Sermon from Sunday 30 July.

Readings: (only preached on gospel this week) John 6:1-21

Last week in his sermon, Father Rector talked to us about faith and action in the gospel of Mark's rendition of the feeding of the five thousand. Today we hear John's version. Very similar to Mark, John tells us, in the first part of today's gospel, the story of a miraculous feeding based in the same faith and action themes that Father Rector preached about last week. But we hear a different emphasis in today's Gospel. While Mark emphasizes that Jesus taught the crowds all day and then fed them when it grew late, John gives us a different perspective on the story, and along with the continuing story of Jesus walking on water, teaches us a different lesson.

In John's version, the feeding takes the main emphasis. Jesus takes the opportunity to teach the disciples (and the people) about the abundance of the kingdom of God by intentionally setting them up with an impossible question: "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?"

Understandably flabbergasted by Jesus question, Philip is the first to state the obvious fact that there is no earthly way they could possibly buy enough bread for everyone to even get a mouthful, much less satisfy their hunger.

Andrew, trying to point out the hopelessness of the request, says "there's a boy here with five barley loaves and two fish… but what are they among so many?"

Where the pivotal moment in Mark's version of the story was Jesus telling the disciples to go and find out how many loaves they had, this is the pivotal moment in John's telling.

A boy – a child – it seems, has enough faith to offer what he has in service to those around him. Acting on this young boy's faith, Jesus gladly accepts his offering, blesses the impossibly insignificant gifts, and proceeds to feed all five thousand people, collecting 12 baskets full of leftovers at the end of the meal.

The differences in John's story are fairly minor on the surface, but looking more deeply, we find that they are fairly significant in what they emphasize. Jesus' emphasis on the feeding in this version of the story stresses the importance of the amazing abundance of God's kingdom, as well as our access to it, but John also slips in an aspect that none of the other three gospels include – an aspect that teaches us something very important about humankind, the disciples, and most importantly, ourselves. Between the feeding and the disciples departing without Jesus, John tells us that the people recognize Jesus as the messiah. But, misunderstanding Christ's purpose, they seem about to take him by force and set him up as king – so Jesus departs from them and goes back up the mountain by himself.

Whether it be the crowds, the disciples, or even us today, we miss the point when we, seeking a central figure to elevate, fail to see what Jesus is teaching us in this story. What is achieved through the faith of one individual, who seems to fall into the background of the story, is the central importance of today's gospel. Always seeking to point out Christ's tendency to turn the system on its head, John stresses that the loaves and fishes came from a boy. A child acting through faith accomplishes what twelve men who have witnessed countless miracles in Jesus' presence cannot – he, it seems, is the only one in this story who gets that it is US that make the miracle happen. It takes the innocent faith of a child, untainted by knowledge of human frailty and limitations, to step out and teach the disciples what God's kingdom is truly about – seeking in faith to serve those around us through hope and love by offering what little we might have in the here and now. Through this boy, John drives home the point that children – considered as the lowest in the traditional hierarchy of family and society – not only have access to the kingdom of God, but can teach all of us a lot about what Jesus was about. Like Father Rector was saying last week, whatever any of us has to offer, impossibly insignificant as it may be, is more than enough for God to use to demonstrate the awesome abundance of God's kingdom in our midst. And through this faithful giving, we ourselves can witness the miracle of God's abundance. But, as John demonstrates through the crowds and through the disciples, simply looking to a central figure to make it happen isn't enough.

John tells us next that when evening came, Jesus' disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.

Following on the heels of this miraculous feeding, the disciples – as a group – leave Jesus behind on the mountain and row five miles out to sea where they get caught in a storm. The next time they see Jesus, they see him with new eyes…

I grew up with stories from the Bible, I was baptized when I was a baby, I had a whole collection of children's Bible storybooks, I went to Sunday School, I even helped teach Sunday School with my mom when I was in fifth grade. I had it all figured out. Jesus was God's son, who sat up in heaven in the clouds next to God – who had a big white beard – and looked down on earth from a safe distance away. It was a neat and tidy faith that fit comfortably into a Sunday morning and wasn't too much of a bother the rest of the week as I played with my friends and went to school to learn about science and human wisdom. The problem was that over time it was also easy to leave behind. God was too distant to really matter to my life in the modern world. I left the church after I was confirmed in sixth grade, searching for something I didn't know how to find and not really even knowing what I was looking for.

