"An Epiphany of Abundance." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on John 2:1-11.

"An Epiphany of Abundance"

John 2:1-11

Jesus and his mother and his disciples are attending a wedding.  Anyone who’s ever officiated or planned a wedding can tell you that things can go wrong. 

            In those days a wedding was a great occasion, and most everybody in the village, plus some people from neighboring villages, would have been invited.   Weddings were hosted by the groom’s family, and the celebrations lasted for up to a week. 

            This celebration is in trouble, because on the third day, they’re running out of wine.  This is a crisis for the family responsible for hospitality. 

            David Lose explains why this was such a disaster: “Wine isn’t merely a social lubricant…it’s a sign of the harvest, of God’s abundance, of joy and gladness and hospitality.  And so, when they run short on wine they run short on blessing.  And that’s a tragedy.”[1]

            Jesus’ mother goes to him and identifies the problem.  But Jesus says, “That’s really not our concern.  And my hour has not come.”  In the theology of John’s Gospel, “the hour” is the hour when Jesus goes to the cross. 

            His mother tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

            There were six stone water-jars there, ready to be used in the Jewish purification rituals.  Each held about twenty or thirty gallons.   “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus says to the servants, and they do.   “Now draw some out,” he says, “and take it to the chief steward.” 

            When the chief steward tasted the water that had turned into wine, he didn’t know where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew.   He called the bridegroom and said, “Normally people serve the good wine first, and then the cheap stuff when people have already had plenty to drink.  But you’ve kept the really good wine for now.”

            John tells us that Jesus did this as the first of his “signs” and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.  The miracles Jesus performs in the Fourth Gospel are never called miracles—but “signs.”  These “signs” are about revealing a deeper reality about Jesus.

In the first verses of his gospel—the prologue, which we heard on Christmas Eve--John identifies the major themes of his message.  We hear that the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth…. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. Turning water into wine is revealing abundant grace. And what does abundant grace taste like? Like the really good wine, when you were expecting the cheap stuff.            

            No matter how hard we may try to “spiritualize” today’s gospel lesson, we have 150 gallons of really good wine at a wedding party that had been experiencing scarcity. 

            Today’s gospel text is about the very nature of God… and about the very purpose of being human.  The nature of God is pure grace-- abundant… surprising grace.  Grace overflowing to the brim, in times and places we least expect it.

            Karoline Lewis has suggested that we have so modified and codified abundance that it’s hard to recognize it anymore.  Some have monopolized abundance…hoarded it…thinking that it is theirs to control, theirs to possess, and theirs to take away. “Theirs to keep for themselves, because those without it? Well, clearly they have not merited God’s attention, earned God’s graces.”[1]

            The gospels teach us that abundance is never about you or me and Jesus alone, as much as we might want it to be—but about bringing us into life—true life, abundant life, for all. In God’s life of abundance, abundance is not ours to grasp individually, but in beloved community, in the world God so loves.

            We need to pay attention to the details in this story.  The water-jars were there to be used for Jewish purification rituals--   When Jesus turned the water into wine, it was a sign that God was doing a new thing.

            And I wonder:  What if Jesus had stuck with his original feeling?  It is not my problem, it is not my time.  What if all of his life Jesus had said, "That’s not my problem and it is not my time"?

            That’s unimaginable, isn’t it?

            Closer to our own time, in the mid 1950s, Martin Luther King wrapped up his course work for his Ph.D. and took his first call to a church.  His dissertation wasn’t done yet when Martin Luther King left graduate school and took a job as a pastor of a church in Montgomery, Alabama. 

            Not long after he went to Montgomery, Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus.  A meeting was held in the African-American community in Montgomery, and they asked who was going to lead the boycott.  

            All the other pastors and all the other influential leaders of the African-American community were smart enough to know that this looked like a risky business.  They decided to get the new pastor in town to lead the boycott.  

