Glory in the Church

July 27, 1997

Ephesians 3:21; John 6:1-21

One early summer morning a small boy was awakened by the sound of birds singing outside his bedroom window. He arose and threw on his clothes, and was soon making his way down a dirt path to the shores of a beautiful blue lake. There he was soon lost in that pastime that may just be the most intriguing pastime known to man.

     Time passed and he had only caught two small fish when something else caught his attention. He saw a small group of men walking along the pathway just up from the shore of the lake. He recognized some of the fishermen in the group. He saw at once they were following Jesus, the man who had been amazing the Galilee region with his teaching, and especially with miracles of healing. He had great curiosity about what might happen next, and his curiosity sent him flying back up the dirt path to the village and home to ask his mother if he could go see the Teacher that day.

When he reached home the boy's mother was baking. She gave him permission, and while he was getting ready she cleaned his great catch of two small fish and laid them on the coals- just a couple of minutes on each side and they were thoroughly cooked through. Then she laid them on a cloth in the bottom of his knapsack, and put half a dozen small barley loaves on top of them. (I know the Bible story says there were five loaves, but remember little boys get hungry easily and often.)

By the time the lad got back to the lake-shore the Teacher and his little group had gone on, but he didn't have any trouble finding which way. it seemed like the whole village had the same idea— they wanted to see what excitement might follow this Man who worked miracles and told great stories.

When he arrived where Jesus was teaching, sitting up toward the top of the slope, the great meadow below toward the sea seemed to be filled with people. The lad did what little boys can easily do— he pushed and wiggled his way up the hill until he was near the very front of the crowd. Like little boys, the lad probably missed some of the finer points in the lessons that day, but then the Master quit speaking like a teacher and began a conversation.

"Look at this crowd!" he said. "Where can we get them some food? They have come a long way. They're hungry."

The lad looked up at the big fisherman standing next to him. "I won't be hungry," he said. "My mother packed my dinner. I have — five barley loaves and two fish I caught myself."

Meanwhile the conversation was going on. Philip, evidently one of the avowed realists among the disciples said, "Lord, maybe we had better just send these folk home hungry. If we had $5,000 we wouldn't have enough to feed them."

The lad looked up at his new friend. " If he's hungry he can have my loaves and fish," he said.

Andrew spoke to the Master, "There is a boy here who has some food— five barley loaves and two fish he caught himself. He says you can have them— but they are a drop in the bucket to what we need."

Jesus smiled. "Have all the people sit down on the green grass, " he said. And then turning to Andrew he said," Bring the lad and his lunch to me."

What happened next must have been thrilling beyond belief to one small boy from Galilee. With his five loaves and two small fish Jesus fed 5,000 people. And then as if that weren't enough, the disciples gathered up the good fragments. The doggy bag that day went to twelve baskets full.

That night a tired boy with a jammed-full knapsack burst into his mother's kitchen and said, "Mom, you aren't going to believe what happened today!"

All four of the gospels tell how Jesus took five small loaves and two small fishes and fed 5,000 people. But only John's gospel tells about the lad who brought makings of that great miracle picnic on the shores of Galilee.

Now a story ought to just be told and stand as a story to make its own furrows in the imagination. But a sermon is supposed to urge us to make some decisions and take some actions. This must be an important story to be told so many times. You can probably make up your own sermon.

For me, I have always been encouraged at the thought of adequacy. When Jesus is involved in a project, big or small, he has a way of taking what we have and blessing it or breaking it until it can be more than we thought it could be. In that regard I have always liked to identify myself or my church project with the boy and his lunch in the story.

But the older I get I think about another character in the story. I think about the big fisherman— or we might say, the big fisherman's brother, because Andrew's brother, Peter, certainly was a great man and a leader. This man in Peter's shadow— this Andrew— every time we see him in the scripture he is near Jesus, and he is introducing people to Jesus. He isn't too big to notice a little boy. he isn't ashamed to bring small offerings. He does his best, and that helps Jesus get the job done.

Andrew makes me think of another man we might call a 'second-stringer,' instead of a 'star.' I think of Barnabus, the Son of Consolation, who befriended Mark when he left the party— he looked up Saul of Tarsus when he was considered a security risk. I would like to be like Andrew. I would like to be like Barnabus.

There you have it— a great story for your own do-it-yourself sermon. And I even have a good text from the epistle to sort of bring it all together. On this subject of Jesus taking what we have and doing with it whatever he wants. The general subject of spiritual adequacy, a lesson I need today and every day. The text is the 'doxology' from Paul's great prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power though his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saint, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be GLORY IN THE CHURCH and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer

Father in Heaven, help us give you what we have, and then dare to ask you to glorify your name in the church by doing what we could never do by ourselves. we can think and ask some things that seem pretty big to us. but we ask you to take us, bless and break us, and use us in the way that seems best to you. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen