3 points I’d like to make today, in light of this Gospel text:
1) Disciples wanted to send the crowds away. But Jesus held them together.
· Disciples wanted to keep it simple and neat, but how “keeping it simple and neat” can breakdown community and attempt to edge out God’s compassion.
· This is a text about God’s compassion, God’s justice…where ALL are fed. All are clothed, all are housed, all are safe and have security.
o I’ve been wondering this week, what God’s U.S. healthcare plan, what God’s U.S. budget plan, what God’s debt-limit deal would look like.
o If we bring something back from the text for our world today, I think we have to look at how Jesus overflows with compassion: All ate and were fed, and there were 12 baskets left over.
2) The disciples didn’t think there was enough. But Jesus turned that which was offered into more than enough.
· You know, I don’t like it when biblical scholars and preachers “explain away” or de-mystify the miracles of Jesus. But one explanation I’ve heard, I do like…which is that the bit that was offered from someone for whom that was all they had, 5 loaves and 2 fish, was such an inspiration to all, that everyone began to gladly share, and suddenly blessings abound.
o It’s a common phenomenon in congregations, when it comes to offering and tithing, that often it is those with less income who give a greater percentage, like the little one who offered all he had…entrusting it to God, to be blessed, broken and shared (miraculously, in abundance) with the whole.
o That’s what offering is!
o Sisters and brothers in Christ—I read recently that when a congregation calls a pastor, one of the things they’re doing is sending that person to the biblical text to fish out a word from God for the people. Well, in my “fishing” this week, I find this text to be calling us to give—not just the fraction that we think we can afford. We are called us to give all we have to God’s work.
o It’s all God’s anyway, isn’t it?
o May the 5 loaves and 2 fish not inspire us to share our leftovers [pause]. Let’s let Christ deal with those 12 baskets of leftovers. May God’s Word invigorate us today to bring all we have, lay it in Christ’s hands so that he may bless it, break it and share it with a hungry and hurting world.
3) With the abundance, Jesus feeds us too! ALL ARE FED means you and me – we don’t just empty are pockets and go home hungry and bitter. In this amazing story, messy-spirit-filled-children-screaming-old-people-dancing-everyone-singing-everyone fed-community-in-Christ is the result! Amen? ALL ARE FED, you and me included!
· The disciples want to send them away, but Jesus even feeds the disciples. Jesus forms us all into one body, through shared food and shared space. The disciples don’t think there’s enough, but Jesus makes sure everyone is feed, including them, including us!
· We are fed this day—tired, depressed, lost, confused, lonely, wrapped up in conflict, stressed about money, grieving our losses, losing our hope—Jesus doesn’t send us away empty.
He sends us away fed! This day, and forevermore, for this is the bread of life. AMEN.
Intro – Meal is the 2nd and equally central part of worship.
· “Bad worship?” Well, was the word preached, meal shared?
Offering
Some have said this is the reason for our worship. We gather to offer ourselves. To offer our whole selves up to God.
· It’s hard to do that, while staying in control of our money.
· Offering is not making a payment to the church. “If you like what you’ve experienced here…”
· This is about you offering yourself up to God, and a huge part of you is your money.
· Offering is a time to reflect on that. God I’m yours. I fall and stumble, but your Word has sustained me, your Peace fills me, your Meal is about to nourish and sustain me, and now here’s me responding to that with a sign, a pretty significant sign…that all I have is yours…to be blessed, broken and shared.
· Offering that is biblically grounded is
o Regular, sacrificial, off the top, joyful
· I like that we’ve resurrected the tradition of bringing forward the bread and wine with the monetary offering. This is an offering too. A sign that we gather earthly things, and they become holy—food, money, song/music, our whole selves.
· Again, however, we must be clear: none of this offering is a payment to receive the meal of God’s grace or God’s favor.
Offering Prayer
· The assisting minister, assists the assembly in articulating with “both eloquence and humility a Lutheran doctrine of creation, redemption, and vocation, that both expresses and responds to the crisis of the offertory.”
Great Thanksgiving
Dialogue
· On of the other most ancient and widespread texts in Christian use.
· Begins with a shorter version of the Greeting; again, the assembly is invited to know the presence of Christ and share it. These are the grounds on which we proceed
· “Lift up your hearts.” Then, a gentle correction: “to Lord” -- because we are in Christs presence, we get to be with God…NOW.
· So let us give thanks! At first just presider, then assembly joins in Sanctus.
So what do we have swirling around? Song, words of scripture, liturgical action—all this work of the gathered people is in preparation, surrounding the meal!
Thanksgiving at the Table (Eucharistic Prayer)
· A proclamation of what GOD HAS DONE,
o Retelling of the story, creation, fall, Israelites journey – a sacred re-membering
· summed up in Jesus and in his words at the supper.
Words of Institution
· Magic words? No, but essential to HC liturgy.
· What makes a sacrament a sacrament: the holiness of the pastor? No. Magic? No. Ordinary stuff of the earth, mixed with the Word, promising grace and forgiveness.
Lord’s Prayer
· We don’t know what to say, in the presence of Christ, and so Christ gives us the words.
· The Amen concludes the Great Thanksgiving
Communion
· Even if you didn’t hear the Gospel, with your ears, now you get to taste the Gospel with your mouth, feel the Gospel in your hands, smell the gospel with your nose. And when you come forward, everyone should hear the words “given for you,” “shed for you”.
· HC can be both the most meaningful time in the service…and the most distracting, because of all the logistical maneuvering and so much going on.
· Music is provides some focus.
· Singing during the meal is sign of community forming and solidifying…
Prayer after Communion
· All the options gather us in prayer, that the wonderful sacrament we have received will turn us toward a needy world in mission and service.
· We are coming to the Sending.
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