The Fifth Sunday After Pentecost Genesis 28: 10 – 19a
Sunday, July 17, 2011 Romans 8: 12 – 25
The Rev. Bambi Willis
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field;”
Matthew 13: 24
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field,” our reading from the gospel of Matthew begins this morning. With an image as common to us as this image was to our first century ancestors, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a sower who takes good seed and plants a field.
The image of someone sowing a field with seed could well be a metaphor for the whole of the Old Testament, the story of how God began and continues to work to bring forth a very good creation. The world was created by God to be very good, we learn in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis but this very good world, we also learn in those chapters, was vulnerable to the wiles of a snake, a snake who tempted Adam and Eve to mistrust the goodness of God.
What begins, in the opening chapters of our sacred story, as a glorious creation of a good and loving God, dissolves into utter chaos by the end of the eleventh chapter of Genesis, when God confuses the languages of human beings at the tower of Babel so that they can no longer work together to destroy the goodness of God’s creation. Even God has His limits.
But then, beginning in the twelfth chapter, God begins planting God’s field, first calling Abraham and then Isaac and then Jacob, giving their descendants the land of Canaan in which they might grow and thrive. And when famine came to the land, God led them into Egypt where this people prospered until Pharoah enslaved them. In time, God raised up Moses to lead them out of Egypt and back into Canaan. Under King David and then King Solomon, God’s people prospered again as a united kingdom until the kingdom split into two following Solomon’s death. The northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and the southern kingdom of Judah feel to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Yet, even then, God “seeded” God’s field with prophets who encouraged the people to remain faithful. And to this day, the people God brought forth thousands of years ago, remain, and the seeds God planted long ago continue to grow.
The Old Testament is the story of a people who against all odds continued to survive. Israel was never a very large or powerful nation and should have simply faded away into the dust of history. That did not happen. And you and I are heirs of this people, the seeds God planted so very long ago.
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everbody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.” In the parable we hear this morning, weeds appear in the field planted by the sower and the slaves of the sower want to know if they should pull them up. The wheat would probably do a bit better if the weeds were gone. But, no, the sower tells his slaves, leave the weeds, “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” Saving the wheat means being patient with the weeds.
I am not a lover of weeds and delight in a carefully tended flower border and the neat rows of a vegetable garden. I like things to be in “good order” and weeds are plants that are out of place, disturbing neat rows of tomato and pepper plants, straight lines of corn, lettuce and the green tops of carrots. Weeds intrude on what ought to be a tidy arrangement of daisies and dahlias and phlox and day lilies carefully spaced and planted with an appreciation for height and an eye for color. I take great pleasure whenever I see a carefully tended flower or vegetable garden, which usually, I must admit, belongs to someone else and is not my own. And when I hear this parable of the weeds among the wheat, I want to say to God: “You are not much of a gardener if you allow weeds to grow among the wheat.” And God whispers back to me: “This is my garden, not yours, and I will tend it as I will.”
When my husband was hospitalized recently and life got a bit crazy, I found myself yearning for life as it was, for normalcy, for a garden without weeds. Life is not, as we all know, a carefully tended garden without weeds, but every now and again, we can feel like the weeds will overtake us. As one day moved into the next during our sojourn at MCV, the weeds kept springing up - first the news A.G. had a massive infection, then a night spent with a man who kept pulling out his I.V. to the consternation of the nurses, then doctors coming in to say they were not sure where the infection was coming from, and they would like to do another test which meant A.G. could not eat or drink for the rest of the day. Weeds seemed to be springing up everywhere and these weeds were not of the kind I could simply pull up and be done with.
As the days came and went, A.G. and I trusted that the doctors would figure out what was wrong and fix it, which they did. Antibiotics are a modern marvel, the fruit of folk who devote their lives to understanding how our body works and what we can do when our body’s chemistry goes awry. By the time we left the hospital, the doctors had solved the problem and we were glad and grateful.
But during our sojourn into this field of weeds, something else happened, something far less scientific but just as meaningful, if not more so, than the wonders of modern medicine. We had not been in the hospital very long when folk showed up to pray for and with us. I would come home at night to phone messages, cards and emails expressing concern. Every outreach brought tears to our eyes. A.G. and I are by nature private folk who perhaps pridefully would rather not be the center of attention. What we both learned during this experience is how much folk care and we have been humbled beyond words.
Throughout our sojourn these past few weeks God has been tending God’s garden in God’s own way. If I had my way, A.G. and I would live a quiet and peaceful life handling the usual ups and downs by ourselves. If I had my way, what weeds we might encounter, I would like to pull up as we go along and spare you all the details.
What I have learned in the past days is that this journey of faith we make in the church is through thick and thin, good and bad, for better and for worse.
I still wish God would pull the weeds out of God’s garden like I do. Pulling weeds seems like a no-brainer and I don’t get why God leaves the weeds where they are. I understand that pulling weeds may disrupt the good stuff but in the end isn’t sacrificing some of the good stuff to get rid of the weeds worth it?
God does not seem to think so. God seems to think that saving the wheat is important, even if that means leaving the weeds. I would not wish the events of the past several weeks to be visited upon anyone but I can tell you what we have seen and what we have heard is precious beyond words and we would never have seen nor heard such had we not been besieged. “Have compassion on our weakness,” we prayed in our collect for this day, “and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask;” A.G. and I have received richly not because I am your priest and he is my husband, but because you all, each and everyone, believe that what we say with our lips we are to live out in our lives. I am here to tell you your witness these past weeks has made all the difference between life and death. There is a whole world out there that needs your witness. For me and my household, I can only say: “Thank you.”
Sunday, July 17, 2011 Romans 8: 12 – 25
The Rev. Bambi Willis
He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field;”
Matthew 13: 24
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field,” our reading from the gospel of Matthew begins this morning. With an image as common to us as this image was to our first century ancestors, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a sower who takes good seed and plants a field.
The image of someone sowing a field with seed could well be a metaphor for the whole of the Old Testament, the story of how God began and continues to work to bring forth a very good creation. The world was created by God to be very good, we learn in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis but this very good world, we also learn in those chapters, was vulnerable to the wiles of a snake, a snake who tempted Adam and Eve to mistrust the goodness of God.
What begins, in the opening chapters of our sacred story, as a glorious creation of a good and loving God, dissolves into utter chaos by the end of the eleventh chapter of Genesis, when God confuses the languages of human beings at the tower of Babel so that they can no longer work together to destroy the goodness of God’s creation. Even God has His limits.
But then, beginning in the twelfth chapter, God begins planting God’s field, first calling Abraham and then Isaac and then Jacob, giving their descendants the land of Canaan in which they might grow and thrive. And when famine came to the land, God led them into Egypt where this people prospered until Pharoah enslaved them. In time, God raised up Moses to lead them out of Egypt and back into Canaan. Under King David and then King Solomon, God’s people prospered again as a united kingdom until the kingdom split into two following Solomon’s death. The northern kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722 B.C. and the southern kingdom of Judah feel to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. Yet, even then, God “seeded” God’s field with prophets who encouraged the people to remain faithful. And to this day, the people God brought forth thousands of years ago, remain, and the seeds God planted long ago continue to grow.
The Old Testament is the story of a people who against all odds continued to survive. Israel was never a very large or powerful nation and should have simply faded away into the dust of history. That did not happen. And you and I are heirs of this people, the seeds God planted so very long ago.
“The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everbody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away.” In the parable we hear this morning, weeds appear in the field planted by the sower and the slaves of the sower want to know if they should pull them up. The wheat would probably do a bit better if the weeds were gone. But, no, the sower tells his slaves, leave the weeds, “for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them.” Saving the wheat means being patient with the weeds.
I am not a lover of weeds and delight in a carefully tended flower border and the neat rows of a vegetable garden. I like things to be in “good order” and weeds are plants that are out of place, disturbing neat rows of tomato and pepper plants, straight lines of corn, lettuce and the green tops of carrots. Weeds intrude on what ought to be a tidy arrangement of daisies and dahlias and phlox and day lilies carefully spaced and planted with an appreciation for height and an eye for color. I take great pleasure whenever I see a carefully tended flower or vegetable garden, which usually, I must admit, belongs to someone else and is not my own. And when I hear this parable of the weeds among the wheat, I want to say to God: “You are not much of a gardener if you allow weeds to grow among the wheat.” And God whispers back to me: “This is my garden, not yours, and I will tend it as I will.”