            Rev. Martin Luther King had every reason in the world to say, "It is not the right time for me. I have a young family.  I have a dissertation to finish writing.  I have a congregation that doesn’t know me or trust me yet.   If I start out at the head of this enterprise, what will that do to my relationship to my congregation?  It just isn’t a good time.   I have all these reasons why.  This isn’t the time for me to do something like this.” 

            But, as we all know, this very human being was moved from “not my time” -- to yes.

            More than 60 years have passed since the Montgomery bus boycott.   Fifty-six years have passed since the March on Washington when Dr. King gave his “I have a dream” speech. More than 50 years have passed since he wrote his last book before he was assassinated: “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”

            Have we made progress since that time?  Undoubtedly.  But we need to be honest with ourselves about where we the people of the United States are   and about our history.

            Later in the Gospel of John, we hear Jesus saying, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”[3]

            I believe the gospel has the power to set us free-- as individuals, as a community, as a society-- if we have ears to hear the good news… if we have faith to trust in God’s power to transform us and bind us together in Beloved Community… if we trust in the gospel’s truth to make us free.

            Some of the stories we heard during Advent remind us that sometimes people have a failure of imagination, like Zechariah, when the angel Gabriel told him Elizabeth was going to have a baby: “How can this be?”

            In our time and place, God calls us to be the people who come to know God, to experience the grace and abundance of Jesus Christ, to embody that love and live together in Beloved Community with all of God’s children.  

            Whenever we’re afraid we won’t have enough—enough money or power or privilege or security-- whenever we think the party’s over because things are changing, God will keep doing new things and surprising us with new wine that is sweeter and tastier than ever before… and give us dreams and visions to help us live more fully into the life of abundance and grace into which God calls us.  Can we imagine it?   Is anything impossible for God?      

            In a world threatened by ethnic, racial, and religious conflict, the consequences of trying to defend the status quo or to keep most of the money and resources and power in the hands of a a few…  or of wallowing in the valley of despair and fear and negativity are enormous. But the rewards of inclusive justice and healing are too important not to try.           

            The prophets and the gospel call us to dream, to imagine an alternative reality of Beloved Community for all God’s people.  They challenge us to embody it in our daily lives, trusting that God will provide abundant new wine and better things than we ever tasted or seen or imagined   and a life overflowing with joy and blessing in God’s presence.

            Thanks be to God! 

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

January 20, 2019

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[1] David Lose, “Epiphany 2B: What Grace Looks Like!” http://www.davidlose.net/2016/01/epiphany-2-b-what-grace-looks-like/ 

[2] Wright, John for Everyone, Chapters 1-10 (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), Kindle Edition, Loc 472.

[3] John 8:32

[4] Jim Wallis, America’s Original Sin:  Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America.  (Brazos Press, 2016), Kindle Edition, Location 388.

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[1] Karoline Lewis, at Working Preacher. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=5276

"Don't You Understand?" A Sermon on Mark 8:1-21 on World Communion Sunday

"Don't You Understand?"

Mark 8:1-21

         Does this story sound familiar?   Haven’t we heard this story before?

            Actually, we have.  In Mark chapter 6, we heard a story of a miraculous feeding of a multitude.  But this time some of the details are different.   A thousand fewer people.   Two more loaves of bread.  And five fewer baskets of left-overs.  

            Jesus looks around at the huge crowd that came to hear him and says to his disciples, “I’m really concerned for the people.  They’ve been with me for three days now, and they don’t have anything to eat.   If I send them home hungry, they’ll collapse on the way.  Some of them have come from miles away.”

            The disciples don’t sound like they’ve seen a crowd get fed miraculously as they answer:”” But Jesus, where could you get food for all these people, out here in the wilderness?” 

            The disciples have seen something like this before.  But everything that’s happening is so much bigger and so different from what they’d been expecting or hoping for that they apparently can’t take it all in. 

