(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on March 24, 2019, Third Sunday of Lent)
How Can I Help?
This winter and spring I have had
the opportunity to teach a course at VCU, “The Bible as Literature.” Every Monday evening, I meet with
around twenty students for three hours and we explore a passage in the Bible. Three hours is a long time to spend
with the Bible. In the first
class, as we were reading through the opening chapters of Genesis and we
arrived at our first genealogy, one student moaned, “These lists are so boring!” And not just the lists seemed boring. I’ve discovered that one of the primary
challenges of reading the Bible, for these students as well as for us, is to
see that actually it’s not that different from our own world. The story of the ancestral
family—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—is not a stately portrait of pious
heroes. It is a messy sketch of
the same joys and problems that fill our world: the laughter that accompanies
baby bumps and new life mingled with the tears that flow from broken families
and desperate futures. It’s the
paradox of God’s loving presence butting up against imperious human characters
who are insistent on achieving their own will at any cost, by hook or crook.
In some of our classes, a spark
will jump from the text and catch fire in the hearts of the students. Such was the case when we read the
story of Ruth. Those who had
suffered difficult loss in their own lives could feel the tragedy of Naomi and
Ruth, who had both lost their husbands and lacked a real livelihood. In the same way, they knew what the
book of Ruth was talking about when it began referring to the force that would
bring about new life, a force called “steadfast love,” which both Ruth and Boaz
demonstrate, a force that is even stronger than death.
In other classes, however, there
is no spark. I look out on row
upon row of impassive expression.
It feels like pulling teeth.
It feels like I’m in a desert with no morsel of interesting conversation
to share. How, I wonder, can I
possibly help here?
How Quickly They Forget
I imagine we all feel this way
from time to time. Faced with what
seems an impossible task or responsibility, we feel helpless, overwhelmed,
incapable. Someone in our family
falls ill, and there’s nothing the doctors can do. So what could we do?
Like the disciples in the desert facing the hunger of four thousand, we
ask, “How could I possibly help?”
A friend of ours falls upon hard times, and we don’t have the resources
to assist them in their difficulty.
Like the disciples in the desert, we ask, “How could I possibly
help?” Our vocation calls us into
a circumstance where we know we are under-equipped or under-prepared for what
is to come. Like the disciples in
the desert, we ask, “How could I possibly help?”
The curious thing about our
passage today is that it has already happened once before in the gospel of
Mark. Two chapters prior to this
one, Jesus feeds five thousand.
Today, Jesus feeds four thousand.
Many scholars have assumed that these two stories are simply variations
on the same incident, that Mark rather carelessly included the same story
twice. But others have pointed out
that Mark does not seem so absentminded.
He introduces his story by saying, “There was again a great crowd without anything to eat” (8:1). He recognizes that the same thing that
happened before is about to happen again.
But why, we might still ask, would Mark want to tell this story when
we’ve already seen its truth demonstrated once before?
I think it has something to do
with the disciples. The gospel of
Mark is filled with pairs of stories: two stories about crossing the sea, two
stories about feeding a large crowd, two stories about welcoming little
children. The same things keep
happening, again and again. And in
the second story of each pair, we see quite clearly that the disciples come off
none the wiser. In our story
today, the disciples’ question—“How can one feed these people…?”—shows how
quickly they forget what Jesus has done before, how quickly they become
overwhelmed with the impossibility of the task before them.
The first time they had asked this
question, Jesus had shown them that the only thing that matters is being
faithful to the need. Then they
had only had five loaves and a couple of fish, but that was enough to feed the
crowd. The miracle is that when we
are faithful, it is always enough.
Today we see the same miracle performed again a second time, as Jesus
takes seven loaves and a few small fish and distributes them among the
crowd. And it is enough. Again and again, being faithful with
what they have is enough. But in
Mark, the disciples never learn this.
Again and again, they despair instead of trust.
When We Are Faithful, It Is Enough
When I read these feeding
stories, I cannot help but think of Rhonda Sneed and her blessing warriors who
regularly distribute what food they have among the homeless in our city. The task before them is
impossible. There is no way that
they can feed all the homeless.
But they do not despair and give up. They do not ask, “How can one possibly feed these
people?” They simply are faithful
with what they have. And the
miracle is that somehow it is enough.
Again and again, it is enough.
More than once, I’ve heard Rhonda’s homeless friends say, “It’s not just
the food, you know. It’s that she
asks about us and gives us hugs and wants to be with us.” Even when supplies are less than
satisfactory, for every person they see, somehow, for that one day, for that
one night, their visit and their friendship is enough. Again and again, it is enough.
At the end of one of those nights
when teaching felt like pulling teeth, I was ponderously packing my materials
and preparing to leave when the last student in the room stopped before my desk
and said, “You know…I had always thought of the stories in Genesis as outdated
and barbaric. But tonight they
felt real to me, like the kind of stuff I live through.”
For me, that moment has become a
reminder. On the nights when it
feels like that classroom is a desert and I have no morsel of interesting
conversation to share, instead of asking, “How could I possibly help here?” I
try to remember that even though the task seems impossible, God is calling me
not to succeed but simply to be faithful to God’s call with what I have. For when we are faithful, it is enough. Again and again, it is enough.
I imagine that if you think back
to impossible moments in your own life, like when someone in your family fell
ill or a friend of yours fell upon hard times, you may discover something
similar. You could not solve the
problem. But when you were
faithful, when you visited and sat beside and listened to your friend or family
member, somehow that was enough for them, for that day, for that night.
That is the good news. The disciples witnessed it in their own
lives again and again, but even so they continued to despair instead of to
trust in the face of each new difficulty.
In our own lives, we too will face the impossible from time to
time. May we not despair but
instead remember the little miracles of the past. And may we trust in the good news that being faithful is always
enough.
Prayer
Compassionate God,
Whose call we hear
In the cries of the needful
around us:
Encourage us
In the face of difficulty,
And remind us
Of the power of your love,
That we might be faithful
No matter the circumstance,
Trusting that through your grace
It is enough.
In Christ, who gives us all he
has: Amen.
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