When my husband was hospitalized recently and life got a bit crazy, I found myself yearning for life as it was, for normalcy, for a garden without weeds. Life is not, as we all know, a carefully tended garden without weeds, but every now and again, we can feel like the weeds will overtake us. As one day moved into the next during our sojourn at MCV, the weeds kept springing up - first the news A.G. had a massive infection, then a night spent with a man who kept pulling out his I.V. to the consternation of the nurses, then doctors coming in to say they were not sure where the infection was coming from, and they would like to do another test which meant A.G. could not eat or drink for the rest of the day. Weeds seemed to be springing up everywhere and these weeds were not of the kind I could simply pull up and be done with.
As the days came and went, A.G. and I trusted that the doctors would figure out what was wrong and fix it, which they did. Antibiotics are a modern marvel, the fruit of folk who devote their lives to understanding how our body works and what we can do when our body’s chemistry goes awry. By the time we left the hospital, the doctors had solved the problem and we were glad and grateful.
But during our sojourn into this field of weeds, something else happened, something far less scientific but just as meaningful, if not more so, than the wonders of modern medicine. We had not been in the hospital very long when folk showed up to pray for and with us. I would come home at night to phone messages, cards and emails expressing concern. Every outreach brought tears to our eyes. A.G. and I are by nature private folk who perhaps pridefully would rather not be the center of attention. What we both learned during this experience is how much folk care and we have been humbled beyond words.
Throughout our sojourn these past few weeks God has been tending God’s garden in God’s own way. If I had my way, A.G. and I would live a quiet and peaceful life handling the usual ups and downs by ourselves. If I had my way, what weeds we might encounter, I would like to pull up as we go along and spare you all the details.
What I have learned in the past days is that this journey of faith we make in the church is through thick and thin, good and bad, for better and for worse.
I still wish God would pull the weeds out of God’s garden like I do. Pulling weeds seems like a no-brainer and I don’t get why God leaves the weeds where they are. I understand that pulling weeds may disrupt the good stuff but in the end isn’t sacrificing some of the good stuff to get rid of the weeds worth it?
God does not seem to think so. God seems to think that saving the wheat is important, even if that means leaving the weeds. I would not wish the events of the past several weeks to be visited upon anyone but I can tell you what we have seen and what we have heard is precious beyond words and we would never have seen nor heard such had we not been besieged. “Have compassion on our weakness,” we prayed in our collect for this day, “and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask;” A.G. and I have received richly not because I am your priest and he is my husband, but because you all, each and everyone, believe that what we say with our lips we are to live out in our lives. I am here to tell you your witness these past weeks has made all the difference between life and death. There is a whole world out there that needs your witness. For me and my household, I can only say: “Thank you.”
The Sixth Sunday After Pentecost Genesis 29: 15 – 28
Sunday, July 24, 2011 Romans 8: 26 – 39
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 13: 31 – 33, 44 – 52
Another parable Jesus put before the crowds: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field;”
Matthew 13: 31
The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour; like a treasure hidden in a field; like a merchant in search of fine pearls; and like a net that was thrown into the sea. One after the other this morning, our evangelist Matthew offers us five parables all about the kingdom of heaven.
When we encounter one of Jesus’ parables, we often go looking for the “moral of the story,” treating a parable as if a parable were no different than one of Aesop’s fables. Parables, unfortunately, are usually not so transparent. A parable creates a world in which we are invited to take our place, a world that disrupts our usual expectations, inviting us to see the world from a different perspective. So, while we may be tempted to say that the “point” of the parable of the mustard seed is to teach us that God can create great things from humble beginnings, we may want to remember that such proverbial wisdom would never have prompted the religious authorities to arrest Jesus for crimes against God. What got Jesus arrested and killed was his teaching, which included the parables, and which challenged commonly accepted notions of God and God’s kingdom.