            Jesus tells the crowd to sit down.  He takes the seven loaves… gives thanks…breaks them…and gives them to the disciples to distribute.   The people in the crowd eat, and they’re satisfied.  Then they gather up seven baskets of left-overs before they send the people away. 

            Over the years, biblical scholars have tried to figure out why Mark tells this second feeding story, when the first one was more impressive, with 1,000 more people in the crowd?  Is he just telling us, “Jesus did it again”? 

            There are some interesting details in the two stories.  In the feeding story in chapter 6, Jesus told the 5,000 people to sit down, and they sat down on the green grass.  In the Galilee, grass grows quickly in the spring, but once the rains stop in May, it gets scorched by the fierce sun.  So, according to N.T. Wright, the earlier feeding took place around the time of the Jewish Passover.[1]   

            Some scholars have suggested that the twelve baskets of left-overs from the 5,000 people symbolize the twelve tribes of Israel, while the seven baskets of left-overs may represent his ministry to the wider Gentile world, with—in Jewish folklore—seventy nations.   The first feeding story took place on the predominately Jewish side of the lake, and today’s story, they’re on the predominately Gentile side.  

           According to William Placher, first-century readers, who were fascinated by number symbolism, would have read this passage and said, “This time Jesus is feeding Gentiles.[4]

            In the early church Mark was addressing, there was a major controversy about who was included and the relation of Jewish and Gentile Christians, so I think Mark is telling us in this story that Jesus came to feed Gentiles as well as Jews. 

            But there’s something else—a theme that becomes more pronounced in the next episode.  Even though the disciples had witnessed the feeding of 5,000 people, when Jesus told them they needed to feed the 4,000 people, it apparently didn’t occur to them to say, “You know, that thing you did to feed the crowd on the other side of the Sea of Galilee—could you do it again?”

            After they feed the 4,000 people and send them away, immediately Jesus gets into the boat with his disciples and they cross the lake, back to Jewish territory.  The Pharisees come and begin to argue with Jesus, asking him for a sign from heaven, because they want to test him. 

            So, Jesus and the disciples get back in the boat and cross to the other side.  Now the disciples had forgotten to bring any bread.  They had only one loaf with them in the boat, and they’re worried about the scarcity.

            Jesus cautions them, saying, “Watch out—beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod.”  The disciples say to one another, “It’s because we don’t have any bread.”

            Jesus hears them and says, “Why are you talking about having no bread?  Do you still not perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?  And do you not remember?  When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?”  They said to him, “Twelve.” 

            “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” And they said to him, “Seven.” 

            Then Jesus said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

            For a lot of us, it is hard to understand.  We’re afraid we don’t have enough bread to share with those in need.    We worry we don’t have enough money.  We get confused by “the leaven of the Pharisees”—the message of those who want God to set up a kingdom that’s about observing the law with great strictness, rather than the kingdom of love and justice that includes all the people Jesus wants to include. 

            The kingdom of God is much wider and more gracious and inclusive than we might have imagined.

            Do we understand? 

            Listen to how Jan Richardson describes it in “And the Table Will Be Wide”:   

And the table will be wide.

And the welcome will be wide

And the arms will open wide to gather us in.

And our hearts will open wide to receive.

And we will come as children who trust there is enough.

And we will come unhindered and free.

And our aching will be met with bread.

And our sorrow will be met with wine.

And we will open our hands to the feast without shame.

And we will turn toward each other without fear.

And we will give up our appetite for despair.

And we will taste and know of delight.

And we will become bread for a hungering world.

And we will become drink for those who thirst.

And the blessed will become the blessing.

And everywhere will be the feast. [5]

May it be so!  Amen!

 

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

October 7, 2018

"Don't Be Afraid. There Is Enough" A sermon on Mark 12:38-44 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church, during stewardship season

"Don't Be Afraid.  There Is Enough"

Mark 12:38-44; 1 Kings 17:7-16

We don’t know this woman’s name.  We really don’t know anything about her, other than that she is an impoverished widow in first century Palestine, living on the margins of her society, with no safety net. No husband to protect or advocate for her.  No pension.  She’s part of a poor and vulnerable class of society. 

