Martha Gilmore - "Use What You've Got" (August 1, 1993)
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| Man | Now here these words from the gospel according to | 0:05 |
| St. Matthew chapter 14 beginning with the 13th verse. | 0:08 | |
| Now when Jesus heard this he withdrew from there | 0:15 | |
| in a boat to a deserted place by himself. | 0:18 | |
| But when the crowds heard it | 0:23 | |
| they followed him on foot from the towns. | 0:24 | |
| When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and | 0:28 | |
| he had compassion for them and cured their sick. | 0:30 | |
| When it was evening the disciples came to him and said | 0:35 | |
| "This is a deserted place and the hour is now late | 0:39 | |
| Send the crowds away so they may go in to the villages | 0:44 | |
| and buy food for themselves!" | 0:47 | |
| Jesus said to them "They need not go away, | 0:50 | |
| you give them something to eat!" | 0:54 | |
| They replied "We have nothing hear but | 0:57 | |
| five loaves and two fish!" | 0:59 | |
| and he said "Bring them to me!" | 1:02 | |
| Then he ordered the crowds to sent down on the grass. | 1:06 | |
| Taking the five loaves and the two fish, | 1:10 | |
| he looked up to heaven | 1:12 | |
| and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to disciples | 1:13 | |
| and the disciples gave them to the crowds. | 1:18 | |
| And all ate and were filled. | 1:21 | |
| And they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, | 1:25 | |
| twelve baskets full and those who ate were about | 1:28 | |
| five thousand men besides women and children. | 1:32 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 1:37 | |
| congregation | Thanks be to God. | 1:39 |
| Woman Pastor | I want to tell you about Katherine. | 1:54 |
| She was one of the girls in the senior high youth group | 1:57 | |
| where last I pastored. | 2:00 | |
| We didn't have a very big group, in fact we only had | 2:03 | |
| six women, young women and four young men. | 2:07 | |
| It was because we were a small group though | 2:13 | |
| that a youth director from another church called me one day. | 2:16 | |
| It seemed that he was looking at a ski trip and | 2:20 | |
| he wanted to have a certain number to guarantee | 2:24 | |
| a minimal affordable price and he needed ten more people, | 2:27 | |
| so we were kind of an answer to his prayers. | 2:33 | |
| He called and he said "Do you think your youth group | 2:36 | |
| would be, ah, would like to go skiing?" | 2:39 | |
| And I said, "Oh, yes!" | 2:41 | |
| "They've talked of nothing less than our (inaudible) | 2:43 | |
| more than skiing, so let me talk to them next Sunday | 2:47 | |
| and I will be back in touch with you!" | 2:52 | |
| Actually, the director had helped me out as well, | 2:55 | |
| for as it turned out, our youth group that next Sunday night | 2:59 | |
| was to go to a shelter to feed the homeless. | 3:04 | |
| Now all they had to do was just to get there | 3:08 | |
| and serve the food. | 3:11 | |
| Another church was preparing the food, | 3:14 | |
| was bringing the food. | 3:17 | |
| We were just to get there and serve the food. | 3:19 | |
| Now as you might suspect, the youth group had said | 3:23 | |
| "This was not our idea of a good time!" | 3:27 | |
| And I had kind of leaned on them with | 3:31 | |
| what I call a sort of a pastoral privilege | 3:33 | |
| and I had introduced the rather revolutionary idea | 3:36 | |
| that maybe the youth group should do something | 3:41 | |
| besides play volleyball. | 3:43 | |
| And I needed back in their good graces though and | 3:46 | |
| I thought well the ski trip is going to do it. | 3:49 | |
| Sunday night arrived and we were there together | 3:53 | |
| discussing the information about the trip and indeed it | 3:57 | |
| did look like it would be at a good time for our schedule. | 4:00 | |
| But the young people decided that they would go home, | 4:05 | |
| check with their parents, look over their bank accounts, | 4:08 | |
| look over their calendars, check with their friends | 4:12 | |
| to see what their friends would be doing at spring break, | 4:15 | |
