A sermon
preached by the Rev. Scott D. Nowack on October 30, 2011
at the 11am service at the First
Presbyterian Church, Kilgore, Texas.
“Overcoming Obstacles:
When There Isn’t Enough to Go Around”
Matthew
14:13-21
What
do you do when there isn’t enough to go around?
This is the dilemma Jesus and the
disciples find themselves in: the needs are great yet their resources are
small. After all, Jesus didn’t plan
this event on the eastern shore the Sea of Galilee. He just heard about the death of John the
Baptist and in an effort to get some privacy and time for prayer he sails
across the Sea of Galilee to the less populated side. Nobody lined up the caterer for this
gathering. No water or any beverages
readily available. No brunch buffet was available
for everyone to enjoy. No Nanny Goats,
no Napoli’s pizza. And no portable
toilets either. What do you do when
there isn’t enough to go around?
There are times when the needs of the world seem so great and our resources seem so small. No other time is this more clear than when the leaders of the church put together the church budget for the following year. They are very aware of the human needs in our community and the world, the financial demands of our church’s ministries, not to mention funding for repairing the sprinkler system or the air conditioning in the sanctuary. I know what we the church are called to do, but there are so many times when we feel so squeezed to know how to respond people’s needs with our meager resources.
What do you do when there isn’t enough to go around?
Let me offer to you these four observations about what is happening in our scripture today. First, Jesus has compassion for the people when he arrives on the lakeshore. He is empathetic and begins to heal the sick and bind up the broken-hearted on the spot.
Sure he was tired. Sure was exhausted and upset and mourning the loss of his cousin John the Baptist. But he didn’t treat the people of the crowd as a nuisance. He didn’t ask if they had an appointment. He was never too busy for people. He gave of himself. He sacrificed his personal time, his personal schedule to meet the needs around him.
It’s overwhelming to handle the needs of the crowd when our resources seem so small. Compassion for others makes the difference and helps us focus on what must get done.
In the January, 2002 issue of Esquire, the late George Steinbrenner was quoted saying about giving of our resources to others in need, “The ability to have is so you can do things for others. If you can do things for others who are less fortunate, then it will come back to you.” This is a sign of compassion as well as a voice of gratitude.
Gracious living through gracious giving: this is what Mr. Steinbrenner is talking about and it’s what Jesus portrays for us, except with a much more modest bank account. Here we see Jesus showing that it is God’s gifts which he brings to each of us. The grace of gratitude is rare among people and it is even more rare towards God. When we truly recognize that all that we have, all that we are and everything we will become are gifts from God, that’s when our attitude changes. We possess our possessions and not the other way around. We are free to share and give our gifts to others to the glory of God.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve.” The disciples have a place in this ministry. They are not Jesus’ personal assistants. They are not chaperoning a school dance or a field trip. The disciples are not on the outside looking in; they are in the thick of it. As much as they may want to high tail it back home, they will not escape their responsibilities as Christ’s disciples. Jesus tells them, “We’re not going anywhere. You give them something to eat.” Jesus insists that the disciples offer their own bread and fish. With the five loaves and two fish, Jesus works through the hands of the disciples to reach the crowd.
As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are helpless without the Lord. But I would also submit to you that the Lord is helpless without his disciples. Jesus needs disciples like you and me through whom he can work as living vessels pouring forth God’s truth and love into the lives of others. He needs people to whom he can give in order that they may give to others. The Lord asks us as his disciples to be gracious givers at all times, in both bad and good times.
Gracious living through gracious giving: Jesus calls each of us to share and tell the world about the saving grace and love of Jesus Christ regardless of our bank account balance or our abilities and skills. God does not demand we do this with any great magnificence or grandeur we don’t possess. A little is always a lot in the eyes of God.
Paul Harvey tells the story of an eight-year-old named Ben who won a contest at the local McDonald's. His prize was a brand new bike. When Ben got home, he told his parents that he already had a bike and that he didn't need two. Ben decided to give the new bike to a friend who didn't have a bike and whose parents were unable to buy one for him. When the manager of McDonald's heard about this, she invited Ben and his family to dinner and presented him with a $100 gift certificate. The next day Ben used the gift certificate to buy a crash helmet for his friend. For some people, gracious living through gracious giving is second nature.
In the end, there were twelve baskets of leftovers, one for each disciple. In the economy of God, the disciples who offered all their resources to the Lord received back everything they needed. There is no wasting of God’s great gifts, even the leftovers. God’s generous giving and our wise using must go hand in hand.
There’s a church I once heard about some years back that kept a loaf of bread on the Communion Table. Since they didn’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week, someone coated the loaf in polyurethane, so it wouldn’t need to be replaced. Not too long after, the congregation gasped when their interim pastor stood behind the Table and broke the bread with the words, “This is my body, broken for you!” They breathed an audible sigh of relief when they discovered the minister had, in good fun, switched their ceremonial loaf with real bread. After the service someone commented, “You upset us for a minute; we thought you broke our communion bread.” The pastor responded, “Don’t you understand? If it’s not broken, it can’t be shared.”[1]
What do you do when there isn’t enough to go around? We break ourselves open and give. We give of ourselves to others, time, talent and treasure, in order to reflect the light of Christ in a very dark world, a world groping in the dark looking for the answers, searching for the truth, desperately seeking direction and purpose for living. We give of ourselves to others because we can’t help ourselves. It’s something we want to share. It’s something we want to live and tell about, so others may know the joy we discovered.
In the Kingdom of God, there is always enough to go around and then some. Amen.
[1]
Stewardship Magazine for Congregational Leaders. Published by Stewardship and
Mission funding PC)USA). (Louisville) September 2006. P.27-28.
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