            So don’t you wonder what it means to point to a destitute woman who gives her last two cents to the Temple?  Should we applaud her self sacrifice—or see her as naïve and impractical?

            Mark only uses this word for “widow” twice in his gospel, both times in the passage we just heard.  Unlike Luke, Mark doesn’t emphasize a mission to “the poor” in his narrative.

             The first time Mark mentions the poor is when a wealthy man comes to Jesus asking how he can inherit eternal life.[1]  Jesus responds:  “Sell what you own and give the money to the poor.”  The man couldn’t do it.

            But this poor widow does just that. She gives it all.

            What do we do with this?  What does it mean?   Why would this poor widow give everything she had to live on?  Surely her small gift couldn’t make any difference to the Temple.   In ancient Israel, the “poor” were not required to give to the Temple.[2]  If they did give, they might have done so out of a sense of obligation… or a sense of hope.   We just don’t know.     

            Our gospel lesson today is framed by verses that show what Jesus thinks about what was going on in the Temple.  Jesus has visited the temple and cleansed it by driving out those who were selling   and tossing the tables of the moneychangers.  He quoted the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah to explain his prophetic action:  “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’”  But you have made it a den of robbers.”[3] 

            In today’s lesson we heard Jesus teaching his disciples to “Beware of the scribes,” those religious leaders who like to walk around in their long robes.  Jesus said, “They like to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers.”                             

            In the two parts of today’s lectionary passage Mark offers us contrasting examples of discipleship.   These are teaching moments for Jesus as he calls his disciples to pay attention to the scribes, who “will receive the greater condemnation.”   Then Jesus points to the widow’s giving.

            This is one of the widows Jesus had just accused the scribes of abusing—offering her copper coins amidst the grand displays of generosity from the rest of the temple crowd.         

            The widow gives sacrificially—all she has to live on.  Her sacrifice is complete—so complete that Jesus wants his disciples to witness it.   “Truly,” Jesus says, “this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

            That is why we know about her today, this nameless woman—because she gave all the little she had, holding nothing back.

            But don’t you wonder?  Are we really supposed to admire a poor woman who gave her last cent to a religious institution?   Was it right for her to surrender her living to those who lived better than she did?   By ordinary human standards, what this widow did makes no sense.  Is Jesus saying we should all follow her example?  What does Jesus want us to learn from her?           

            Did you notice?  Nowhere in this passage does Jesus praise the widow for what she is doing.  Nowhere in this story does he say, “Go, thou, all of you, and do likewise.”   He simply invites the disciples to contemplate the disparity between abundance and poverty,  between large sums and two copper coins, between grand donations--and real sacrifice.   He doesn’t dismiss the gifts of the rich.  He simply points out that the poor widow turns out to be the major donor in the story.

            In Mark’s gospel, this is the last of Jesus’ lessons in the upside-down kingdom of God, where the last shall be first, and the great shall be the servants of all.   When Jesus leaves the Temple that day, his public ministry is over.  In four days, he will be dead, giving up the two copper coins of his life.  The widow withheld nothing from God; neither did Jesus.    

            In the scriptures, there are recurring themes of abundance and of trusting in God to provide what we need.

            In the Exodus story, the people begin to complain, afraid that they won’t have enough provisions for the journey ahead of them.  God responds by sending them manna—white flakes of bread falling from heaven—just enough manna for today.  The people aren’t willing to trust that God will  continue to provide, so they try to hoard their food for tomorrow.  But when they wake up the next morning, they find that the left-over manna has rotted overnight.  God was trying to teach them that hoarding and lack of trust deny God’s daily providing…the predictable and faithful grace of God.

