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8th Sunday in Pentecost (proper 12): July 26, Martha Rogers
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I’ve been spending time over the past few weeks getting to know the people, both clergy and lay people, who make up the staff here at Christ Church. There’s Pete….he does our cleaning and can be found here at 5 or 6 in the mornings, just about every day of the week, to prepare the building for our daily use. There’s Linda, Susan and Lisa in the office. Then there is Mark and Melody, the deacons of Christ Church and Barbara our associate priest. These people make up most of the staff. Then there’s Matt, Betty, Janice and Lisa with the music staff. The list goes on and on. This is a lively and busy church…..with a deep commitment to serving God’s people in this area and beyond.
I am so privileged to be part of such a staff. They are probably the best staff I have ever had the opportunity to work with and to know.
As the new rector here, one of the challenges I have is to get to know the duties and tasks associated with each person’s job position. But that isn’t enough for me. I want to know about the person who fills the position, too. There are many questions that I want answers to, such as: What are these people like? Where are their interests and passions in life? What do they get involved with that gives spirit to their days? How are they?
One way I do that is to work on covenants with them all. The covenants that we work out together show their commitment and their contributions to our church. I asked many people, such as the staff and the vestry, to fill out a covenant sheet, and although I haven’t responded to them all yet, I will over the next few months.
A covenant is a two way agreement: it involves relationship and life giving goals. It is a model from scripture itself. God made a covenant with our ancestors, the people of Israel, when God promised to protect them if they would follow the ways God prescribed, ways that are still today living giving and spirit filing. I prefer covenants in a church to job descriptions.
One of the things I request in the staff covenant process is for the staff to list the tasks they are involved in for us to review.
I want to know what they say they do. And I had to laugh a bit this week in preparing for this sermon when I read the psalm appointed for this day. t’s like a task list for God, applicable to the process of what Jesus says he does. Listen to this list and see if you don’t agree:
The Lord is faithful. In all that the Lord does, there is mercy. The Lord upholds all those who fall. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down. The Lord provides, with a wide open hand, what we need in the right time, satisfying the needs of every living creature. The Lord is righteous and loving. If we call, the Lord is near.
It’s a great beginning to making the covenant. But to make this a real covenant, it requires our response to make it a two-way relationship agreement. We know what the Lord does, but how are we to respond?
In the gospel, Jesus takes little and feeds the hungry. You know the story: having a boy with only 5 loaves and 2 fish, Jesus took what was offered, gave thanks and shared it all. And the result: all were fed and there were leftovers!
Abundance abounded!
Then we heard that the strong wind was blowing those fishermen around in their boats and Jesus, while saying little, brought himself to those in desperation. And the result: all were reassured and the frightened were calmed.
Jesus, like the staff, including me, here, can’t seem to do anything all alone. We need each other.
Jesus could have fed that crowd, but he knew, the gospel says, what he was going to do and it seemed to launch a plan, a miracle, to involve others, just like his work and his miracles today involve us.
I wonder why Jesus needed to show that he wouldn’t do the job alone. Is it perhaps because he needs what we bring him, whether desperation or gift. It may not be much, but I get the feeling he needs it.
One unknown author I read this week says that it may be that the world is denied seeing miracle after miracle today because we often will not bring to Jesus what we have and what we are. We don’t seem to let go of ourselves and our things often enough.
But what if that changed?
What if, like the apostle Andrew who demonstrated hope and possibility, we bring to Jesus what we have available?We may be sorry and embarrassed that we have not more to bring or that we don’t choose to bring more, but that is no reason for failing to bring what we have … little is always much in the hands of Christ.
There is no saying what Jesus could do with us, in us and through us if we only were willing to share ourselves. Little is always much in the hands of Christ.
But even a little won’t get there by itself. We have to do the bringing and the offering of it for God’s use.
The bread, wine and money, the things we offer during this Holy Communion today symbolize the offerings of ourselves and what we give to the Lord to use for the healing and restoration of all of God’s creation.
Forget those things for a moment and let’s ask “what about ourselves?” I would hope that we offer ourselves in the faith that what we do is significant and that through Christ the feeding will happen.
That what we do is significant and that through Christ the feeding will happen.
Abundant feeding.
For today we have glimpse of abundance everywhere … there are so many signs that Jesus is doing, so many people following him, so many fragments left over, and not a one of them is to be lost.
Where the disciples saw scarcity and desperation, Jesus saw possibility and abundance. Twelve baskets left over, much more than enough for all, and yet nothing (no one?) should be lost, not even at land or sea; where souls and bodies were fed and blowing winds were calmed.
So what’s the real miracle in our scripture lessons? What’s the ongoing miracle now?
Is the real miracle that Jesus turned a crowd of selfish men and women into a community of sharers? Instead of worrying what they would eat, they shared and fed one another?
Is the biggest miracle in today’s scripture not one which changed loaves, fishes and winds, but one where God changed men and women and even a little boy?
All of this is the evidence of the divine love that goes beyond knowledge and understanding.
This is the love, the spirit, whose power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than you or I could ask for or even imagine.
Offer yourself again to God this day and keep your part of the covenant.
Launch a miracle with the Christ that dwells in you and you in Him.
For you are significant in the mind & heart of God.
Amen.