It's Lent and once again my beloved friends at St. Paul's Lutheran invited me to give a message at one of their midweek Lenten services. This year it was on Zoom, which is kind of awkward for the message-giving activity since it's hard to receive energy from the gathered group. But it was a sizable group and delightful and I'm so glad that they keep on inviting me. :-)
I don't know if there will be a recording but if there is I'll put it here. For now, enjoy the word cloud and text.
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Come and break us, Holy Spirit. Break us and feed us and teach us to love. Amen.
I talk about food a lot these days. It pops up everywhere – in my life at the Parktown Food Hub, my personal life as I take care of my body by eating a little less, and in my preaching. Like tonight!
But recently something else has been happening: we are seeing clearly that it isn’t just food that people need. The young woman who called and said she had rice and a can of vegetables but is there any way she could get anything else today? She needed food… she also needed somebody to hear her need and respond. And when she got home and saw the abundance that Aja had put in her car she wept. She wept because she could cook again.
Or the young man who showed up in November with a confusing story and a drug habit. Just that one night, but he was drawn to our place and did not want to leave. So we listened and prayed and cared for him and then 4 months later he showed up again: his story was still confusing but he was adamant that he had quit using drugs. Adamant that he wanted to be in our space because we had been kind on one night four months ago. Adamant that he wanted to now help us.
He was hungry for something and his only interest in the food we were giving away was that it gave him a place to belong and not be judged.
There keeps being abundance in ways we cannot anticipate. The more food we give away, the more resources come to us. The more open we are to peoples’ pain, the more pain the people bring to us. And the more we seek the wisdom and compassion to respond, the more wisdom and compassion we receive.
And so today, in this wild story of Jesus feeding 4000 people with a few loaves and fish, I had a sense of recognition. Aha! Give it away and there will be more!
I like this Mark version of a mass feeding because there isn’t too much detail. We can get to the heart of what was happening: somebody was generous, and Jesus used that generosity as a seed to break the scarcity mindsets of the others.
For me, it was in these words:
He broke them.
It’s pretty clear that the text is referring to the loaves and fish. But I wonder. What else did Jesus break?
Did Jesus break the fear of not-enough that others had by blessing that which was shared?
Was Jesus breaking open hearts to see what could be? To see that fear of not-enough was not-necessary and even not-helpful?
I like to think that Jesus was pointing to what we have seen at the hub: that when we are more generous we will also receive more.
That we do not have to exhaust ourselves worrying about where we will find resources to share, because sharing opens up avenues we cannot foresee or imagine.
That we can trust that just as there will be an abundance of food and compassion to share, there will also be an abundance of time to rest and care for ourselves.
Not from a me-first perspective, but out of a sense that we will have plenty of everything we need and therefore do not need to exhaust ourselves.
I am deeply grateful to Pastor Scott for his consistent focus on continuing to offer communion, and worship, and to be creative in his generosity with liturgy and the communion meal. I have driven through and shared that meal many times!
I am also grateful for the way that the St. Paul’s congregation has shared generously with South Durham Connections. We were surprised to find out that our earliest work would be done in pandemic. We have not yet offered the bread and wine of holy communion.
And yet every day we are breaking something… sharing loaves (there is SO MUCH BREAD in the food pantry world!) and fish.
And chicken
and corn
and rice
and beans
and potatoes.
Seasonings and soup,
canned beans and cereal.
And granola bars. Thousands and thousands of granola bars.
Breaking open our hearts to share with compassion.
I know in my quiet moments with God that St. Paul’s and South Durham Connections are both being faithful to what Jesus showed us: we have been broken of our fear of scarcity and have turned to open-handed generosity.
And if you still worry whether you can afford to be generous? Jesus gave it all. It scared and worried and angered the power holders so much that they killed him. But Jesus must have been doing something right, because he had such an abundance of life that even death could not overcome it.
That life is there for each of us, too.
For you.
For me.
In the Resurrection.
There is enough for abundance in care and compassion and rest …
because abundance is the way of love. And love brings us the true life we were created to live.
Amen.
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