The lectionary texts for the week are:
Come Holy Spirit. Breathe your life and energy into us, that we may live as we were created to be and feed each other. Amen.
If you’ve known me very long you probably know that I am a big fan of Peter, especially when he boldly speaks his truth even to people who are powerful and have the power to hurt him.
But I am also a fan of Paul because Paul got knocked off his horse, led to the place he thought he was going all along, sat blindly for awhile praying to understand what was going on, and was finally brought to his new line of work by people who were a little suspicious of him but went to him anyway.
Oh, and God declared “I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”
WHO IS THIS GOD?
Who is this God who goes around, taking people who are well qualified in every way except the crucial element of attitude, and saying “you, go do this now.” And then they go.
What kind of God DOES that?
Well, it turns out… my kind of God. The kind that loves us so much that even the impossibly hard stuff is compelling and irresistible.
Yesterday I met with a group of people who have just the right set of resources: one group has building space, another group has expertise in giving food to hungry people, and another group knows the political environment of food banks, school districts, and the like.
Everyone in the meeting had reason to distrust everyone else but…
Everyone had dreams. And those dreams all pointed in the same direction. And God had come knocking… saying
Feed my sheep. Literally. Go to the little children and their parents who are hungry, and give them food that would be wasted otherwise. Give them produce and meat. Give them good, healthy food. Feed my lambs.
But God is kind of a show-off, you know?
So earlier in the week I had met a pastor who left farming to become a pastor, with the intent of putting farming and pastoring together. It took him 12 years, but he’s doing that now. And along the way he has worked closely with Presbyterians and Lutherans, Methodists and Episcopalians. And I’m sure there were some Baptists and Catholics, and probably even a few Jews and Muslims in there.
Because God told him to go feed my sheep. Feed my lambs. Live in one of the richest countries on earth and buck the trend to turn every activity into a money-making scheme.
Go feed people.
Now, you may be thinking… WAIT A SECOND.
Jesus didn’t mean for Peter to go five food to people (or sheep), did he?
Wasn’t that a redemption of the three times that Peter denied Jesus while Jesus was on trial?
Wasn’t that about going a loving people? Setting up organizations that would make sure the right people were doing things?
Well, yes. Of course it was.
And wasn’t Paul knocked off that horse because he was a bad dude? Going to capture both men and women who were followers of Jesus? (Incidentally, I love that Paul thought that women were every bit as dangerous as men if they were followers of The Way.)
But like Peter, Paul was being sent. And God was very clear that it would be hard. But nobody else was allowed to behave differently. Paul’s lot in life – God’s calling on Paul’s life – was Paul’s. And God would carry him and protect him as he went out to share what Jesus had done. Paul was being sent to love the people he had hated so much just a few days earlier.
So today I wonder… who do I dislike so much that God would knock me off of my high horse to teach me to love them?
Who am I being sent to teach, and to love?
Which lambs am I supposed to go feed?
You might be wondering the same thing. You might be worried about getting knocked out of the comfort zone, the path you think is right, the way you grew up thinking was right.
It could happen! And if it does, know this:
Nobody knows better than God how hard it is. And nobody can make the burden possible to carry except God.
Which lambs and sheep are you being called to feed?
Is it the men and women who live in the shelter at Urban Ministries or other ministries around town?
Is it the children in a public school who don’t have anything to eat but cover up their pressing need in a wide variety of ways?
Or is it talking to policy makers? Or speaking up when your friends and co-workers make claims that place the blame on people who are suffering?
I don’t know what it is for anybody but myself (and even that is kind of blurry most days) but I do know that God is calling each of us to something and that the call is something we can do ONLY because God has already paid all the tolls and requirements and necessity.
God sent us Jesus.
Jesus lived a life as a human being and did all the things that human beings do. Jesus fed everyone with whom he came into contact. He fed their bodies, and minds, and spirits. He showed us how to do it.
It got him killed, but Jesus showed us anyway.
And because Jesus had lived the life that we were all created to live,
The life that we would live if we were not sinful people living in a sin-broken world,
he did not stay dead.
He was Resurrected (ALLELUIA!) And now we are freed to love each other.
We do not have to get to the bottom of why we are all so hungry for something (unless it is your call to go there, and help improve policy).
We are FREE. Free to love each other, and feed each other in all the ways we hunger.
Feed each other with garden produce.
Feed each other with hugs.
Feed each other with listening ears, and sympathetic voices.
Feed each other by being present in our darkest hours.
Feed my sheep, said Jesus, feed my lambs.
And will it be hard? Yes. As with Paul, God won’t even try to hide that… but in Jesus, there is enough love.
Always enough love to feed the sheep.
Amen.
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