            In today’s lesson from the Hebrew scriptures, God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath, and that a widow there will feed him.  The widow is preparing to bake the last little bit of meal and oil into a last supper for her and her son—everything she had—and then they would die.  Elijah says to her, “Don’t be afraid.  Make me a little cake, and then make some for yourself and your son.  God promises you won’t run out of meal and oil as long as the drought lasts.”  And it was so.  There was enough.

           

            Jesus, the one who gave his all for the sake of the world, for the sake of all of us,  calls us to follow him… and learn from him.  The gospel gives us clues about how to live joyful lives of freedom and trust. 

            Like the angels who keep showing up in the Bible, saying, “Don’t be afraid,”  so Jesus uncovers our motives, those habits of the heart that keep us holding on tightly to things, to money, clinging to the things we think might keep us safe.  Then he invites us to care for the poor, and he  offers us a new life of  freedom from fear-- an abundant life of gratitude and trust.

           

            So how are we to love God?  With trust, instead of fear.  With gratitude, instead of demands.  With hope instead of despair. 

           

            How do we comprehend the poor widow’s offering in the Temple?  I think we can see it as a statement of radical trust.  She chooses not to play it safe.  Instead, she gives her love gift first, trusting in God to provide what she needs. 

            But how does this happen?  How could she give everything?

I wonder if she somehow has come to feel that she has enough, and that she will have enough.  I wonder if she has allowed herself to experience life as a blessing.  I wonder how this poor widow has come to trust in God as the one who blesses and provides—abundantly, predictably, faithfully. 

            I wonder if she has discovered something about the ultimate meaning of life-- that when we give,  we are most like God.  Could it be that she has come to see that--  when we are lavish and gracious and generous--  we are most like our lavish and gracious and generous God? 

             

            How much do we love God?  How much do we trust God?  These are ongoing questions that we encounter on our journey of faith.  No one can answer these questions for you.  I don’t have an easy, pat answers for you today.  But not to keep asking the questions is to shut God out of some of the most intimate details of your living.

            Like many of you, I enjoy supporting charitable and social causes I think are important, causes that help me to live out the Christian values that shape my life.  But my main giving is focused on the church, in the local congregation, as well as several church-related missions.  There is something about putting a check into the offering plate as part of worship that gives focus to my life and to my faith.  It’s part of my spiritual discipline to write the check each week.  It’s part of my spiritual growth to increase my giving each year.  I believe that my giving is a witness to the gratitude I have for life…and the joy and freedom that I experience when I give my money to the church and the causes that express my faith values..

            You and I have received commitment cards in the mail.  Sometime between now and next Sunday morning, I hope you will hold it and pray over it…and then fill it out with joy and gratitude.  Then, I hope you will offer it with great joy during worship next Sunday.   

            How do we love God?  Let us count the ways.  And then let us respond with the offering of our very lives.

            May it be so.

            Amen.

             

           

 Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

November 8, 2015

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[1] Mark 10:17-24

[2] Emerson Powerey, Commentary on Mark 12:38-44 at www.workingpreacher.org

[3] Mark 11:17

"Enough." A sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on John 6:1-21, on God's abundance.

“Enough”

2 Kings 4:42-44; John 6:1-21

In the process of spreading the word about our picnic today at Hemlock Park, I put an invitation on Facebook and said, “All are welcome.”  Jim McCreadie put a sign up on the church door telling anybody who showed up where we are, and he wrote, “All are welcome.” 

            So I started wondering, “What if a bunch of people saw that invitation and showed up for lunch?  Would we have enough to feed everybody? “  Then, when I got back to today’s scripture lessons, I thought:  “How relevant.”    

            The feeding of the multitude is the only miracle story that’s told in all four gospels.   So I think it’s clear that it was important in the life of the early church.  The lectionary wants to be sure we don’t miss an important theme today, so we also heard the story from Second Kings.

            In Second Kings, we hear how a man came, bringing food from the first fruits to Elisha, the man of God:  twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain.  Elisha says, “Give it to the people and let them eat.”  But his servant says, “How can I set this before a hundred people?”  In other words, we don’t have enough. 