| that they might want to do more than going skiing. | 4:18 | |
| Little did we know that the ski trip | 4:22 | |
| was soon to be a thing of the past. | 4:26 | |
| None of us was prepared for the impact | 4:30 | |
| of walking into that shelter that Sunday night. | 4:35 | |
| Row after row of mats lay on the concrete slab. | 4:39 | |
| One meager mat, marking individual space | 4:43 | |
| that could be claimed by each person. | 4:48 | |
| The director moved toward me, asking if I would offer | 4:52 | |
| Thanksgiving for the meal and a lump formed in my throat. | 4:56 | |
| A hush covered the warehouse and I said something | 5:02 | |
| which gratefully I cannot recall this morning because | 5:06 | |
| I was so overwhelmed of what I was seeing. | 5:09 | |
| The youth took their places behind the table and | 5:14 | |
| began to serve. More often than not, the resident would | 5:17 | |
| come by and say "Thank you! God bless you!" | 5:22 | |
| And when the meal was completed, the residents began | 5:27 | |
| to clap in appreciation and that's when tears began | 5:31 | |
| to stream down our face. | 5:36 | |
| It was then that Katherine moved toward me. | 5:39 | |
| "How much does this food cost? | 5:43 | |
| How much does it cost to feed all these people?" | 5:46 | |
| And I said "I don't know! Go ask one of the persons who | 5:49 | |
| prepared the food." | 5:53 | |
| And in an instant with an incredulous expression | 5:56 | |
| on her face, she returned saying, "It cost about $200!" | 5:59 | |
| And then beginning in her eyes, a smile traveled along her | 6:05 | |
| face and she said | 6:10 | |
| "Just think, for $200 we could feed all these people. | 6:12 | |
| Who wants to go skiing!" | 6:19 | |
| Katherine's exuberance was contagious, she gathered | 6:22 | |
| the youth around here and before I knew it, they had gone | 6:25 | |
| up to the director and they had signed the schedule and | 6:28 | |
| promised that we would bring a meal on a specific night. | 6:32 | |
| And I was standing there thinking one hour before, | 6:38 | |
| we were planning to go skiing. | 6:41 | |
| It was when we met next Sunday night that the awesomeness | 6:44 | |
| of the promise that we had made began to soak in. | 6:48 | |
| For you see as I told you we were ten, fifteen if you | 6:53 | |
| wanted to count me and the two couples who sponsored. | 6:57 | |
| And they were 350. Where would we get this money? | 7:01 | |
| Somehow it seemed to be harder to contemplate how we were | 7:07 | |
| going to get money to feed the homeless then it had been to | 7:10 | |
| think about how we would get money to go skiing. | 7:14 | |
| How would we make all of this food? | 7:18 | |
| And if we could even make it, how in the world were we going | 7:20 | |
| to get it to the shelter. I think it was Charlie who first | 7:23 | |
| verbalized what we all were thinking. | 7:29 | |
| He said "We've gotta get out of this!" | 7:32 | |
| (giggled) "Call them, Martha, tell them anything!" | 7:34 | |
| "Give them any excuse!" But then it was Megan who said | 7:39 | |
| "Wait a minute! Let's don't panic, I've got a plan coming!" | 7:45 | |
| "We'll just go to the congregation, you know the church | 7:51 | |
| is always behind what we are getting into and I think | 7:54 | |
| we could just go out in pairs to different groups." | 7:59 | |
| "For instance, two of us could go to the older couples | 8:02 | |
| in the church and ask for money!" | 8:06 | |
| "Two of us can go to the missionary society | 8:08 | |
| and ask them to bake cookies and brownies." | 8:11 | |
| "You know how they do that for us periodically and | 8:13 | |
| they can just make more!" | 8:16 | |
| "Then we could send two to the young people's department, | 8:18 | |
| the young married couples and ask them to bring a loaf | 8:22 | |
| of bread or a gallon of milk because they have to go to the | 8:25 | |
| grocery store everyday anyway with their young families. | 8:29 | |
| And then she said the little kids, | 8:33 | |
| they can just get potato chips and Fritos. | 8:35 | |
| On she went until the menu was complete. | 8:39 | |
