Sunday, July 31, 2011

Lectionary 18A
Isaiah 55:1-5
Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21

The eyes of all wait for thee; And thou givest them their food in due season.

I love to feed the birds. We keep several bird feeders around the house of different types to meet the needs of different types of birds. It is more expensive than you might expect, after all, it’s just seed that we give to them. However, they eat the food so fast; we could fill the feeders on a daily basis. I try to throw old bread and other grain foods to supplement the seed, but it seems like there’s never enough food for all the birds.

In the front of the house we keep a couple bell shaped cakes of bird seed, which we have hanging from a chain near a window. The birds love these, and we have a constant stream of different types of birds that come to enjoy the treats. The birds aren’t the only ones, though. Any person who feeds the birds knows about the cunning of the squirrels. It doesn’t matter what type of anti-squirrel paraphernalia you use, they always find a way. I didn’t even worry about the bird bells because they are so far off the ground, available only to those who can fly. Well, if you know squirrels, you know that they can fly without wings.

I was sitting near the window one day and I noticed that the cats were getting a little crazy. The source of their excitement was a squirrel on the sill on the other side of the window. He was eyeing the bird bells, frustrated by the distance. He tried to reach by climbing up the side of the house, but it didn’t work, the bells were still too far away. He tried jumping into the bush below the bells, but that didn’t work, either. I chased him away so that he wouldn’t figure out some way of stealing the bird food.

It didn’t stop him, though. On another occasion, I found him hanging on the bird bell, scratching away to set the seeds free. Then I looked at the ground, to see his mess, and discovered that a second squirrel was there collecting the seed the first one was dropping. On a third occasion, I discovered his trick. He climbed up the side of the house, jumped a few feet into a hanging basket near the bell, then climbed the chain and got onto the bell. I knew I had to do something.

Now, I could have tried to find a way to keep the squirrels away, but I don’t think that would have been easy. They are incredibly resourceful. So, instead, I decided to put seed in a place they can reach, to make it easier so that they wouldn’t ruin my potted plants in the process. I bought another feeder and placed it in the tree. Now I often see them hanging upside down by their toes, picking the seed out of the feeder. Only when that one runs out do they come back to the house and try to get at the bells. The larger birds prefer the feeder in the tree, too, giving more space for the tiny finches and sparrows. Though I don’t always enjoy the cost of feeding the birds, it has become a natural part of our life and I go out of my way to ensure that there is enough food available for them.

The birds aren’t the only ones hungry. I’ve heard several stories recently about how the food banks are desperate for help. Summer is always a rough time for families because the children are out of school and so moms have to ensure there’s enough food for three meals instead of two. Some families even have difficulty finding enough to feed their families one or two meals a day. A third makes it especially hard. So, the food banks are giving out more bags. It doesn’t help that donations are down because more families have less and food costs so much more.

It is easy for us to say that we just don’t have enough to share. It is easy for us to send people away to find help from someone else or someplace else. It is easy to put the responsibility on others to feed the hungry, especially when we aren’t sure if we will have enough for ourselves.

The disciples certainly didn’t have enough for themselves. As a matter of fact, I wonder what they thought they were going to do for dinner. They had nothing but five loaves and two fish. That’s not enough to feed a dozen people let alone thousands. Their own grumbling tummies made it easy to say, “Tell them to go away to the villages to get their own food. Jesus answered, “You give them something to eat.” He put the responsibility on His disciples. He puts the responsibility on us. We are called to feed them.

Even more importantly, we are called to trust that God will use whatever resources we have to feed them. We might think that it is impossible for us to do the work; after all we barely have enough to survive ourselves. Like the disciples, we have a few loaves and fish, but God is able to use even our few loaves and fish to feed thousands. Instead of giving up and letting others take responsibility, we need to bravely face God’s challenges and trust Him to make it succeed. Instead of turning over the responsibility of feeding the poor to a government or demanding others find the resources, Jesus says, “You feed them.”

Someone once told me that the government can do a better job at feeding the poor than the church. He said that the burden is too great, even for the churches, especially since the church is suffering from a lack of resources. Yet, the reality, despite diminishing donations, is that so much of the money sent to the government covers administrative and bureaucratic costs, that the poor and hungry gets as little as ten percent. If I give a dollar to a poor person, that person will be able to buy a dollar’s worth of food. But if I give a dollar to the government, that poor person will get as little as a dime. You can’t buy much with a dollar these days, but you can buy even less with a dime.