When we consider the parable of the mustard seed, we tend to focus on the size of the seed, and lose sight of the reality that in first century Palestine, a mustard plant was a weed, a wild and unwanted intrusion for anyone planting a field. To compare the kingdom of heaven to a mustard seed sowed in a field is a little like comparing God’s kingdom to a well kept lawn which is full of dandelions. Mustard, like dandelions, are unwanted if you wanted a tidy garden or yard.
We meet a similar dilemma in the parable of the yeast. “The kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says, “is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all was leavened.” Yeast for a Jew was an image of corruption, of the leaven of the world that could corrupt the people of God. The Jews were the people who held sacred unleavened bread, the bread of the Passover. To say that the kingdom of heaven was like yeast immediately confounded and confused the world Jesus’ audience held dear. We miss that because yeast for us is what makes flour and water become loaves of bread and savory dinner rolls. But for a Jew, yeast represented the corruption of the world.
And to make matters worse, what the woman does is not simply “mix in” the yeast - the Greek verb we translate “to mix” actually means “to hide.” The woman hides the yeast in the flour, as if she is trying to conceal something.
And what are we to make of the parable of the treasure hidden in a field which someone finds and then hides and then sells all he has and buys the field? This man finds treasure hidden in someone else’s field and then hides the treasure for himself. What this man does is not altogether above board and, at the end of the day, is left with nothing but a field in which is buried a treasure that presumably belongs to someone else, someone who may not take kindly to being swindled.
The parables we hear this morning are disconcerting, challenging our perceptions of the kingdom of heaven. This kingdom of God is not what we imagine God’s kingdom to be – a place of peace and tranquility where people are always doing nice things for each other. In these parables, we meet folk who are behaving strangely, acting in ways we do not expect. Allowing ourselves to be disturbed and surprised, setting aside our assumptions about God and God’s kingdom, may be the greatest challenge of these parables.
In a recently published commentary on the parables of Jesus, entitled Hear Then the Parable, New Testament professor Bernard Scott, speaks of the “threat” of the parable: “The threat of the parable is that it subverts the myths that sustain our world and force us to see a world with which God is in solidarity.” The world of the parable does not turn on our commonly held assumptions about good and bad, right and wrong, but rather upon a God who is free to bring in God’s kingdom in the way God chooses. And so, writing of the parable of the leaven, Scott notes: “The parable calls into question ready attempts to predict on the basis of our knowledge of the holy and good where the kingdom is active. Instead (the parable) insists on the kingdom’s freedom to appear under its own guise, even if it be the guise of corruption.”
The parables confront us with the disconcerting possibility that what we think is good may not be so good after all. The parables question us and leave us wondering if the ways we have ordered our world are, in fact, in keeping with the kingdom of God, a kingdom that looks like a woman who hides what is considered unholy in a whole lot of flour or a man who becomes corrupted himself as he seeks to keep the treasure he finds all to himself.
I am a baby boomer and grew up with “Ozzie and Harriet,” a television series that depicted the perfect family and “Leave it to Beaver,” another classic that led us to believe that the Cleaver family was an icon for the kingdom of God. After the Second World War, the good life was often understood as owning your own home and raising a family, a family that was supposed to look like the Cleavers. Fifty years later, cultural icons have changed and June Cleaver and family have been replaced by shows such as “Desperate Housewives,” a show that suggests that behind every picket fence is a nasty secret.
Fifty years ago, we made June Cleaver look like a saint; today we are skeptical of saints altogether. Fifty years ago, we arrogantly assumed to know what the kingdom of God looked like; today, we just as arrogantly have assumed there is no such thing as the kingdom of God, only life in this world which is either tragic or comic, depending upon your point of view.
The parables we hear this morning tell us there is a kingdom, but this kingdom is not coming in the way we might expect. “God’s ways are not our ways” the psalmist reminds us. The parables we hear this morning remind us that our assumptions about God and God’s kingdom can become stumbling blocks, impediments as we journey in faith toward the kingdom.
