July 14, 2024 ~ Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Rev. Beckie Sweet
My first pastoral appointment was to serve the McClure and North Sanford United Methodist Churches while I was attending seminary. The churches were located near the NY/PA state line between Windsor and Deposit. Because we were within the Deposit School District, our ecumenical interactions and missions were centered around the Deposit Community. All of the members of the ecumenical ministerium worked with one of our cooperative groups. I worked with the Deposit Food Pantry, and became it’s treasurer.
Each year, prior to the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter food box distributions, we would look over the lists of folks who had applied for a food box to determine the quantity of food we needed to purchase, beyond what we had on hand in the pantry. Because I had the checkbook, I accompanied other volunteers to purchase huge amounts of potatoes, over 200 turkeys or hams, and cases of sweet potatoes, cake mixes, peas and carrots.
Because we gave away boxes of food a couple of times each year, we became well acquainted with the names and families, always needing to note which ones had no ability to cook a raw turkey or bake a cake. One family in particular became quite precious to me. The first couple of times they came for boxes of food there were three children in tow. They were cute, precocious, and VERY polite! Soon, there was a fourth child, who I just HAD to hold while the parents loaded the boxes of food into the family wagon. They had walked almost three miles to get to the pantry to pick up their food, and would haul it back home in the wagon. They were a sweet family, and it was obvious that they were in need, and relied on the food box distribution each year.
Then, suddenly, that family’s name no longer appeared on the distribution list for Christmas and Easter. As a couple of us noticed the lack of their name, we were concerned, but hoped for the best. We never did have a phone number for the family, by which we would contact them ~ they likely couldn’t afford a phone. So, we prayed for them and continued our work.
That fall, on the day of the Thanksgiving food box distribution, we were just getting ready to open up the pantry when I saw this beloved family pull up in a beat-up old pick-up truck. I assumed they were there to receive a load of food. But I was wrong!! In the back of the pick-up truck were 12 fresh turkeys which they had brought to donate for the food distribution!! Since last winter the parents had each acquired steady work, and they had been saving their funds in order to make this donation in deep gratitude for all of the help the pantry had supplied to them in their season of need. And the family stayed for the distribution that day, offering to help transport food and people to their homes as needed.
I was SO moved, my heart warmed with delight! In my young naivete, I thought that the people served by the pantry were seldom even trying to improve the conditions of their lives. I was glad to help to provide charity for those who sought it, and only expected that the number of names on our lists would grow year to year. When this family found a way out of the cycle of poverty, I was ecstatic. Years later, those children attended summer camps I was directing at Sky Lake, and their family continued to grow and thrive. Their identities changed, in their eyes and in mine. And my identity changed as well, as I saw hopes realized and prayers answered. I became more confident of God’s ability to bring good out of a pretty dire situation. And all were blessed.
One of the ways we find our sense of identity is by being part of groups: families, groups of friends, choirs, fraternities/sororities, a sports team, study group, co-workers, folks performing mission together, those who travel together, and so on. Consider one of the groups with whom you interact and how that group has shaped your identity. Take a moment and consider that . . .
In biblical times, the disciples hung around with Jesus, who was slowly but surely reshaping their sense of identity and purpose. As Jesus continued to itinerate, teach, heal, and perform miracles, the number of Jesus-followers grew to a sizable throng. They hung onto his every word, they had hope in his ability to deliver them, to save them from the oppression and cycles of poverty and violence in which they found themselves. They desperately needed Jesus’ every teaching about love, mercy, compassion, salvation, and the kin-dom of God.
The crowds followed Jesus, looking for another sign of God’s power at work through Jesus. And a sign is what they received. Jesus knew of their hunger, for they had followed him all day. With a meager five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus fed the crowd of around 5000 hungry ones. Apart from the resurrection, this is the only miracle which is recounted in all four gospels. The story is an example of the table fellowship that was at the center of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus invites the crowd to break bread with him. While Jesus could have performed this sign by himself, Jesus chooses to use the boy’s willingness to share what he had as an example to the others. (Imagine how that event shaped that boy’s identity!)
The disciples, though doubtful at first, witness the boy’s generosity and the way Jesus transforms that generous, though small gift into something much greater. In asking the disciples to gather up the leftover bread, Jesus both emphasizes the miracle that has taken place and invites them to participate in the community of table fellowship. They become participants in Jesus’ work of serving and feeding.
Through the miraculous generosity and the gifts of the community, the crowd is fed. We witness to the identity of Jesus by serving the community in mission. When we share our gifts, we strengthen and build community. We also claim our own identity as people who belong to Jesus’ community. This is not a community characterized by insiders and outsiders but, first and foremost by what it has received, the grace of Jesus Christ, and the secondarily by the way it witnesses to that grace by serving others. It is important for us to recognize that Jesus understood attending to basic physical needs as an essential piece of evangelism and a tangible sign of God’s grace.
How does God call us to use our resources to build and serve our community? In the groups we are part of, including the church, how is God calling us to deepen conversations and broaden the circle by increasing the number of conversation partners, and drawing the circle wider, and wider still? Who might we have overlooked, like the disciples did with the little boy and his gifts full of potential? We never know who has much to contribute to the conversation, to the mission, and to the formation of a more Christ-centered identity.
A song that has become a favorite of this congregation when celebrating the anniversary of becoming a Reconciling Congregation is “Draw the Circle Wide” by Gordon Light and Mark Miller. Today, we will not be forming a circle around the sanctuary. But I encourage you to consider how you might widen the circle of your expressions of Christ’s miraculous signs, of God’s love, and of the Spirit’s infusion of grace and hope. A copy of the music is the insert within your bulletin. Please rise in body or in spirit, and let’s sing together.