Sermon: Food for Thought–Giving Thanks Over a Meal

Sermon of the Week:
Food for Thought–Giving Thanks Over a Meal

A sermon preached for The Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on July 25, 2021.

Part two of a five-week sermon series about Food and the Christian Faith, called Food for Thought.

Special Music: Hope
Hymn: The Church of Christ Cannot be Bound

Keywords: More than Enough, Feeding the Multitude, Gospel of John, Practicing our Faith, Food for Thought. #pcusa

Scripture readings (which you may wish to read prior):
Psalm 145:10-18
and John 6:1-21

Twenty-Five years ago I picked up a book of essays
compiled and edited by Craig Dykstra and Dorothy Bass,
The book is called
Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People.[i]

In the first essay, the pair told this story that stuck with me,
A story that has me thinking this week
As we ponder this reading from the Gospel According to John:

A Catholic priest recently told a gathering of friends
About a time when he arrived in Israel late on a Friday afternoon,
Just as everything was about to shut down for the Sabbath.
Public transportation was no longer available,
And the house where people were expecting him
Was fifteen miles away.

So he picked up his suitcase and started to walk.
He did not get far before a family saw him
And invited him to spend the Sabbath with them.
He accepted their invitation,
And they all had a wonderful time.
When Saturday evening came,
He found his bus and went on his way.

After the priest finished his story,
A Jewish friend said that he had had a similar experience
While traveling through Spain as a young adult.
One night, he got off a train in a village
That was already asleep.
A little frightened, he approached the only lighted place.
It turned out to be a monastery,
And the monks received him gladly.
After his departure,
He discovered that they had quietly slipped some coins
Into his pocket as he slept.

Dykstra and Bass tell this story
To illustrate the virtue of hospitality
Hospitality that is deeply rooted
in the lived faith of these two communities,
the one in Israel and the monastery in Spain.

As they put it,
“we get glimpses of ancient traditions
sustaining ways of life that shelter and nourish people…
ways of life ready to receive strangers
who are passing through.

The hospitality these two young men received
Came from communities
structured with hospitality in mind.

In each of these places,
hospitality was more
than an individual act of kindness—
[hospitality] was sustained by a way of life.”

What follows, in their book,
are essays that explore intentional practices—
The rituals, shared activities, purposefully actions—
practices that Christians, in this case, do
to sustain a way of life
because they follow Jesus.
Dykstra and Bass want to know
how the things we do, on purpose, over and over,
help shape a life of faith,
The kind of life that leads to virtues like hospitality,
or kindness,
or peacemaking, qualities like that.

Their argument is that faith is shaped by what we do,
not just by what we believe,
And particularly what we do over time, sometimes over and over,
Because these create ways of seeing the world,
Inclinations and opportunities,
They help nurture courage and fortitude and expression.

It is a really interesting idea,
But it shouldn’t be a surprise or anything.
You’ve heard it said that people are “creatures of habit”
And as far back as Aristotle
Human beings have been thinking about human behavior,
How what we do impacts what we see and how we feel
And that, in turn, impacts what we do.

And none of this is unique to faith communities, right,
Though some might say that one of the unique features of religion
Is the nurture of communities that do things together
To help shape a life of faith,
Again, for good or for ill, depending on what is done, what is valued.

But this isn’t just a religious thing,
We do this all the time in the overlapping communities we inhabit,
The various activities we pursue.

The rhythms of our life help shape our lives,
Our habits, which are formed over time, tend to keep us doing similar things
Sometimes for the good, and sometimes not so much.

Get used to brushing your teeth morning and night,
You’re likely to keep doing it your whole life.

Your dentist thanks you.

Go to bed saying two things you’re thankful for that day,
and one thing that you did that was good or right or true or beautiful
and you frame an outlook about yourself and your world
based in gratitude, self-esteem, and truth telling.

Start pulling back when people ask for help
Or when you have an opportunity to give
And you start seeing the world as run by scarcity,
Where there’s not enough to go around…

Habits can be positive, negative, or neutral.
They’re just the patterns that we build up,
Based on our actions and rituals over time,
That help shape our lives.

When they’re helpful, positive,
We want to keep doing them.
When they’re negative, they’re hard to break,
Though that can be done,
Sometimes through changes of practice,
choosing a different set of rituals and habits all together.