| And so that's how feeding the homeless became a ministry | 8:43 | |
| of the entire congregation because you see the youth | 8:48 | |
| kept signing up and the people in the church kept | 8:52 | |
| supporting it with the gifts of their food, and in fact | 8:55 | |
| it wasn't long until they came and said | 8:59 | |
| "Why can't we go with you?" You kids have all the fun." | 9:01 | |
| And so they began to let them go, carefully instructing them | 9:06 | |
| about what they would need to do. | 9:10 | |
| And what they would be seeing. And then mysteriously, | 9:12 | |
| food began to appear in the church kitchen. | 9:17 | |
| Leftover food from school carnivals, from service clubs, | 9:20 | |
| from church affairs that had not been attended well | 9:26 | |
| and food was leftover always with a note attached that said | 9:31 | |
| to the kids in the youth group, take this to the shelter | 9:36 | |
| when next you go. | 9:40 | |
| Using what you got enlivened a congregation | 9:43 | |
| and fed a multitude. | 9:48 | |
| Some of the time our initial reaction to using what we've | 9:50 | |
| got is what Charlie's was as he articulated | 9:54 | |
| what the youth group was thinking. | 9:58 | |
| We look at a big need and we impulsively sign on | 10:01 | |
| not considering the consequences and then we want out. | 10:04 | |
| Sometime, our initial reaction to using what we've got | 10:11 | |
| is similar to the disciples in the gospel lesson | 10:14 | |
| that was read for us a few moments ago. | 10:18 | |
| We become defensive, we say, send them | 10:21 | |
| into the village to buy themselves some food. | 10:25 | |
| They should be more responsible for themselves. | 10:29 | |
| Why is their problem suppose to be my problem? | 10:32 | |
| We listen to ourselves and are | 10:37 | |
| ashamed to hear our own reactions. | 10:39 | |
| Reactions like if the poor would just get a job, we could | 10:42 | |
| close the shelters, we could get them off the streets. | 10:47 | |
| If the HIV positive had just been more disciplined, | 10:52 | |
| he or she wouldn't be carrying the deadly virus and | 10:56 | |
| furthering of the taxation of our health care institutions. | 11:00 | |
| We're quick to judge, to assign blame, | 11:06 | |
| quick to pronounce simplistic solutions. | 11:10 | |
| Send the people to the village to buy themselves some food. | 11:15 | |
| Some of the time, our initial reaction is grounded in a | 11:19 | |
| deep sense of our own inadequacy. | 11:23 | |
| We really believe that we're not good enough and | 11:27 | |
| what we have to offer could not be sufficient. | 11:30 | |
| Or perhaps a mentality of scarcity holds us hostage. | 11:35 | |
| Scarcity says there is not possibly | 11:40 | |
| enough to ever go around. | 11:44 | |
| Scarcity thrives on categories, we versus they. | 11:47 | |
| It says if you have, I don't. | 11:52 | |
| It says if you win, I lose. | 11:56 | |
| It says if you're successful or popular, then I'm not. | 12:00 | |
| Scarcity promotes fear and fear promotes hoarding. | 12:05 | |
| But our gospel lesson illustrates that scarcity is not true. | 12:12 | |
| Sometimes our initial response is grounded in greed. | 12:18 | |
| I don't know if our first century brothers and sisters | 12:23 | |
| in Christ were influenced by our twentieth century myth. | 12:26 | |
| They myth that says more is better. | 12:32 | |
| We dilute ourselves into thinking that happiness | 12:36 | |
| is connected to experiences and to possessions and | 12:38 | |
| that the more we have, the happier we will be. | 12:43 | |
| George Bateson some years ago called this a cradle of greed. | 12:48 | |
| Bateson said that it is never true | 12:53 | |
| biologically that more is better than less. | 12:55 | |
| There is, he said, in fact an always optimum value beyond | 13:00 | |
| which anything becomes toxic. | 13:04 | |
| He said that might be oxygen, | 13:08 | |
| sleep, psychotherapy, philosophy. | 13:11 | |
| But we ignore these limits, he said, because | 13:16 | |
| greed has gotten the best of us. | 13:18 | |