            Elisha says again, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for this says the LORD, “They shall eat and have some left.”  He set the food out for them.  They ate.  And there was some left over, according to the word of the LORD.

            One of my colleagues suggests that we can take this passage as an example of the way of life in the community gathered around the power of God.  It begins with the practice of stewardship by the man who brings a portion of his first fruits to Elisha.  It seems he offered the remainder of the first fruits to God in some other context.  In the first fruits, he offers to God’s people his best, but also the first harvest of his labor.  To do this, he would have to trust that God will provide more, so he can feed and support his family.[1]

            Out of this act of stewardship comes the possibility for hospitality, as the gift is used to feed the multitude.   This is a recurring theme in the Bible.  Earlier in the Elisha stories, a woman from Shunem is in desperate poverty and debt when Elisha tells her to send her children out to borrow empty vessels from the neighbors, and suddenly they have an abundance of oil to sell and pay off their debts and have a livelihood. 

            Later, when there was a time of famine in Gilgal, Elisha told his servant to put a big pot on and make some stew.  They gathered up a wild vine and some wild gourds and added some flour.  People were afraid the foraged food was poisonous, but there was nothing harmful in the pot, and they could eat. 

            That’s where today’s lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures picks up, with its acts of faithful stewardship and hospitality flowing into the abundance of God.   People look at something and see scarcity.  If we’re afraid that there won’t be enough, we’re tempted to hoard what we have. 

            The servant looks at the small offering of first fruits and at the large crowd and says, “How can I set this before a hundred people?  There won’t be enough.”

            The person of God looks at the same small offering ant the large crowd and sees not scarcity—but an opportunity to bear witness to the reality and power of God’s abundance.  So Elisha promises,  “They shall eat and have some left.”  According to the word of God, it is so.

            God’s blessings are often more abundant than we realize.  When we are thankful for God’s love and goodness,  and trust in God’s abundance, we are free to share with our neighbor. 

            Fast forward…

            “The Passover, the festival of the Jews was near,” and a large crowd was following Jesus.   I can imagine that in their minds they were seeing connections between Jesus and Moses.  When Jesus goes up the mountain, the crowd follows him.   Jesus sees the crowd, and he says to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”   

            He says this to test Philip. 

            Philip is sure they don’t have enough.   “Six months’ wages wouldn’t buy enough bread for each person to get even a little.”

            But Andrew tells him, “There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.  But what are they among many people?”   In other words, we don’t have enough.        

            Jesus told them to have the people sit down.  Then he “took the loaves and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated.”   Everyone had as much bread and fish as they wanted.  When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing is wasted.”  So they gathered up the left-overs, and 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.”   

            Now fast forward to today.  Imagine that Jesus is testing us.   Imagine there’s a mission project for which we’re sensing a call.  But we exercise responsible money-management procedures, and the numbers say we don’t take in enough revenue to support the mission.   We don’t have enough.  

           

            I wonder.    Do we expect to be part of a miracle? 

How might our work as a congregation be different if we intentionally see what we do—each and every thing we do—as a way God can use us to reveal God’s power? 

            What if we understood a part of our mission to be responding to human hungers and as a way to point to Christ’s abundance?

            What if – when we make ministry decisions—we remind ourselves of how Jesus can multiply resources so that there is enough?  

            We can choose to focus on scarcity and survival—or we can be agents of God’s grace and abundance, bringing hope to weary souls.  

            The love of God is made known to us through Jesus Christ, the one who knows our needs and our hungers and offers us the bread of life.  This was good news for the crowd gathered in John’s gospel near the mountain, and it is good news for us.

            So let us offer all we have to Jesus and trust that he will take it, bless it, and use it.  Let us take God’s abundance out into the world, so that they too can know that through Christ Jesus they are enough… and there is enough.

            Thanks be to God!

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[1] Stephen Edmondson, in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3, Proper 12.