[Propertalk] Draft of sermon on John 6:1-21 for Sunday, July 26, 2009

[Joe Parrish]

http://www.sjnj.org/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/applogic+ftcontentserver?pagename=faithhighway/10000/6000/376ST/scmedia&type=mediaplayer&loc=www.sjnj.org/media/media/mediaplayer.php&id=2009072601075230982D&clientId=116376&client_id=116376

and below is a draft of my sermon on John 6:1-21 for Sunday, July 26, 2009, on the miracle of the loaves and fish.
God willing, a final version will be posted early this week on our church web site at http://sjnj.org at the Worship tab under the Sunday Worship Archive category.
Peace and blessings,
Joe

St. John's Episcopal Church
61 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201
Proper 12B
July 26, 2009
DRAFT
Sermon by the Rev. Joe Parrish

The Holy Gospel according to
John 6:1-21

     Feed us, Dear Lord, along our way.  Amen.

 

     On the Mountain in modern day Israel where it is traditionally said that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount is the floor of a very ancient church dating from perhaps the early second century.  Its beautiful colored mosaic pieces form the picture of the most distinguishing story of Jesus' ministry, the five loaves and two fish that Jesus blessed and multiplied to feed over five thousand starving people nearby that place.  It is interesting that neither baptism nor the Holy Eucharist is pictured, but the miracle that echoed throughout Israel about the teacher who could turn very little into something very great.  The picture of the loaves and fish inspired that little Christian community in its efforts to distinguish itself from a nearby synagogue and from a not so distant cultic pagan shrine.

 

     The division of the loaves and the fish was put in comparable prominence by Christians as Jews put the Passover.  For the salvation of the Passover, the Jewish nation always held their god Yahweh to be the greatest of all gods.  For the feeding of the multitude of people, the Christians told that their god, Jesus the Christ, Son of Yahweh God, was down to earth, interested in the livelihoods of the lowest of people, and completely sympathetic with their basic needs.  There perhaps is a parallel between the Passover and the miracle of the loaves and fish in that both were stories of miraculous salvation, one from the chasing hoard of the Egyptian soldiers, the other from the pang of starvation of the multitudes.  Both serve to note the great generosity and concern of the highest God over God's people.

 

     By the first century, the people of Israel had lived under the heel of the Roman Empire for more than forty years.  Their daily lives were cluttered by the demands and taxes of their occupiers.  And in true fact, by the time the Gospels were written, the Romans had completely destroyed both the entire city of Jerusalem and all remnants of the Jewish Temple worship and were well into a purge of all Christians to eradicate them from the face of the earth.  However, as we well know, neither the Jews nor the Christians could be quashed by the powers that be; God had protected them both.  Both sects had roots that could not be pulled up by any destroying power; both sects had carved into their religious psyche the importance God placed on their particular survival.  And both knew their God was concerned with their safety and welfare.  Theirs was a personally-involved God who came through when the going got tough and when there was really no other place to turn.

 

     I can remember as a child meeting my Chinese missionary great uncle J. T. Williams who had been imprisoned in a Communist Chinese prison camp in 1948 when the forces of Chiang Kai-shek were cast out of mainland China.  His wife barely escaped ahead of him.  They patiently taught me the Chinese symbol for listen, two ears actually forming a Chinese word.  They had served as Methodist missionaries for a number of years and probably had known the famous Chinese pastor Wong Ming-Dao <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Ming-Dao> whom Jan and I met in 1980 in Shanghai.  Wong Ming-Dao sang to us in English, which he did not speak, perfect English versions of a variety of Methodist hymns that had been taught him by American Methodist missionaries like my great uncle.  Wong himself had been imprisoned twice by the Chinese Communists, first with his wife in 1955 and then for 22 years from 1958 to 1980 for his stubborn resistance to atheistic Communism and its efforts to eradicate Christians from China.  Finally the Communists relented after much international Christian pressure and released Wong from prison.  But he had become an icon for all Chinese in the east and west of the miraculous intervention of Christ to save his life.  Billy Graham sent a video team to interview Wong in 1980 just as our cab drove up to his large apartment complex in Shanghai, and fortunately for us, one member of the team, a long time friend of ours from Brooklyn, was a Chinese (married to an American husband) and who also spoke fluent English to translate for us.  The encounter itself was a miraculous one!  The Chinese prison was unable to contain the Good News of Jesus the Savior spoken both by Wong and by my uncle J. T. Williams, my grandmother's brother.

