daughters of Eve were cursed for their disobedience.  Misogyny and the abuse of women persists.  Women are still treated as inferior to men, though much has changed in the last 100 years.  Jesus acknowledges their value, their beloved status as daughters of God when it was culturally unnatural an unpopular to do so.   Jesus pours himself out as a servant to women.  Because Jesus is for those who are deprivileged, marked as cursed, abused, abandoned, and bleeding on the street.  Jesus’ actions are personal and systemic, as he selectively heals those at the bottom of the human pyramid lifting up the lowly, the weary ones, the poor and dispossessed. He is setting the world right-side up.  It’s just that those who stood in their feet are now standing on their heads.     

We are called to celebrate today. Jesus healed a woman and raised a girl to life. There is hope.  It’s not too late for this world to change. Discrimination and prejudice can die.  Love can overcome.   One daughter at a time. A little faith breaks the curse and opens the way to new and abundant life.  We see the new creation, the kingdom of God breaking in.  We are anchored to Jesus, the source of new life and freedom.  We are the church, called to enact his compassionate justice for our neighbors.  Let us do so with boldness and abandon.  For we will do nothing good that he has not already done.  He endorses and anoints and ordains us as his representatives, sent to heal and forgive and give life where there is suffering and death.  We can stop the bleeding and lift them up.  For we are children of GOD.  Amen.        

          

Scattered and Sown

DWELL

He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,  and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.  The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.  But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."

             He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?  It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;  yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;  he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples."  Mark 4

REFLECT

Scattered and sown---these verbs describe how the Kingdom of God moves into our lives.  Sowing is a bit more intentional than scattering, though they have the same effect, right?  Some sort of growth, reproduction, multiplication, and maturation. Tiny, buried seeds germinate and grow into visible plants that grow and produce fruit and habitat and more seeds!  Germination takes time.  One waits to see if the seeds that were sown or scattered will emerge.  And then they do.  With water, soil, sun, and a little time. 

IN my garden the first plants to emerge this year were pumpkin plants, all over the garden.  As if I’d tossed pumpkin seeds everywhere.  Countless pumpkin sprouts popped up.  Thing is, I didn’t plant them.  I didn’t sow or scatter them, really.  What we did was toss our pumpkins onto the garden in the Fall.  We toss yard autumn leaves and other yard waste in there for composting.  So, in a sense I did scatter seeds.  As the pumpkins rotted, the seeds fell into the ground and spent a harsh winter there.  Dormant. Lifeless.  And then, the spring sun and rains came. I cleaned up the composted garden, removed the remaining pumpkins and added soil.  That’s all it took.  Now they grow.  We’re letting them grow.  Maybe this year we’ll grow our own pumpkin patch.  Right now they seem to be growing better than anything else we planted.  Scattered seeds will grow without intention, without work, without assistance.  It is the way of things.  Death and resurrection.  Burial and growth.  Seed and fruit.  The scattering of the seeds indiscriminately leads to a future harvest. 

Tiny seeds in the right conditions become plants with the DNA to mature and reproduce.  Mustard plants are not the tiniest, nor are they the biggest shrubs.  But they do spread.  Mustard spreads in a field, like mint.  Though we planted mint in our 4 X 4 raised beds, they jumped out and spread everywhere, invading the larger garden area, too.  You can’t control it.  It’s everywhere.  Mustard plants grow and spread and persist.  It’s hard to kill.  Just keeps on growing and moving.   

The Kingdom of God is like this.  It’s not an institution or a program or an organization with a board of directors.  It is not managed. Jesus suggests that His work ,words, and ways are being sown and scattered in a way that cannot be controlled or undone.  It’s already out there, like the pumpkin seeds in my garden.  His healing, his teachings, his powerful forgiveness are already being sown into the hearts and minds of people like you and me, who scatter and sow with our own lives, our own words and actions.  The church is like a farm or a garden plot or garden box.  It has good soil, starter seeds, a history of growth and reproduction.  But it is not the only place the seeds grow.  And, contrary to what so many are saying about the church, it is not dying.  Containers do not die.  The church is a container. That's all.  And sometimes not a very good container.  The church is not itself the Kingdom of God or the Word of God. It is, at best, vessel, instrument, container garden of faith.   2,000 years of the Spirit wind blowing the seeds of faith around the globe.  It’s not everywhere, though.  So the wind continues to blow.  This week I was a sower of Kingdom seeds in the lives of a family or two. I told them about God’s love for them, God’s promised provision for them, God’s desire for them to be part of the family of God.  I listened to their story with empathy and compassion. They were grateful.  And I believe the kingdom of God broke into that household this week, the kingdom of God invaded the untilled soil of their broken hearts. They emailed me a note saying that out encounter may have restored some faith.  I don’t know how or when germination might take place.  I don’t know if I’ll see them to water the seeds.  But I trust the power of the Word to take root and grow in places we do not expect, with people who have never been in church or have left church behind.  So the good news is the growth of the church or the kingdom of God is not all up to us.  You can have great soil and a nice container for it, but without the seeds you have nothing.  So wasting efforts on the church building makes no sense if the seeds of Christ’s teachings are not planted there. 

Sown and scattered.  God has planted the DNA of the kingdom in you; they are the gifts of the spirit, faith and hope and love.  You are the seeds scattered and sown.  You are sown into a neighborhood, a school, a retirement community.  We have bee sown onto main Street in Akron.  God intends for you to visibly embody the life of Jesus where you live.  And scattered, the places you travel, the people you meet along the way, every journey and resting place is a place to scatter the seeds of faith.  May you be scattered and sown as the seeds of Christ’s love and may you plant the seed in others.  Amen.   

PRAY

Lord Jesus, your kingdom moves and grows and multiplies around us, through us, within us, in spite of us, and for us.  We see it and feel it and taste your forgiveness.  Scatter us like seeds that we might sow the word of salvation, the word of love and compassion every where we go.  Amen.