Paradoxically, perhaps, we are usually not aware of the assumptions we all make until we meet someone who challenges them, who disagrees with us and our point of view. And then, we have a choice – we can seek to maintain our point of view at all costs, even if that means getting rid of the other – which is how the religious authorities in the first century solved the “Jesus” problem. Or we can, consider the assumptions we are making about ourselves, the world in which we live and about God. We can, in other words, consider that we may be wrong or at least, not God. God gives us one to another not to confirm us in our goodness but to be transformed by God’s goodness, not to leave us where we are but to be led by God to where God would have us go, into a kingdom not made with human hands, but into a kingdom ruled over by God. May we who pray every Sunday, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” show forth in our lives what we confess with our lips.
The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost Genesis 32: 22 – 31
Sunday, July 31, 2011 Romans 9: 1 – 5
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 14: 13 – 21
And he said, “Bring them here to me.”
Matthew 14: 14: 18
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
The story we hear this morning in which Jesus feeds thousands in a desert with a few loaves of bread and two fish is a dearly beloved story, a story that unlike most, shows up in all four gospels. In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, the story actually appears twice, once with the feeding of five thousand and a second time when Jesus feeds four thousand folk. If you were to read all four gospels, in other words, you would hear this story six different times.
In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the story of the miraculous feeding of thousands follows the news that King Herod has killed John the Baptist. Following this news, we hear that Jesus withdraws, “to a deserted place” Matthew tells us. This “deserted place” is a place without creature comforts, without food and water, a place very much like the desert in which the Hebrews wandered for forty years, and in which Jesus battled the temptations of Satan. In the desert, life is at risk, threatened by the absence of water and the scorching heat.
In the desert, human life is exposed in all of its fragility and vulnerability. And as one commentator makes note: “The desert raises profound questions about the source of human meaning and identity, security and sustenance. Fundamentally, (the desert) challenges the very idea of God’s faithfulness and provision for human life.”
The desert for our ancestors in the faith was a place of testing and trial, that place in which the goodness and love of God was set over against a world that was hostile to human life, a world in which, like the desert, was unable to sustain human life. Human life in a real desert is simply not possible.
Jesus withdraws into this “deserted place” after hearing that King Herod has beheaded John the Baptist. This King Herod was the son of Herod the Great who we meet at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel when he orders all the children of Bethlehem to be killed in the hopes of killing one child some are calling “King of the Jews.” The desert, it seems, is not the only place inhospitable to human life.
What is different in the desert, though, is that the power of life and death belong solely to God. In the desert, all are equally vulnerable; in the desert it matters little if you are a king or a criminal. Herod’s power would be utterly useless in the desert.
In the midst of this deserted place, we hear a story of the miraculous multiplication of a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. In the midst of a place in which there is no food, no water, no hope for life, Jesus feeds five thousand folk. In the midst of the desert Jesus has done the impossible.
The twentieth century Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth spoke of faith as a miracle, the “impossible possibility.” We live in the midst of a world that is often hostile to human life, a world in which folk still starve to death, children are abused and wars continue to be waged. And yet, we also live in a world that is convinced that we humans can do anything we set our minds to, are limited by nothing and will eventually solve whatever problems plague us.
The impossible possibility for Barth is trusting that God has not abandoned us to a world of misery and left us to ourselves to “fix” what is wrong with the world. The impossible possibility is that God can take five loaves of bread and two fish and feed five thousand people.
Of course, trusting in an “impossible possibility” is sheer folly and foolishness. When asked by Jesus to feed all of these people, the disciples respond: “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” The disciples were not dumb; feeding five thousand folk with five loaves of bread and two fish is not possible.
The story of the miraculous feeding of thousands in the wilderness is an impossible story, as impossible as the Resurrection, or the reality that bad things really do happen to good people. The story of the miraculous feeding of thousands in the wilderness invites us to imagine a world in which the miracle is God.
For Barth, God’s “real and powerful action occurs and is encountered only in what men are not, in their death.” For Barth, faith is a miracle, a gift to us from God, a gift we only receive when we have recognized and acknowledged our limits and our finiteness. To trust in the unlimited, infinite and incomprehensible love of God is the impossible possibility God gives freely to us when we recognize the limits of our own power.