 

     We are very fortunate today to have a special guest from China, the Rev. Jenny Wong Nam, a former pastoral classmate of mine during seminary in New York City.  Jenny's mother had become a Christian after she immigrated to New York City following a miraculous healing she received when she had been hospitalized for a terminal condition and prayed over by a Christian pastor.  I was privileged to help Jenny in the Christian burial service for her mother many years later; her mom is buried in nearby Linden in the Rosehill Cemetery.

 

     So these miracle stories are intermingled and intertwined in very amazing ways, as you may be able to see.

 

     Jenny will say a few words to us a bit later about her ministry in Hong Kong as the principal of a Christian girl's school there.

 

     The feeding of the five thousand has been recorded in all four Gospels, but in today's gospel lesson from John we have a unique small story about the origination of the five loaves of barley bread and the two fish.  In this account from the Johannine tradition, a young boy offered his lunch box of food to Andrew, one of Jesus' disciples and Peter's brother.  Andrew comments to Jesus, "But what are they among so many people?"  Jesus does not ever directly answer that question but immediately says for Andrew and the other disciples to "Make the people sit down."  Then Jesus takes the loaves, gives thanks to his Father in heaven, and suddenly is able to distribute enough food to satisfy the five thousand, that Philip had acknowledged six month's wages would not be enough to feed all of them.

 

     Suppose you have in your possession five loaves and two fish, or maybe five dollars and two cents, would you give that to feed five thousand?  Actually, this very day you will have that opportunity as we gather a second offering to feed up to eighty people today a free lunch.  Our faithfulness, and the faithfulness of our Deacon Cy Deavours and our Associate Rector Elizabeth Eddy have transpired to feed for free all the people who come to us today at 2 PM.  But we need your constant support today and every Sunday, since St. John's pays for the food for three of the four Sundays each month.  So your generosity will indeed feed a multitude.  Actually, it takes us a whole year to feed five thousand, but feed we do.  And we greatly enjoy the generosity of yet three other Episcopal Churches nearby who have begun taking on our burden: every last Sunday St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Westfield comes with the food and their team to do the feeding; and every other month for one Sunday we have the food and help from Trinity Episcopal Church in Cranford, a long time helper who also contributes most of our canned goods for our Food Pantry, and from St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in New Providence who served food for the first time here on July 12 and who also hopes to return in a couple of months.

 

     These seeming small offerings are the source of a great miracle, as we feed more people here than any other Episcopal Church in the State of New Jersey.  Of course, our example should be one which all others strive to emulate and even to exceed.  Our unique 2 PM service of Jazz Vespers, now Karaoke Vespers, each Sunday makes our feedings much more than a simple Soup Kitchen, and indeed we do not even call our free lunch a "Soup Kitchen".  Why?  Because we insist that our patrons at the meal first join us in offering God holy praise and prayers in the form of afternoon Vespers.  This unique service gives a sense of privacy and human dignity to each person who joins us for lunchtime.  We do not offer the food as "just Soup", we all together offer prayers as an acknowledgement of God's continued generosity to us at St. John's Church.  We are the handmaidens of the Lord; we serve to show others that God is indeed still with us, that God's only begotten Son died that we might be directly related to His heavenly Father, that our simple offerings will indeed again each and every week be multiplied far beyond what we could have imagined or expected.  It is surely God's grace that saves the starving of our community.  And it is just as surely God's grace that supports us even in our poverty as a church community here on Broad Street.

 

     Allow me to cite another example of how St. John's Church has been uniquely blessed in its leadership.  Our two resolutions on environmental justice and the humane treatment of animals were both overwhelmingly endorsed as national priorities of The Episcopal Church at our recent General Convention in Anaheim, two of the many resolutions that were offered on environmental issues.  And our Deacon's Resolution affirming the sacredness of all human beings regardless of their sexual preferences was resoundly accepted by General Convention as well.  We have again reaffirmed that there are no outcasts in the Episcopal Church.

 

     No other church or Diocese as far as I know had three of its resolutions accepted as official church policy by The Episcopal Church, so let us give God all the glory for the miracles worked in Anaheim!  

 

      May we constantly be aware that it is not the smallness of our offerings that is important, but the faith with which we offer them that is important, for we put these offerings into the hand of the Mighty Creator, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Prince of Peace.  It is He who has made us and not we ourselves.  It is the Lord Jesus Christ who multiplies our offerings, regardless of the smallness of our faith or our pocketbooks or our mental abilities.  And it is the Lord who will see us through whatever trials and tribulations we face in life, both personally and corporately.  Let us trust the Lord!

 

     And let our witness be: Great is the Lord Jehovah, and Great too is Jehovah's Only Son Jesus Christ.  May we praise them in the power of the Holy Spirit. 

 

     Amen and amen.  

 
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