I can’t possibly feed every hungry person by myself. But “The Starfish Story” by Loren Eisley can encourage us to try. I can’t possibly feed every hungry person by myself. But “The Starfish Story” by Loren Eisley can encourage us to try. “One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said “I made a difference for that one.”

If there were dozens of people helping, more fish might be saved. If we work together, we can certainly change lives. A good charity spends less than ten percent on administrative costs, leaving far more to meet the needs of the people. If we all put our little bits together, our resources will be magnified. If we follow Jesus’ command, “You feed them” trusting in God’s promises, we’ll find we can do amazing things. But we’ve given up. We’ve accepted the lie and handed the responsibility of feeding the poor to others, choosing instead to waste our resources on lobbyists who demand others do the work Christ called us to do. We are like the old man, thinking that we can’t possibly make a difference, so we don’t even try. We are no different than the disciples. We want to send the people away. But Jesus says, “You feed them.”

We can make it happen. We can make a difference for one, two, or even five thousand. If each person ensured the well-being of our neighbors, or even our families, they would not have to turn to strangers for help. If we make it a habit to prepare for hard times, we’ll have enough to share when the need presents itself. An extra can of tuna fish or a ten dollar gift card might seem like much, but Jesus has promised to bless our work. A few loaves of bread can’t feed a thousand, but it can if we trust God.

So, what do we believe? Do we believe the lie that we can’t do it, that the burden is too overwhelming? Do we ‘buy’ the idea that we have to turn the work over to others? Or do we ‘buy’ God’s Word?

Isaiah writes, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” With these words, God invites us into a relationship of trust. He has enough. As a matter of fact, everything is His. We don’t need to pay because He doesn’t need our money. He offers us everything we need out of His abundance, asking only that we believe, ‘buy,’ His Word. There is no value in the lies we hear, or the lies we tell ourselves. There is no value in doing things our own way or seeking help from human institutions. They can’t accomplish anything because they rely on human strength and resources; they do not rely on God. Who is glorified when a government feeds a poor person? Usually a politician. Who is glorified when you are obedient to Christ’s command to feed the people and trust God to make a miracle with your meager resources?

The psalmist sings, “Jehovah upholdeth all that fall, And raiseth up all those that are bowed down.” When it seems like God is no longer taking care of those that have fallen or those who are bowed down, perhaps we should ask if we have trusted God, or if we have turned over the responsibility to others. And, because we have given up, the people have to look to others for help. They don’t know what God can do because we point toward institutions and human strength as their savior. They don’t know the peace of looking to God to provide all they need and even if they do, we don’t think our meager loaves of bread and fish will do any good, so we send them away.

Paul is concerned about a different type of help in today’s epistle lesson. He wants to help his people, the beloved people of God. He was addressing a difficult question: what about the Jews? Paul was a Jew and he loved his people. He knew the blessings of being one of God’s people: the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the worship, and the promise. Yet, he also knew that they were missing something, Jesus. It was a hard quandary for Paul, to know the people he loved did not know the assurance of faith in Christ, but also knowing that they were beloved of God. How do we deal with this dichotomy?

Paul continued to tell the story of Jesus, often touching just one person at a time. Some came to know Christ. Some did not. He didn’t let the failures stop him from doing what God called him to do: to feed God’s people with the food that will last forever. He just had to trust in God’s promises. Salvation will come according to God’s Word.

Paul wished that he could give up his salvation for the sake of his people, but we know that this is not a possibility. Only Christ could provide the salvation for the whole people. Paul could only live in hope, but hope is a solid foundation for our life of faith. In hope we will have the courage to trust in God’s promises. We might think that we do not have the resources to do the work God has called us to do. We might think that we can’t make a difference. We might think that it would be better to send those who need God’s grace to someone or something that seems more prepared to give it. But Jesus said, “You feed them.” And so, let us take our loaves and our fishes, our meager faith, and share it with those whom God has sent our way, and He will do miraculous things.