Six years later I found myself, through no fault of my own, I assure you, at my best-friend's Episcopal youth group. Though he had literally tricked me into agreeing to go, I reluctantly found that I enjoyed myself and that I wanted to go back. A few months later (having become a regular at youth group), I found myself, again through no fault of my own, at a youth retreat called Happening (called "Search" in this diocese). Happening and Search are spiritual retreats planned and led almost entirely by youth for other youth who have not experienced the retreat before (it's essentially a teen version of Cursillo). In my own story, Happening was one of those pivotal moments after which I would never be the same. Much like the boy in today's gospel, I brought my impossibly insignificant offering of a confused and searching heart to that weekend and learned first hand about the abundance of God's kingdom. Through the personal stories of my peers, learning to trust and live in Christian community with them, through music, scripture, and the amazing outpouring of Christ's love that I experienced that weekend, I was truly fed for the first time in over six years. I saw God with new eyes, and it was simultaneously terrifying, life changing, awe inspiring, and indescribably amazing to find God not somewhere at a safe distance, but living, breathing, and working in my own life.

Having climbed into my little boat and rowed away for six years from the Jesus I knew, I suddenly saw him walking out across the sea to meet me where I was, and it was as if I was seeing him for what he is for the first time.

There is something significant about the sea that marks transition in how the disciples see Jesus. Matthew, Mark, and John each use these stories in similar ways, but again, John throws a little twist into the story that makes us think.

After witnessing the abundance of the Kingdom of God, and seeing Jesus evade the people trying to make him an earthly king, the disciples leave with some rethinking to do. John's use of darkness to signify turmoil, confusion, and hardship is appropriate to what the disciples must be experiencing as they row out to sea. Finding themselves in a storm, they shortly thereafter see Jesus walking on the water and are terrified until they hear his voice saying "it is I; do not be afraid." Other gospel versions of this moment justify the disciples' terror saying they thought it was a ghost, but I believe John does not do so for a specific reason. It is as though the disciples are seeing Jesus for the first time for what he is. He is not an earthly ruler. He is not a mighty warrior. He is the steward of God's compassion, mercy, love, and most importantly, he is demonstrating, through his life and work, the kingdom of God. But perhaps what is most frightening – and is why I believe John points out the misconception of the crowds and why he sends the disciples off alone in turmoil – is that Jesus expects the disciples to be able to tap into that same incomprehensible abundance and do it as well.

I have seen many examples of the abundance of God's kingdom since Happening. Coming forward from that moment of clarity, I found myself no longer able to deny God's call to me to strive in every part of my life to live into that same abundance that five-thousand (…and twelve…) people experienced on a hillside by the sea of Galilee – simply because a small boy believed that his gift of five loaves and two fish could somehow help feed them.

As Father Rector challenged us last week, so too are we challenged by John this week to step out in faith and act, however insignificant we think our gift may be. But even more so today, John reminds us that this is the same challenge that each of us accepts in Baptism when we agree to "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ," "to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving [our] neighbor[s] as [ourselves]," to strive "for justice and peace among all people," and to "respect the dignity of every human being." As Christians, we are called to continue to work as Christ's body in the world. Much like Jesus' disciples, we are put in charge of continuing to bring about the abundance of God's kingdom today. If this sounds a little scary, we're given the image of the disciples alone on the stormy sea, terrified when they realize what Christ is really all about, yet convicted of their faith and moved into action that continued to shine forth when Christ sent them the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. If it's more than we think we can handle, we're taken back to that small child who, just as Father Rector called us to do last week, stepped out in faith – that impossibly insignificant as his gift was, somehow God would make it enough.

God grant us the courage to bring our gifts before you in faith, and through our efforts, small as they may seem in the face of impossible odds, may we help to bring your kingdom near. In Christ, Amen