II Kings 4: 42 – 44 / Psalm 145: 10 – 18 / Ephesians 3: 14 – 21 / John 6: 1 - 21
This is the homily given at St. James’ Lutheran Church (ELCA), York, Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 28, 2024 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“OVERCOMING”
(Homily
text: John 6: 1 – 21)
One
way to understand everything that’s connected to the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ among us, is to see that He overcame many limitations, boundaries and
obstacles as He carried out God’s will.
So,
today, we have before us John’s account of the feeding of the large crowd of
about five thousand. (This miracle must’ve been very important to the early
Church, for each one of the four Gospels recount this event.)
The
feeding of this large group, who were gathered somewhere in the countryside,
offers several examples of the Lord’s overcoming limitations.
We
might begin by noting that the disciples wonder about what sort of a solution
there might be for their situation, as they consider what to do about finding
food for so many people.. Philip asks how they are to go into town and buy food
for the people. “Two hundred denarii wouldn’t be enough to feed them all”, he
says. (Two hundred denarii would be about eight months’ wages for a common day
laborer.) Human limitation seems to indicate that there’s no solution to be
had. But the Lord sees beyond that, for -as John tells us – the Lord knew what
He was going to do.
So,
for example, Jesus overcomes the limitation of the available food with which to
feed this amount of people: Five loaves and two fish. (I am fascinated that it
is Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, who brings the young boy to the Lord with the
loaves and the fish...was this an act of faith on Andrew’s part? John doesn’t
tell us anything about Andrew’s motivation in bringing the boy to the Lord.)
Then, the Lord multiplies the loaves and the fish, making enough that everyone
got their fill of food, with twelve baskets left over.
And,
since our assigned text for this morning also includes the report of the Lord’s
walking on the water on the Sea of Galilee, we might notice that the Lord
overcomes the limitations of the natural, created order.
As
we widen out our vision to see other ways in which the Lord overcame obstacles,
boundaries and limitations, we need look no further than the commonly-held
ideas that were prevalent in the time of our Lord’s earthly visitation.
Consider,
for example, the circumstances under which the woman who had suffered from
internal bleeding, for a period of twelve years (a text from Mark’s Gospel
account, heard a couple of weeks ago). Since she had a bleeding disorder, she
would not have been able to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship and to
perform the various rites that the Law of Moses required. Furthermore, since
she was ill, many probably thought that her condition was due to some grievous
sin that she’d committee. She was an outcast. But Jesus reaches over these
barriers, and once she is healed, He says to her, “Your faith has made you
well.” Prior to the Lord’s healing, she was a person who was without hope,
without any chance of a new and better life.
Jesus
had a practice of hanging out with the undesirables of His day, the tax
collectors and the other notorious sinners. When criticized by the Pharisees,
He declares that it isn’t the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill.
Notice, given the attitudes of the times, that hanging around with “unclean”
people also made the person associating with them unclean. But Jesus willingly
breaches those barriers and destroys those attitudes.
The
power to overcome that marked Jesus’ earthly ministry continues to be active
today in people’s lives.
When
we offer to God our limited resources (like the five loaves and the two fish),
God can multiply the offerings we bring in order to bring God’s will into
reality. The Lord has the ability, still, to widen our horizons and our
expectations about what is possible.
Our
Lord possesses the ability to break down barriers that separate one person (or
group) from another. Our Lord is a bridge-builder. We who claim His name are
called, likewise, to break down barriers and expectations that divide and
separate us one from another. St. Paul will pick up this theme, declaring that
– in Christ – there is “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither
male nor female”, hut that all are now a new creation, all are one in Christ.
Finally,
our Lord overcame death and the grave, and now lives eternally. That means that
we Christians are a “resurrection people”, meaning that we believe in new life,
new beginnings. Because of this reality, our Lord can erase whatever has gone
on in our lives before now, offering forgiveness, new hope and new and deeper
meaning.
Thanks
be to God, who sent His only Son to overcome barriers, limitations,
expectations and even death, and to offer us life in all its fullness and
meaning.
AMEN.
