July 23, 2000

Today we have three very good lessons, all of which provide lots of opportunity for sermons, and all of which seem to carry a common theme — that of appropriate responses at appropriate times.

In Ephesians, Paul writes that we have been bonded together by Christ in his one body. He reminds us that in Christ all divisions and all rules have been removed in the name of loving self and neighbor and God in one. He tells us that if we divide ourselves with arguments, bickering and whatever else we use to divide ourselves, we divide Christ himself. But that can't be done because Christ is the cornerstone which holds us all together. He is the foundation on which we can build the church. The appropriate response is reconciliation not division.

Isaiah, striking a similar note some several hundred years earlier, says to remove all stumbling blocks, remove all walls that separate us so that we may be, in fact, one. One of my favorite poems is Mending Walls by Robert Frost. He writes, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall. It sends the frozen ground swell under it and spills the upper boulders in the sun and makes gaps even two can pass abreast," picking up on something Isaiah had written several thousands of years earlier. The walls that separate us today are the walls of accessibility, the walls of attitudes, the walls of prejudices and the walls of fear. They are anything that prevents anyone from being transformed by the word and love of God. From Isaiah to Paul to Robert Frost, removing barriers is an appropriate response whenever we detect that they are in our midst.

In Mark's Gospel, we have the story of the feeding of the multitude. Jesus is teaching. As he instructs those who come seeking his teaching, seeking his touch, his healing, whatever inadequacies that we present to him — the Lord responds to fill the need. just like the meager amount of food present at the end of the day. Teaching, for as long as necessary, to fill them and to repair them. Obviously, in the course of the afternoon, some people may have left saying, "That class is way too long. It started at one in the afternoon, and now it's five. My back hurts. I'm hungry and I'm going home.

For those who stay, it is worth every bit of the time spent. This is one of the great miracles of Christ presented in their midst. So, whenever there are hundreds, or thousands, or twos, or threes gathered together to hear the word of God, teaching is an appropriate response. The people's minds can be opened, so that in turn, our hearts can be opened. At the end of the day, Jesus says, "Give them something to eat." The disciples, of course, argue with him: "We don't have a year's salary (which is about what it would take to feed all these people) and besides that, the market is closed." Jesus says, "Feed them. What do you have? Feed them that — real food for hungry people. The people around us are hungry for food, let's feed them."

It's not a question of "do they deserve it." Anybody who comes out without preparation, anyone who lingers around way past the time the markets are closed, and way too far to walk before they can get home to eat, doesn't deserve anything. Jesus doesn't ask, "How many of these people are really deserving? How many planned ahead? How many are listening? How many are good people and how many are scoundrels?" He doesn't ask any of these questions. He does ask, "How many are there? How many people do you need to feed and how much food do you have in order to do it?"

Whatever the resources that are presented to Jesus Christ, in his hands, they are more than enough to fill the need. In times of hunger, real physical hunger, as well as spiritual hunger, the appropriate response is to feed the people. Afterwards, we know what Jesus does. He sends the crowd away; he takes a break, a holiday, a time by himself. Jesus too, takes time out to take something in. Jesus, we know, always observed the Sabbath — although not in the way the Pharisees would insist upon because certain things like healing the sick and feeding the people took priority over the Sabbath. But, he does take time out at the close of the day to be alone.

He takes his disciples with him to be alone and to get some rest. He knows they have been working hard too. They have been out in that crowd. They have been teaching in the clusters of people who couldn't hear directly what Jesus was saying. They passed that little boy's lunch around until it got so heavy that a hundred people couldn't carry it. They had been with Jesus all these weeks and months, walking up and down throughout Judea, never knowing when they would get a rest. He took his disciples to rest and the people came. The disciples rest and Jesus teaches. At the end of that day when people were gone, Jesus himself rests. Christ's work continues while the disciples all take their leisure. Whichever group is resting, however, the appropriate response when you are tired and weary is to take time out. Whether that is physical weariness or spiritual weariness, take time out to be with the Lord, to be refreshed and refilled. But, just remember, it is only for a time, only long enough to recover your strength, and then it is back to work.

According to the scripture today, it seems to me to be very clear. We are called as Christian people to remove the barriers that separate anyone from anyone else and anyone from God. We are called as Christians people to teach the stories of Jesus and the meanings that we find in our own hearts as we hear them. We are called as Christian people to feed the hungry — both the physically hungry and the spiritually hungry. We are called as Christian people to rest, to be renewed and restrengthened. If we follow Christ where he leads the way, his peace will always be with us. AMEN

The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
July 23, 2000