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Sunday July 30, 2006 - Proper 12, Year B

It all began
when Jesus and his disciples
tried to escape for a few hours.
They were tired.
For days and weeks and months
they had been doing the work of the gospel. They'd been preaching and healing and spreading the good news,
and they were just plain tired.
They'd tried going home for a break,
but when they went to Jesus' hometown
they got thrown out of the synagogue and no one wanted to have anything to do with them;
when they tried to visit
the leading disciple, Peter's home
Jesus ended up healing
Peter's mother-in-law.
It wasn't that they minded;
they knew that the people needed this good news, this teaching and healing
that they could bring,
only, they just wished they could have
a few hours
for themselves,
a little peace and quiet to rest
and recover.

And so they tried again. They crossed the sea of Galilee,
hoping that the water
would be a big enough barrier.
But the crowds
followed them around the edge, gathering even greater numbers as they traveled.
So they decided to climb up a mountain. It was hot; surely the climb would weed out the crowds; with any luck, they might give up
altogether.
And for a while
it worked.
They found a quiet spot, sheltered from the sun. A couple of the disciples stretched out in the shade
and fell asleep. The others
talked quietly; sometimes a brief silence fell.
All they could hear
were the calls of birds
and the buzzing of insects. A lazy summer afternoon.
Except the buzzing began to grow louder, and they realized it wasn't insects at all, but voices, and one of them got up and moved over to where he could see the trail. It was the crowds again. The heat and dust
had only slowed them down; they trailed like ants up the hillside.
Until finally they reached the disciples, first the young men and teenagers, full of energy, and then the others, harassed parents dragging whiny children, some older people struggling up the hillside, and some even on stretchers, brought by good friends.
They had come to see the teacher, come to hear his words and feel his healing touch,
and what else could Jesus do
but get up and get on with the teaching and healing
that the people had come to expect.

But it wasn't long
before he noticed
that the crowds were having difficulty staying focused.
They were tired, most of them, and because no one had planned for this journey, they were thirsty and hungry,
but there was no food up there.
"How can we feed them?" he asked his disciples.
And they looked at him as if he was crazy.
"We can't feed them," Phillip answered.
"There are no towns near here
where we can get food, especially not that could cater for this many people. And even if there were, don't you know how much it would cost? It would take half a year's wages, at the very least. This isn't
our responsibility."

Then Andrew spoke up. "There's a kid over here who has a couple of fish and five bread rolls. But that's not going to feed this crowd."

And Jesus answered,
"Get the people to sit down."

And they got them all settled, and then Jesus blessed the bread and fish,
and then began to hand it out. And the next thing they knew,
everyone had been fed,
even the disciples who'd been handing it all out,
and there were left overs, twelve baskets full,
and the place was buzzing.

No one knew how he'd done it, but they knew one thing. Forget the healing and teaching, this guy could provide food from nowhere. Just imagine,
you wouldn't have to work, or go to the market, or cook. Just follow this Jesus guy, and he'd give you everything you needed!

And so, when they'd all had enough, a few men quietly came over to Jesus. "You know, Jesus, have you ever thought of going into politics? We think you'd make a great king. Get rid of these Romans, and that puppet Herod. The people like you. Have a think about it."

Jesus' response was immediate. He called his disciples together, gave them the task of distracting the crowds
and disappeared into the dusk. He wanted nothing
to do
with this king idea.

But perhaps
he should have expected it.
After all, giving people food
is a pretty much guaranteed way
of getting their loyalty.
You remember the old proverb: the way to a man's heart
is through his stomach.
We human beings
tend to be motivated
by things that benefit us in one way or another,
and we especially like
things we can eat!
It probably goes back to a kind of survival instinct.

But it's not just about food.
We all know that when it comes to election time,
the advertizing campaigns
are designed to appeal to us
in terms of what each party or person
can do for us.
Cut taxes, improve schools for our kids, make life better.
We're much more likely to vote for things
that will have a direct — and positive — impact on our lives.
We're more likely to vote
for the person or party
that offers us the most.
TV advertizing plays into it as well. If you buy this, we're told,
you will be more beautiful, fashionable, sexy, cool, or whatever.
And of course, even when I like to think of myself as being a bit more critical, a bit more independent than that,
I'm still more likely to buy coke than no-name brands,
and when I can afford it, to shop for clothes at a mall store rather than the thrift store.
And when someone invites us to do something
we're likely to ask
(maybe not openly but deep in our minds)
what's in it for me?

We like to think of ourselves
as a bit more generous than that, but the truth is
that's the criteria most of us judge things by. How will it benefit me?

But what Jesus is doing, when he turns down
that offer to make him king
and heads off into the darkness,
what Jesus is doing, is saying,
"This is not what I am about."
I'm not here
as your genie or your errand boy.
My mission
is about more than providing for human needs with a quick miracle. I'll do it, when it matters, but what it's really about, what all these things I've been doing, the teaching and the healings and even giving you food,
all this
is to try to get you all
to pay attention to God.
That's what the gospel
is all about."

Sometimes
we in the church
get into the unfortunate habit
of treating God
pretty much like the crowds did Jesus that day.
We come
for what we can get.
And most times,
we don't see anything wring with that: it's how our culture does things.

But the gospel is different. Christ is inviting us to a different way of living,
a way of living
where we're in it
not for what we can get
but for what we can give.

Remember what Jesus said,
in Matthew chapter 20;
that he came, not to be served
but to serve.
He is our example, the one who shows us how to live
if we're going to call ourselves his followers.
We're people whose purpose
is to serve, to serve God
and to serve one another.

That's why there's so much in the New Testament epistles, the letters written by the leaders of the church just as it was beginning, that's why there's so much
about gifts.
Because God gives us gifts
that aren't just for our own benefit,
but are for the sake of the whole community,
God gives us gifts
to serve others.
We're not in this Christianity thing
for what it can give us,
we're in it
for what we can give God — love and worship —
and we're in it for one another,
for what we can give each other.

Because the purpose of Christians
is to serve, to serve God
and to serve
one another.

I think it's a big challenge for us here at Trinity.
People sometimes ask me,
why don't you have a nursery? Why don't you have a vacation bible school? Why isn't the cemetery better maintained? Why don't you have...well you get the idea. You can probably fill it in yourself,
with the things you'd like to have here.

And the reason, I have to say,
is because we don't have the people to do those things.
We don't have enough people
willing to serve.

Some churches employ people to do all those things, but even in big churches, those people primarily function to coordinate volunteers. Not because they couldn't pay people, if they really needed to,
but because being part of a Christian community
is being willing to serve.

And so the question is,
do you want to be like the crowds, just in it
for what you can get?
If you do, then I have bad news for you.
Because Jesus might just slip away into the dusk,
sad
that you missed what he was on about.

But if you want to be like the disciples, if you truly want to be
a follower of Jesus,
then think about
what gifts you have,
how you
might be able to serve God
and serve this community.

And of course the wonderful thing is, that if we become a community
that serves one another, then a by-product is
that we'll get our needs met. Because as we serve others, others will in turn serve us.
But even more importantly,
Christ will be among us. There in the people we serve, there, helping us to serve. Giving us grace, giving us strength, giving us blessings.

Sermon ©Raewynne J. Whiteley 2006