Dykstra and Bass, in this book of theirs,
Want to explore how some of these practices
Work well, or don’t work well, as CHRISTIAN practices,
How what we do as people who follow God on the way of Jesus
Nurture lives of faith, or lead us to develop blind spots,
depending on how we go about doing them
how we think about them.

They explore various practices such as
saying yes and saying no,
keeping the sabbath,
Testimony,
shaping communities,
forgiveness,
healing,
Singing our lives
(which is an interesting idea, thinking about music as a ritual
That shapes our faith…
It is one reason why we’ve worked to bring music to our worship
Throughout our experiments with worship in a pandemic
And why even though we’re not quite satisfied with not being able
to sing in person quite yet
we still want to experience music here, in this hour…
that chapter was written by Don Saliers,
who is a professor of worship at Emory University,
and who I later learned is the father of Emily Saliers,
Emily who formed the Indigo Girls with Amy Ray…
I had no idea when I listened to them
All throughout my teenage years
that that was part of Emily’s history.
The Indigo Girls were an important part of my childhood,
but it all makes sense, when you think about practices of faith
and how they shape our lives
and you can hear echoes of faith deep in her music), but I digress…

Other chapters in the book include the practices
Dying well,
and of course Hospitality, which we mentioned.

One reason for church,
One reason for Sunday,
For Bible Study
or Serving with other Kirk members at Harvesters
checking in, on a regular basis,
to some particular community that you find life giving and nurturing…
One reason we do this
Is so that we practice the kind of things
that help us see God in the world
And that help us be faithful people.

What we do matters.
It shapes and forms us,
And that has all sorts of impact
On our day to day living.

///
According to the Gospels,
Once upon a time
Jesus was out doing his thing with his disciples.

Last week, when we were reading from Mark,
He, Mark, put this story right in the middle of a momentous chapter,
Jesus had been kicked out of his hometown synagogue,
The disciples were sent out in pairs to heal and to witness and to serve
John the Baptist dies,
And then the disciples finish their work and they return to Jesus
tired and worn out.
Jesus sees it and thinks it’s a good idea to take a break
And he tried to get them to rest,
To practice a bit of sabbath,
But the people.
The crowds saw them try to get away
And they followed after them.
They got to the place where they were going to have their retreat
And Jesus saw all of them,
and had compassion for them
And so he taught and he healed and he served even more
Until the hour grew late
And the question came up:
Oh goodness, look at the time,
Jesus, send all these people out to the nearby villages and towns
So that they can get themselves some food
Because, you know, if we don’t do that soon
We’ll have a disorganized mess of hungry people on our hands….

And Jesus told them not to worry,
Actually, he told them that when there are hungry people in front of us
One of our practices ought to be to feed them:
You give them something to eat.
And they had no idea how to do that.
No clue.
I mean, they weren’t prepared for that…
They were boating off to a staff-only retreat, remember,
No one called in a local caterer who could feed so many people.

But there was bread, and some fish,
Just a bit of each, really.
So Jesus had everyone sit down and they passed the bread and fish around
And there was ENOUGH
And everyone ate
And they collected 12 whole baskets of leftovers…

That’s what happened last week in Mark,
And it sounds rather similar to what we read today, from John,
And even if the context changes a bit from gospel to gospel
most of these big-picture highlights remain the same.
Crowd. Feed them. How can we do that?
Bread. Fish. More than Enough.

Now John has a few details that are unique to him, to this gospel:
This all happens near the Passover, for John,
Which is his way of foreshadowing the importance of the Passover to come,
The one that becomes holy week,
That week when Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey
Flips over tables,`
Has a last supper with the disciples
And then is arrested and sentenced to die and…on the third day, he lives, again!

John foreshadows all of that with the little detail that this story, too,
Happens near the Passover.

John mentions Barley loaves,
That’s unique to this Gospel,
And he does that because there’s a story in the Hebrew Scriptures
Where Elisha feeds a handful of people, also miraculously,
With just a few loaves of Barley Bread.
John wants you to associate what God is doing here, with Jesus
With what God did with that powerful, beloved prophet Elisha.

There’s the claim that Jesus knew, all along, what he was going to do.
That’s John, working hard to make it crystal clear that this Jesus is the messiah,
In charge, the whole time…
But we get it, John.
We see him walk on water
We see him feeding a lot of people
We know this Jesus is special.

