Sermon 2-5-2006

February 5, 2006

John 6:1-15

    After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee , which is the Sea of Tiber'i -as. And a multitude followed him, because they saw the signs which he did on those who were diseased. Jesus went up on the mountain, and there sat down with his disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, "How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?" This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, "Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?" Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!" Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Sermon  

A Meal Fit For a King

The people who wanted to make Jesus king by force were correct in one respect – he really was the king they took him to be.  They were wrong in two respects – first of all, they didn’t understand what the true nature of kingship is; and second, they didn’t know what a king is really supposed to do; at least, not what The King is really supposed to do. 

        What does it really mean to be king?  Would they recognize him as the prophet who was to come?  When they transposed that into the word “king”, they were recognizing something that the Old Testament speaks about abundantly and the New Testament recognizes is applicable to Jesus Christ – they were recognizing that God, the King of the universe, was in their midst.  The King of the universe; that’s a phrase in a Jewish table blessing, “Blessed art thou, O God, the King of the universe.”  The opening hymn that we sang this morning speaks to that aspect of God, “O Worship the King”; and then talks about how, instead of having an earthly throne or an earthly tapestry canopy over his head, this king’s canopy is space and his “chariots of wrath the deep thunderclouds” and it goes on and on and on using the images of grandeur and space and size from the Biblical universe; using all of these to describe the nature of the King of the universe, the nature of God.

        And that gives a sense of what Jesus is, but the nature of the kingship still remains to be spoken of.  I would say that when you look at the King of the universe, when you look at God and the nature of the ruler that God is over all the earth, what you’re seeing there is a very different kind of ruler than you see from any earthly ruler.  Any queen or king, any president or prime minister, any mayor, any teacher of a classroom or principal of a school, any one who exercises authority is an imperfect copy of the authority that governs all things, the authority that lies underneath all creation, the authority that can be seen and felt and heard in the vastness of space and the minutiae of sub-atomic particles. 

        The earthly authority that humans use is only a partial reflection; and in many cases, perhaps most cases, a seriously distorted reflection of the kind of authority that really is out there and is ultimate in all the known world.  So when kings or queens, presidents, prime ministers, teachers, mayors, when they exercise authority, if we were to say God’s authority is like that only better, we’d be going at it backwards.  What we ought to be saying instead is that their authority is a little, bitty bit like God’s, only it’s incomplete and partial and in some cases, distorted.  Human authority derives from God’s authority, not the other way around.  The nature of kingship is that it begins with the King of the universe and is reflected in those who share authority these days. 

        I think we recognize that implicitly whenever we find ourselves responding positively to any sort of leadership from anybody.  We’re recognizing that that person carries within herself or himself something of the authority that should exist within our relationship with each other and in all the structures of society and it exists on all levels of life in the world.   There is a legitimate authority out there, and sometimes human authority reflects that legitimacy and we respond to it almost instinctively; we sometimes respond to it in ways that are completely contradictory. 

        When people start naming the presidents that they think were really the best presidents, the presidents that their hearts responded to; if you did that even in this very room, where we’re not that dissimilar from each other, you’d still come out with very different lists of what we consider to be human authorities that appropriately reflect the authority that is out there and ultimate,  Nevertheless, I think we do recognize, and decide to recognize in our leaders, on whatever level something of the authority that derives from the one who governs and shapes and underlies and oversees all things – the King of the universe.  

        But the nature of the kingship of the King of the universe, that’s where we see the difference between Him and even the best earthly authorities; because the King of the universe governs by completely giving himself to others.  Earthly kings aren’t really in a position to do that.  They can do some of that, and the best ones do a lot of that; but they aren’t in a position to do that with the completeness with which God gives himself to all creation.  God pours himself out into creation.  God oversees and notices and pays attention to everything that’s happening in everyone’s life; every human being’s life is a part of the concern of God and is in step with God’s own steps and beats to the rhythm of God’s own heartbeat.  God is intimately connected with all his creation in a way that no earthly authority can possibly be with the ones over whom that person has authority.  

        They wanted Jesus to be an earthly authority.  They were not wrong to think of him as a king; but they were wrong in thinking about what they could expect the king to be and what they could expect the king do; because they expected the king to organize an army and start a war; a war against the Romans, a war against any other outward enemy that might be oppressing the people of God.  A war that would restore the kingdom of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and the temple as a place of worship; and that way the purity of the things that God had given to Abraham could once again be transmitted without interference from Rome; the way the Greeks had interfered earlier; the way the Assyrians and Babylonians had interfered earlier.  They wanted a messiah who was going to end that whole cycle of domination from outside and would instead establish a new time in which God’s choice of Israel could blossom and bear fruit for the world in its right way. 

        In the way I’m describing it, I hope you can see that there’s even something that sounds right and good and maybe noble about what they wanted their king to do.  But it wasn’t enough; it wasn’t what Jesus came to do.  Jesus wasn’t that kind of king because he was the same kind of king, indeed he was the very King of the universe; and he wasn’t going to do that kind of thing because he was going to do what the King of the universe does – he was going to give himself in complete self-giving to the world.  You can’t lead an army and hold yourself back from the battle the way leaders of armies need to do; you can’t lead a nation and favor some and choose against others the way leaders of nations need to do; you can’t restore a particular set of observances and punish those that do not go along with this restoration the way earthly rulers might need to do and still be completely self-giving.  But that’s who Jesus was; and that is what Jesus came to do.  