| Robert Stone said it another way in an essay | 13:23 | |
| that he wrote for Harvard's magazine. | 13:25 | |
| He said that we live in a society based overwhelmingly | 13:28 | |
| on appetite and on pleasure and on self-regard. | 13:33 | |
| We train our young people, he said, to be consumers, | 13:39 | |
| to think more highly of their own pleasure. | 13:44 | |
| Much in our culture says to us | 13:47 | |
| send the people to the village to buy themselves food. | 13:51 | |
| Yet the gospel proclaims another way. | 13:56 | |
| It proclaims that our pleasure and another's need | 14:00 | |
| is not often neatly symmetrical. | 14:03 | |
| I was touched to discover that the passage which immediately | 14:06 | |
| precedes the one that we're preaching and we read today, | 14:10 | |
| is the account of Salome's Dance and | 14:14 | |
| the beheading of John the Baptist. | 14:18 | |
| Now this event was very important for Jesus. | 14:21 | |
| First of all, John was his cousin. | 14:25 | |
| It was John who had presided over the baptism of Jesus. | 14:28 | |
| So John's death no doubt brought deep personal loss. | 14:33 | |
| For Jesus says as well, his death posed | 14:38 | |
| a serious threat to his ministry. | 14:41 | |
| Indeed this was not a good day to have to face a multitude. | 14:44 | |
| Yet Jesus responded compassionately | 14:50 | |
| to the needs of the crowd, and apparently, the disciples | 14:53 | |
| were able to respond as well until the moment | 14:57 | |
| when they were met with their own vulnerability. | 15:01 | |
| They were met with a situation that | 15:06 | |
| they thought they could not fix. | 15:08 | |
| Here I believe is the pivotal moment in the story today. | 15:11 | |
| Jesus cuts through their vulnerability | 15:17 | |
| with an amazing statement. | 15:19 | |
| He says to them give them food yourselves. | 15:22 | |
| Use what you've got. | 15:26 | |
| They must have wondered, well, is he joking. | 15:30 | |
| But after all, had not Jesus been modeling | 15:33 | |
| vulnerability all day long | 15:36 | |
| in his response to the crowd, "Use what we've got"? | 15:39 | |
| We've only got five loaves and two fishes. | 15:44 | |
| And our commentary tells us the fish they had was not fish | 15:49 | |
| like we eat here in such wonderful portions when we go out | 15:53 | |
| to eat, no it was fish that was made into a relish. | 15:58 | |
| So all they had actually were five loaves of bread | 16:03 | |
| with a small amount to spread on them. | 16:08 | |
| How could they possibly have enough, | 16:12 | |
| they must have been wondering. | 16:15 | |
| Yet Jesus said, "Bring to me what you have!" | 16:17 | |
| And herein is the second pivotal moment in the story. | 16:22 | |
| "With what you have," Jesus says, "God's abundance will | 16:28 | |
| be released." It was and the people were fed. | 16:34 | |
| The subject of the story at this point shifts to God. | 16:39 | |
| To God's abundance which is available | 16:43 | |
| and is so deeply satisfying. | 16:46 | |
| Now the paradox is that the way God's abundance was accessed | 16:50 | |
| by the disciples was not through their strength | 16:55 | |
| as we understand it but through their vulnerability | 16:57 | |
| and through their needfulness and through their brokenness. | 17:02 | |
| This turns all of our notions of strength and power | 17:07 | |
| upside down, but of course, that's | 17:11 | |
| what the gospel is all about. | 17:13 | |
| For it is as the bread is brought to Jesus that | 17:17 | |
| the bread is blessed, that the bread then is broken. | 17:21 | |
| Only you see as Jesus breaks the bread is the multitude fed. | 17:27 | |
| The loaves did not magically multiply. | 17:32 | |
| Rather the loaves were broken into pieces | 17:36 | |
| and the pieces small as they were, were enough. | 17:41 | |
| The people were satisfied with far less than | 17:46 | |
| they usually thought they needed. | 17:50 | |
| Turning still another one of our notions upside down. | 17:54 | |
| For you see, less becomes more. | 17:58 | |
| And if this isn't a miracle, I don't know what is. | 18:03 | |
