By Rev. Magdalena I. García
Click on the link below to see a wordle created with the words from the last section of this message. To create your own wordle to go: wordle.net.
title="Wordle: Five Verbs">
alt="Wordle: Five Verbs"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">
Joshua 24:1-3, 14-15 (Common English Bible)
What God has done
1 Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders of Israel, its leaders, judges, and officers. They presented themselves before God. 2 Then Joshua said to the entire people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates. They served other gods. Among them was Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. 3 I took Abraham your ancestor from the other side of the Euphrates. I led him around through the whole land of Canaan. I added to his descendants and gave him Isaac.
Challenge to be faithful
14 ‘So now, revere the LORD. Serve him honestly and faithfully. Put aside the gods that your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt and serve the LORD. 15 But if it seems wrong in your opinion to serve the LORD, then choose today whom you will serve. Choose the gods whom your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But my family and I will serve the LORD.’”
Mark 6:34-44 (Common English Bible)
Jesus feeds five thousand people
34 When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Then he began to teach them many things.
35 Late in the day, his disciples came to him and said, “This is an isolated place, and it’s already late in the day. 36 Send them away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy something to eat for themselves.”
37 He replied, “You give them something to eat.”
But they said to him, “Should we go off and buy bread worth almost eight months’ pay and give it to them to eat?”
38 He said to them, “How much bread do you have? Take a look.”
After checking, they said, “Five loaves of bread and two fish.”
39 He directed the disciples to seat all the people in groups as though they were having a banquet on the green grass. 40 They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties. 41 He took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, blessed them, broke the loaves into pieces, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 Everyone ate until they were full. 43 They filled twelve baskets with the leftover pieces of bread and fish. 44 About five thousand had eaten.
%%%
Note: This message was shared in a bilingual service, so I wrote it and delivered it with questions to ponder and intentional pauses that allowed me to switched into Spanish.
Organ donation is a pressing need of our time.
And I'm not talking about pipe organs!
According to organdonor.gov, a website sponsored
by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
the need is real:
-112,784 people are waiting for an organ
-18 people will die each day waiting for an organ
-1 organ donor can save up to 8 lives
This is a concern shared by other countries,
and some people are responding in creative ways.
On November 3, 2011, the BBC ran a story on a new charity in the UK.
It’s called Give a Kidney, One’s Enough,
and it’s an organization that encourages live organ donations to strangers.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER:
Would you consider being an organ donor in life? How about in death?
%%%
Giving from what we have (instead of hoarding),
even to the point of sacrificial giving,
is a theme in today’s Gospel reading.
“The Feeding of the 5,000” is the only miracle
(apart from the resurrection)
which is present in all four canonical Gospels
(Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:5-15).
This story is also known as the miracle of the five loaves and two fish.
Let’s review the story together, a few verses at a time,
and, do me a favor, listen for the verbs.
34 Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd,
he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
Then he began to teach them many things.
It seems like a simple introduction,
but there is a lot packed into those two sentences
that distinguishes the ministry of Jesus,
and that gives us hints to guide our walk of faith:
+ He arrived at the place where the people had gathered
o Hint 1: Jesus did not live in isolation.
+ He saw their need
o Hint 2: Jesus did not ignore the needs of those around him.
+ He had compassion on them
o Hint 3: Jesus did not blame people for their needs.
+ He taught them
o Hint 4: Jesus did not give people bread alone.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER:
Are these the attitudes and actions that guide your life?
Or that guide our life as a community of faith?
%%%
Unfortunately, Jesus’ kind and generous spirit
is not reflected in his disciples.
Unlike Jesus, the disciples always have one thing in mind:
“Me, Myself, and I.”
35 Late in the day, his disciples came to him and said,
“This is an isolated place, and it’s already late in the day.
36 Send them away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy something to eat for themselves.”
Gee...that sounds SO familiar! I wonder why?
You see, unlike Jesus, the disciples want to...
get away from the crowd,
ignore the needs of people,
care only for themselves,
and give nothing (or as little as possible).
But Jesus does not let them off the hook!
He replies by saying the unthinkable:
“YOU give them something to eat.”
Please put the emphasis on the personal pronoun “you,”
and underline it in your Bible!
However, Jesus’ words apparently continue to fall on deaf ears,
and the disciples start getting defensive
and questioning Jesus’ sanity!
Verse 37b: But they said to him, “Are you nuts?”
Trust me, that’s what they said!
All that pretty and inoffensive Bible language
needs to be translated into the vernacular!
The CEB translation says: “Should we go off and buy bread
worth almost eight months’ pay and give it to them to eat?”
And when we read these words with a nice church voice we miss the point.
But what it really means is, “Are you nuts? Are you crazy?”
QUESTIONS TO PONDER:
How are you responding to the call of Jesus on our life?
How are we responding as a community of faith?
%%%
By now the disciples are convinced that Jesus is either crazy or deaf.
But that is not the case at all!
Jesus is totally sane and perfectly healthy,
which is why he can see right through the disciples’
weak alibis and selfish attitudes.
Jesus knows the disciples need to be taught as much as the crowds
(and sometimes MORE THAN the crowds!)
And Jesus knows that his disciples
—the ones from the first century and the ones from the 21st century—
need to learn to live out of a mentality of abundance,
instead of a mentality of scarcity.
The disciples need to learn to share what God has generously provided.
The disciples need to remember that nothing, absolutely nothing,
is ours to have and to hoard,
because everything, absolutely everything,
has been given to us by God to administer and to share.
That’s what Christian stewardship is all about!!!
Therefore, in verse 38a, Jesus says to them,
“How much bread do you have? Take a look.”
Jesus knew they had bread.
Jesus knew that God, the giver of all good gifts,
had provided them with bread and many other blessings.
Well, what do you know?
After looking around a bit in their pockets,
in their purses, in their baskets...
surprise!...they found some bread!
And in verse 38b they answer him by saying,
“Five loaves of bread and two fish.”
And so we learn that the community did not lack resources.
The community lacked the willing to share its resources.
QUESTIONS TO PONDER:
What resources are you unwilling to share?
What resources is this community of faith unwilling to share?
%%%
Finally, Jesus takes charge of the situation,
and he performs a Eucharist, an act of thanksgiving to God,
right there, in front of their eyes,
in the open air, on the grass,
without a sanctuary, a white tablecloth or silver ware.
Again, pay attention to the verbs:
+ He took...
o That is, he acknowledged what had been provided
(by the earth, by the people, by God)
+ He looked up to heaven and blessed...
o That is, he gave thanks for what had been provided
(by the earth, by the people, by God)
+ He broke...
o That is, he divided what had been provided
(by the earth, by the people, by God)
+ He gave to them
o That is, he shared what had been provided
(by the earth, by the people, by God)
And guess what?
Everyone ate until they were full,
and there were plenty of leftovers!
When we start living out of a mentality of abundance,
when we start sharing what God has provided for us,
(instead of hoarding it and acting like it’s ours)
there is always enough for everyone,
and we even have leftovers!
But that requires a fifth verb:
the one that we find in the reading from Joshua.
QUESTION TO PONDER:
Can you guess what that verb is?
%%%
So, did you guess what the fifth verb is?
The fifth verb is choose!
Living out of a mentality of abundance is a choice.
And putting God first is a choice.
May we live in such a way that we make the right choices.
May we live in such a way that each and every day
we choose to take, thank, break and share,
so that the world might come to know God’s abundance.
%%%
Link to BBC story about organ donation: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-15574025
No comments:
Post a Comment