Faith is always a risk, a “leap” in the words of Barth, from the known into the unknown, from the certain into the uncertain, from the probable into the impossible. We, no less than our ancestors in the faith, are not much for taking risks, preferring the certainty of what we know to the uncertainty of what we cannot even begin to imagine. The disciples in our story this morning want Jesus to send the crowds away so that they can buy food for themselves in the neighboring towns. The disciples knew how to get these folks fed; indeed, sending the crowds away was the only way these folk were going to get fed.
“You give them something to eat,” Jesus says. And like Sarah who learned she was pregnant at the ripe old age of ninety, I suspect the disciples were thinking: “You’ve got to be kidding!”
I encountered a trial of faith the first time someone asked me to pray. I was making my first visit as a hospital chaplain and encountered a man who had had a severe stroke and was bedridden. His wife who was with him, asked me to pray that her husband would get up out of bed and walk. I fled from the patient’s room in fear, knowing her husband might not live let alone walk. I fled in fear because I was a good Episcopalian and not one of those T.V. evangelists who for a small sum of money can make the blind to see and the lame to walk. I fled in fear because this woman believed God could do all things and I was not so sure.
That was a long time ago and between then and I know, I have come to appreciate my limits – and one of them is a resistance to seeing possibilities. That moment was a turning point for me, and maybe for that wife who encountered a chaplain who could not imagine the impossible possibility that her husband might walk again.
King Herod does not come across in the gospels as a man of prayer. Herod seems to trust in his own power which this man Jesus threatens. The woman I just spoke of threatened my power, my trust in the certainty of science, my firm conviction that impossible things are not possible, my reluctance to ask God to do no more than to encourage me as I do what I think is possible.
I would have said the same thing the disciples said in our story: “Send the crowds away that they may get something to eat.” That was safe and certain. What Jesus said made no sense and was clearly impossible: “You give them something to eat.”
I am not willing to handle snakes and for sure, am far from becoming a T.V. evangelist. On the other hand, as I look back, I am given to believe that the impossible does happen, or I would not be with you today. Jesus, in our story this morning, “looks up to heaven,” Matthew tells us, giving glory to God, “whose power, working in us,” Paul writes in Ephesians, “can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” As we each continue our journeys of faith, may we depend not upon ourselves and the possible, but rather upon the impossible possibility that is God.
Sunday, July 31, 2011 Romans 9: 1 – 5
The Rev. Bambi Willis Matthew 14: 13 – 21
And he said, “Bring them here to me.”
Matthew 14: 14: 18
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
The story we hear this morning in which Jesus feeds thousands in a desert with a few loaves of bread and two fish is a dearly beloved story, a story that unlike most, shows up in all four gospels. In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, the story actually appears twice, once with the feeding of five thousand and a second time when Jesus feeds four thousand folk. If you were to read all four gospels, in other words, you would hear this story six different times.
In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the story of the miraculous feeding of thousands follows the news that King Herod has killed John the Baptist. Following this news, we hear that Jesus withdraws, “to a deserted place” Matthew tells us. This “deserted place” is a place without creature comforts, without food and water, a place very much like the desert in which the Hebrews wandered for forty years, and in which Jesus battled the temptations of Satan. In the desert, life is at risk, threatened by the absence of water and the scorching heat.
In the desert, human life is exposed in all of its fragility and vulnerability. And as one commentator makes note: “The desert raises profound questions about the source of human meaning and identity, security and sustenance. Fundamentally, (the desert) challenges the very idea of God’s faithfulness and provision for human life.”
The desert for our ancestors in the faith was a place of testing and trial, that place in which the goodness and love of God was set over against a world that was hostile to human life, a world in which, like the desert, was unable to sustain human life. Human life in a real desert is simply not possible.
Jesus withdraws into this “deserted place” after hearing that King Herod has beheaded John the Baptist. This King Herod was the son of Herod the Great who we meet at the beginning of Matthew’s gospel when he orders all the children of Bethlehem to be killed in the hopes of killing one child some are calling “King of the Jews.” The desert, it seems, is not the only place inhospitable to human life.