| What an image the broken bread is for us as long as | 18:08 | |
| we appear together like an intact loaf of bread | 18:12 | |
| pretending to be perfect on top of things | 18:17 | |
| defending and protecting our self-image. | 18:20 | |
| Pretending our image of of our strength and power | 18:24 | |
| does not need anything from anyone else. | 18:28 | |
| We remain as bread that is unbroken. | 18:32 | |
| But as we allowed ourselves to broken apart by | 18:36 | |
| (mumbled) what life brings us, | 18:40 | |
| then God's sustaining love can run rampant. | 18:44 | |
| You see, God needs our brokenness | 18:48 | |
| because God needs our authenticity. | 18:51 | |
| And after all, aren't we finally all broken. | 18:55 | |
| As we look around this sanctuary this morning | 18:59 | |
| we can only imagine what that brokenness | 19:03 | |
| represents for those of us who are here. | 19:06 | |
| All to always takes a different form. | 19:18 | |
| For some of us, we've been broken by | 19:21 | |
| homes that are no longer together. | 19:23 | |
| Maybe we've been broken by a dream that we held onto that | 19:26 | |
| looks as though it is not going to come true. | 19:30 | |
| We have felt our brokenness when | 19:34 | |
| we have lost our loved ones. | 19:36 | |
| We have felt our brokenness when our | 19:39 | |
| self-reliance doesn't work for us anymore. | 19:41 | |
| Some of us have looked addictions in the face | 19:45 | |
| to acknowledge their dreadful hold on us. | 19:49 | |
| Some look to bodies broken apart by strokes, by injury, | 19:53 | |
| by accident, that in an instant changed everything. | 19:58 | |
| Yet how often the brokenness, no matter what form it takes | 20:05 | |
| becomes the means through which God's goodness | 20:08 | |
| is experienced in profound ways. | 20:12 | |
| And our very brokenness becomes the way God's love is | 20:16 | |
| made visible, not only to ourselves but to so many as well. | 20:19 | |
| Brokenness is God's catalyst. | 20:25 | |
| But we do not readily want to embrace our brokenness. | 20:29 | |
| Most of us put up quite a fight. | 20:33 | |
| Yet when we embrace the brokenness, | 20:36 | |
| we are transformed in the moment. | 20:39 | |
| When talking about our congregation's ministry | 20:42 | |
| to the shelter, I'm more often than not to point first to | 20:46 | |
| Katherine as I did this morning. | 20:50 | |
| Yes, it was her generous heart that connected with the | 20:53 | |
| generous hearts and the needful hearts | 20:57 | |
| of those in that shelter. | 21:00 | |
| Yes, it was she who took spontaneous action. | 21:04 | |
| Yes, it was she who provided the group first and | 21:08 | |
| then the church with a vision. | 21:12 | |
| But it was Megan who gave that vision feet and hands. | 21:16 | |
| How? By first and foremost holding us firm to the | 21:21 | |
| frightening moment of our fear. | 21:26 | |
| It was she who forced us to sit with our vulnerability. | 21:29 | |
| It was she who in the words of the psalmist | 21:34 | |
| made us holler help. | 21:37 | |
| But as we were willing to be broken, the whole congregation | 21:40 | |
| discovered their enough-ness and a multitude was fed | 21:45 | |
| both at the shelter and in the congregation. | 21:50 | |
| We even began to take additional paper bags | 21:55 | |
| when we went to take the meal. | 21:59 | |
| For more often than not, there was food collected | 22:01 | |
| in baskets that were made into lunches | 22:06 | |
| for the next day for the residents. | 22:10 | |
| Yet isn't it actually God to whom we need to first look. | 22:13 | |
| It is God that this story is finally about, God's abundance. | 22:18 | |
| Waiting for release through the lives of we, who already | 22:24 | |
| have enough, to we who already have gifts | 22:29 | |
| and graces and talents. | 22:35 | |
| Just asking that God is asking us | 22:38 | |
| to use, it is we who are enough. | 22:42 | |
| So use what you've got. | 22:46 | |
| You just might be in for a big surprise. | 22:50 | |
| Let the church say "Amen." | 22:56 | |
| Congregation | "Amen" | 22:59 |
| (church organ music) | 23:01 |