There’s one other detail that I heard
That stood out to me this time,
When I read this text and then looked at how the story was told
In Matthew and Mark and Luke.
In those Gospels,
When the time came for all those good people to eat
Jesus takes the bread
And looks up to heaven
And, the text says, “blesses and breaks” the bread,
And then distributes it.
That sounds a lot like communion right, the Lord’s Supper.

We’re going to look at that meal next week,
Which fits, because we’ll share communion next week too.
In Communion, we remember how Jesus
Takes a loaf of bread, blesses and breaks it, and gives it to the disciples.
That same language is used in the gospels to describe that final meal.

It is a little bit different, in John.
Then Jesus 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.

John says Jesus gives thanks.
Actually, that word relates to communion too,
Because the word John uses is Eucharisto,
A verb meaning ‘to give thanks, to be thankful,’
It happens to be where we get the word Eucharist from,
The other name we use for the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

So, in the middle of John’s story,
He describes what Jesus does just before he hands out that food…
A moment that is, let’s be honest, full of some tension
Because the disciples didn’t really think
that a few loaves and a couple of fish would work
And the people, who were sitting around on the grass,
Weren’t really sure what was going on,
Just that it was getting late
and there was no schedule of activities, no plan for what was coming next…
John says that in that moment,
Jesus paused, gave thanks, and handed out what was there,
And it was enough. More than enough.

///
Giving thanks before a meal is a long standing practice of faithful people,
Certainly in the Christian tradition
But in many others too…
Thanks for the food that will be eaten
And the people who prepared it
And the grains and the creatures from which it came,
And, for people of faith, thanks to the God from whom all blessing comes.

When I was thinking back on those practices of faith that have nurtured me
I remember all sorts of things

Regular worship, for sure,
And the things we did there…
singing for sure, and praying,
and listening, and dreaming, things we did as a community, together,
communion and baptism too,
even if we didn’t do them every week.

Intentional acts of kindness,
Working hard to see the humanity in all those I would meet,
Just like Jesus did, when I read about him in scripture,
that was important for me too.

And as a family we’d sit down for dinner every night
And offer thanks before the meal.
And I got into the habit of offering a little, quiet THANK YOU
Before many meals, by myself, or with a group,
Just a practice inside of myself.

When I read this passage in John anew this week
That phrase really stood out to me
As I remembered years and years of our family saying grace
How we try to do that, intentionally, with our kids before every dinner.

Why do we do that?

Because Jesus did it,
And Jesus did it because it helps us see the possibilities and generosity
Of our amazing God.

To John, the disciples were stuck with a vision of scarcity,
For whatever reason,
They didn’t think that there was enough,
And, therefore, all those people needed to go get some food.
You, Jesus says, you feed them.
And they throw up their hands
So Jesus takes the food, gives God thanks,
And hands it out…
And there is enough.

And at least one of the things we do,
You and I and anyone who follows God on the Way of Jesus
Who prays before a meal,
At least one of the things we are doing right then
Is habituating ourselves to know that there’s enough
In this meal, right here,
There’s enough.
That when we don’t think there’s enough to share
With people in need,
There’s enough.
Who knows.
Maybe it will multiply.
Maybe people will pitch in with what food they brought along.
And if enough people believe there’s enough there will be enough.
More than enough.
Enough to feed a multitude.

We live in a world that tells you that there’s not enough.
Why, in that world,
would you invite a wayward priest in to your Sabbath feast?
Or that hapless Jew into your monastery?

On the other hand, if you believe there’s enough,
If you open your heart to share what you have with those around you,
Look at the hospitality that can happen!
Look at the LIFE that can happen!

It is such a better way to live, to be, in this world.
And giving thanks, before a meal, can help orient ourselves to that,
Can help shape us into the kind of people who know
That God provides for us,
Because God provided this meal,
And God helps us provide the next one for someone else,
So that the hungry may be filled with good things.

May we, dear friends, follow the example of our Savior Jesus Christ
And trust that there is enough
And give thanks to the One who helps us see that
When we share what we have,
When we love one another,
That there is food to go around
An unexpected, joyous feast,
And may we be SHAPED by that trust
And the other practices of our faith,
So that when we hear that phrase
You give them something to eat
We’ll be ready.
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

May it be so.
Amen.

—–

[i] In this instance, citations are from the second edition, Dorothy C Bass, editor. Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People (Jossey-Bass; San Francisco, California 2010). This story is from pages 2-3.

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