Tenth Sunday after Pentecost (12B), July 29, 2018
2 Samuel 11:1-15 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle…David [stayed home].
Ephesians 3:14-21 The power to comprehend…what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ.
John 6:1-21 ’Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So the gathered them up.
O God of wondrous love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Those of you who know me will imagine that I have a head of steam built up about the story of King David’s misuse of power when it came to Bathsheba and Uriah. That might be why it is so hot in this chapel. But I’m not going to preach about that today. Rather, I want to focus on our Gospel lesson. Last week I extended our Gospel reading to include Mark’s first story of the disciples feeding the multitudes with five loaves and two fish, and of a frightening storm on the sea of Galilee. This week we hear the Gospel of John’s version, which is quite different. It’s very hard not to conflate the various versions of these famous stories, but, as usual, I want to discourage the summer gazpacho soup treatment that blends distinct ingredients. The early church embraced many incompatible narratives and meanings about the life and ministry of Jesus, and I think we should too! Different versions of the same event, making differing meanings, gives us all more theological elbow room.
By the time that the Gospel of John was written, the hunger of the crowds and the threatening storm had become less about problems to be solved by Jesus and more about lessons to be taught by Jesus. In the Gospel of John, Jesus always knew ahead of time what he was going to do to try to impress on his followers the meaning of the presence, the power, and the promise of God. In Mark, the multiplication of the loaves and fish happened in the hands of the grumpy and tired disciples. In John, the multiplication happens in Jesus’ hands when he distributes the bread and the fish to the 5,000. In John, the disciples saw Jesus in the night while they were rowing over rough seas. What terrified them was not the storm, but seeing Jesus walking on the water. John says nothing about Jesus calming the wind or the water, just that the the disciples were willing to take Jesus into the boat (in spite of their fright) but just then the boat reached the land toward which they were going. John doesn’t say that Jesus got into the boat or that the seas stopped being rough. There’s no misunderstanding among the disciples, no chiding about their hard, calloused hearts – just a big bump as they ran aground and then a scene change to the crowds who have lost track of where Jesus and his disciples went. John says, the crowd saw that Jesus had not gotten into the boat with his disciples but that his disciples had gone away alone. So they also got themselves into boats to look for Jesus and found him in Capernaum. (That’s a curious scene, but that’s next week’s Gospel reading.)
I wonder if you noticed the reference at the beginning of the reading to the nearness of the celebration of Passover. It can seem like a random aside, maybe to explain the crowds, but it’s not random. The Gospel of John is telling a Passover story here in our Gospel lesson for today, probably to people who don’t know much about it. He doesn’t just say “Passover;” he explains that is a Jewish festival. The details of his account are rich with Passover details. Crowds with hungry hearts are longing to be fed. Jesus, like Moses, can see that from his mountain view and he knows what to do. Manna, bread in the wilderness miraculously sufficient, but not particularly tasty, is eaten by people reclining (reclining, not sitting) – reclining to eat like royalty, in leisurely freedom from whatever has bound and oppressed them. They recline in a place where there is plenty of grass – they recline in green pastures – like well-loved sheep of the good shepherd. Jesus, like Moses, again goes up the mountain to pray, and what he sees from his God’s-eye view is his disciples are struggling and terrified. Anxiety and fear come from the feeling that resources are inadequate to respond to or deal with whatever is coming. [1] Jesus comes to them again (and again) to assure them with the words of “It is I” — of the divine disclosure “I AM” – the past, present and future of the presence, the power, and the promise of God.
If you’ve ever attended a Passover Seder, you might remember that in that liturgy of the table, it’s explicitly clear that the ancient history is alive and true in the present moment and in the promise of future. Hope for the future is possible because the people of God have found freedom in the past. The people of the Holy One have found healing and nourishment and Divine protection in the past, they find it in the present moment and will find it again. It’s not so different with our liturgy of the table in our Eucharist – past, present, and still to come. (The Passover Seder is a primary source of our Eucharist – our thanksgiving.) Our Eucharist is a frequent reminder that we can face scarcity and storms in the future because we have been healed and fed and protected by God in the past. It’s a frequent reminder that even death is no obstacle when it comes to the powerful and eternal Love of God. It’s a frequent reminder of hope for the people of God.
One detail that all four Gospel writers agreed on has to do with the leftovers – the twelve baskets of broken pieces, of fragments. When the twelve tribes of Israel were in the wilderness after being freed from slavery, the only time they were to gather up more manna than they could eat was to provide for sabbath. In all four Gospels, twelve baskets are representing enough for twelve disciples, for twelve tribes – even the lost tribes are still included because they will all come together again in the end of time. [2] Food enough for satisfying immediate hunger and enough for a sabbath rest.
It seems to me that every one of us is, in a way, a basket of broken pieces, a basket of fragments: unfinished business of every kind, broken dreams and broken promises, leftover bits that have been tossed aside, the scraps and crumbs. I’m moved by Jesus’ articulated concern that all these fragments be gathered up, so that nothing is lost. If Jesus is always concerned with about nothing getting lost, that’s how we should also regard the fragments of ourselves, our lives, – like pieces of some future beautiful mosaic, the picture of which we can’t even imagine yet.
This past Friday, someone who was here for a wedding rehearsal was chatting with me after we were finished and asked, “How did you get here to Emmanuel Church?” I knew she wasn’t asking about my mode of transportation that day, and it wasn’t the old Groucho Marx joke: “I’d like to help you out, which way did you get in?” I didn’t know what to say to her. When I think about how I got here the simplest answer is that someone in the bishop’s office called me and asked me to consider being proposed as priest-in-charge because of my business background in human resources and finance. The bishop didn’t know that I had once dreamed of (and failed at) learning all of the organ music of Bach, and that I had secretly celebrated Bach’s birthday every year since I was about 15. The bishop didn’t know that I had once learned German, not so much because I was interested in how to go to the bank or the grocery store in Germany, but because I wanted to study theology. (I did learn to go the bank and grocery store, but I never mastered reading theology in German.) The bishop didn’t know that Martin Luther was a sort of fun uncle in my family of origin. The bishop didn’t know that I was studying biblical Hebrew and learning about Jewish spirituality, being tutored by a rabbi, not because I thought I’d ever need that knowledge, rather just because I was interested. The bishop didn’t know that I had longed to be engaged more deeply in urban ministry in an interfaith and ecumenical setting. All of these things (and more) were fragments, discards and leftovers – some loose ends, some seemingly dead ends of interest and study that didn’t seem useful at all until I needed to be interviewed by two Emmanuel Church wardens, a Rabbi, and a Pulitzer Prize winning composer. But that seemed like too long of an answer for the short walk between the Lindsey Chapel and the main lobby, so I just said, “God, I think. I don’t really know. However I got here, I feel like the luckiest priest in the world.”
I tell you that story because I am about to leave for a few months of rest and study, and I want to assure you that I have every intention and desire to return to you, refreshed and ready for new adventures. While I’m gone, I would love for you to be identifying the fragments of your own lives that can be gathered up so that nothing is wasted, nothing is lost. I would love for you to see what can be gathered up with generosity, strength, blessing, restoration, and well-being (all qualities of sabbath, by the way) to continue to create the beautiful mosaic that is Emmanuel Church in the City of Boston. While I’m gone, what I pray is that you will continue to show up, to remember and repeat the words of Divine presence and power and promise, so that others can hear and see and know the assurance and hope that when we all come together, there is always more than enough. There always has been, there is now, and there will be again.