What is different in the desert, though, is that the power of life and death belong solely to God. In the desert, all are equally vulnerable; in the desert it matters little if you are a king or a criminal. Herod’s power would be utterly useless in the desert.
In the midst of this deserted place, we hear a story of the miraculous multiplication of a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. In the midst of a place in which there is no food, no water, no hope for life, Jesus feeds five thousand folk. In the midst of the desert Jesus has done the impossible.
The twentieth century Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth spoke of faith as a miracle, the “impossible possibility.” We live in the midst of a world that is often hostile to human life, a world in which folk still starve to death, children are abused and wars continue to be waged. And yet, we also live in a world that is convinced that we humans can do anything we set our minds to, are limited by nothing and will eventually solve whatever problems plague us.
The impossible possibility for Barth is trusting that God has not abandoned us to a world of misery and left us to ourselves to “fix” what is wrong with the world. The impossible possibility is that God can take five loaves of bread and two fish and feed five thousand people.
Of course, trusting in an “impossible possibility” is sheer folly and foolishness. When asked by Jesus to feed all of these people, the disciples respond: “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” The disciples were not dumb; feeding five thousand folk with five loaves of bread and two fish is not possible.
The story of the miraculous feeding of thousands in the wilderness is an impossible story, as impossible as the Resurrection, or the reality that bad things really do happen to good people. The story of the miraculous feeding of thousands in the wilderness invites us to imagine a world in which the miracle is God.
For Barth, God’s “real and powerful action occurs and is encountered only in what men are not, in their death.” For Barth, faith is a miracle, a gift to us from God, a gift we only receive when we have recognized and acknowledged our limits and our finiteness. To trust in the unlimited, infinite and incomprehensible love of God is the impossible possibility God gives freely to us when we recognize the limits of our own power.
Faith is always a risk, a “leap” in the words of Barth, from the known into the unknown, from the certain into the uncertain, from the probable into the impossible. We, no less than our ancestors in the faith, are not much for taking risks, preferring the certainty of what we know to the uncertainty of what we cannot even begin to imagine. The disciples in our story this morning want Jesus to send the crowds away so that they can buy food for themselves in the neighboring towns. The disciples knew how to get these folks fed; indeed, sending the crowds away was the only way these folk were going to get fed.
“You give them something to eat,” Jesus says. And like Sarah who learned she was pregnant at the ripe old age of ninety, I suspect the disciples were thinking: “You’ve got to be kidding!”
I encountered a trial of faith the first time someone asked me to pray. I was making my first visit as a hospital chaplain and encountered a man who had had a severe stroke and was bedridden. His wife who was with him, asked me to pray that her husband would get up out of bed and walk. I fled from the patient’s room in fear, knowing her husband might not live let alone walk. I fled in fear because I was a good Episcopalian and not one of those T.V. evangelists who for a small sum of money can make the blind to see and the lame to walk. I fled in fear because this woman believed God could do all things and I was not so sure.
That was a long time ago and between then and I know, I have come to appreciate my limits – and one of them is a resistance to seeing possibilities. That moment was a turning point for me, and maybe for that wife who encountered a chaplain who could not imagine the impossible possibility that her husband might walk again.
King Herod does not come across in the gospels as a man of prayer. Herod seems to trust in his own power which this man Jesus threatens. The woman I just spoke of threatened my power, my trust in the certainty of science, my firm conviction that impossible things are not possible, my reluctance to ask God to do no more than to encourage me as I do what I think is possible.
I would have said the same thing the disciples said in our story: “Send the crowds away that they may get something to eat.” That was safe and certain. What Jesus said made no sense and was clearly impossible: “You give them something to eat.”
I am not willing to handle snakes and for sure, am far from becoming a T.V. evangelist. On the other hand, as I look back, I am given to believe that the impossible does happen, or I would not be with you today. Jesus, in our story this morning, “looks up to heaven,” Matthew tells us, giving glory to God, “whose power, working in us,” Paul writes in Ephesians, “can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” As we each continue our journeys of faith, may we depend not upon ourselves and the possible, but rather upon the impossible possibility that is God.