        So, they were right about who Jesus is; they were wrong about trying to make a king.  And what they missed, I think, was the things that he had done that had made them so excited about him in the first place.  What they had missed was the feast he had spread; a meal fit for a king.  But first of all, it’s not a meal that Jesus eats, but a meal that Jesus serves.   There you see that King of the universe aspect again, going on right here and now.  Jesus breaks the bread; Jesus passes the fish; Jesus has all the people sit down; Jesus cares for the people.  There’s a shepherding and nurturing and loving and tender concern for each individual that is present.   It’s evident here in this meal that Jesus serves.  Jesus serves the meal that is fit for a king; and that is the kind of meal that a king ought to serve; a fitting meal for a king to serve. 

        And that’s when you look at the meal itself.  You see that it’s not only enough to satisfy hungry stomachs; but you see something else.  What, exactly, is going on with the five barley loaves and the two fish?  The five thousand people and twelve baskets?  All these things cry out for some sort of explanation; and Christian scholars, Christian preachers, Christian commentators, Christian teachers for two thousand years have been working on that.  Giving their own version of what the five thousand symbolizes, and what the twelve baskets mean, and why fish instead of wine with bread, and what the barley loaves even mean.  Saint Augustin had a view that the barley loaves symbolized the law because the kernel of barley, the marrow of it Saint Augustin said, is harder to reach than in other grain, the shell is harder.  And so it is with the law, God truth is in there and it’s hard to get out unless you’re already a part of God’s chosen people. 

        That’s an ingenious explanation, but I do not take it as an explanation that everybody else must follow.  People were offering their views on the five loaves and two fish and all these other numbers and all these other elements of the meal.  I want to look at the larger picture.  How did this meal in this kind of setting show us the nature of Jesus’ work for the people as their king?  I want to suggest that the key thing about this meal is that it was built upon what they already had; built upon what was given by circumstances; built upon what was there to begin with.   What was there to begin with was a little boy’s lunch basket; five loaves, two fish.  (The salted fish were used as almost a condiment in that particular time and place.   They go with the bread to give the bread some spice; add a little more food value.)  Not a large quantity of food; not something that could be broken into servings and given to all these people unless something else was taking place. 

        And that something else, like the water into wine, is a slightly hidden miracle, we don’t really see all that; but the point is the food did get distributed; the breaking and the passing and the sharing never did cease until all had eaten and were satisfied.  And it’s beginning was the small quantity that was an ordinary kind of food; the food that was there to begin with.  That’s how the King of the universe spreads a feast for his people.  That’s how Jesus feeds us; by beginning with what’s already there.  

        If you’re wondering where your own life needs to be going next, the one thing that I can feel certain in predicting for you is it’s going to begin with what’s already there.  There is already within you, there is already in the circumstances of your life around you, there is already somewhere connected with you the ingredients of your future self and the ingredients of the future self that God wants to make something great happen from; starting with the given ingredients – the ordinary everyday kind of things that are part of who you are; starting with your own personality, your own life-story, your own failures as well as your own successes, your own weaknesses as well as your own strengths; starting with all those things God is building something and wants to build something and wants you to be excited about this project and get in on it with him.  God wants you to go somewhere with him that is already there in your lives for the sake of God’s entire family, the whole created universe.  Beginning with the five fish and the two loaves that is you and me, God wants the breaking and the sharing to happen somehow in a way that probably is told individually for each of us, but that breaking and sharing, he wants that process to begin and to grow until all the lives it could possibly affect are able to partake of what we have to give. 

        And it’s the same way with this church, and all churches, and the same way with communities, the same way with any gathering of people that God is present in the midst of; let’s think about this church – whatever our future holds, and the fact that we are vibrant and interesting and the, I think enjoyable church that we are indicates that we do have a long and good future ahead of us.  But whatever our future holds I believe it’s going to be built upon the ingredients that are already here.  What we have to offer Jesus are the five loaves and two fish that are here in a sense today:   the ordinary people who are stepping in to do things; the ordinary tasks that are somehow getting taken care of; all the different little ways in which the people in this church pitch in to make the church work internally; and also to help the church reach out beyond our boundaries and touch the lives of others; all those things that are already here and are already beginning to work and to move and to grow, all of those things are our future. 

        The unknown future, which may be quite marvelous, is going to be built from where we are right now; all because of the king who spreads a feast for us, a king who shares a meal with us, a king who gives himself completely for us.  Not the kind of king the people were looking for, not the kind of king they imagined could do them any good, but the kind of king who precisely is the only one who can do us good.  Because of who Jesus is, because of what authority means in its real and ultimate sense, and because how authority shares itself with others, that is the meal that is fit for a king.  Fit for a king to share with us his subjects; and when he shares with us, we will be satisfied and we will have enough so that we can share with everyone else that God places in our path.  Amen.         

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Borodino United Methodist Church
1820 Rt. 174
Skaneateles, NY 13152
Pastor Peter Agnew

E-mail: BorodinoChurch@aol.com