“Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and
broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to
the crowds.” (Matthew
14:19)
We
at Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia are extremely fortunate to number among our
parishioners the Reverend Natt Pour. Pastor Natt (as we call him) is an
ordained pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Liberia. You might
think that an immigrant coming from such an impoverished and frequently
war-scarred nation might carry with him a certain aspect of melancholy, but,
quite to the contrary, Pastor Natt is perennially cheerful and optimistic.
That’s why we love him. There always seems to be just a little more sunshine in
the room when this joyful and frequently picturesquely appareled cleric is
around.
Some
months back Pastor Natt made a request of the congregation for donations of old
or obsolete computer equipment which could be used by the school kids at his
home congregation in Africa. Bob, another parishioner with a similarly cherubic
disposition, was in contact with an IT guy who had veritable bonanza of old
computers, laptops, and tablets he was anxious to be rid of. When Bob dropped
off this treasure trove of technology, I had to ask Pastor Natt how he would
get the money to ship all this equipment to Liberia. Natt just gave me one of
his iridescent smiles and said, “The Lord will provide.”
The
Lord will provide, as Abraham told Isaac on Mt. Moriah[i]. That’s certainly been
true in my life, even though I constantly find myself doubting the providence. I
remember when I graduated from seminary—lo those many years ago—I had a Master
of Divinity degree and no church to pastor.
Even
those who have been Lutherans since their infant baptism may not be aware of
the complexity of the ordination process for our clergy. A seminary degree does
not immediately make one a pastor. There is an entire bureaucratic process to
undergo. Strangely, this process moves rather swiftly until one gets to the
most crucial point—the call of a congregation. You see, in the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America one is not a pastor until a congregation says
one is. This is where the process slows down to the speed of an arthritic
tortoise. A congregation is an entirely volunteer organization, and it takes
its good, sweet time about making decisions. Upon my graduation I had put aside
about three months’ worth of savings. It would be six months before I drew a
real paycheck.
You’ll
note I did not starve. I don’t know how my meagre savings stretched to cover
rent and food and utilities for an extra three months, but somehow, they did.
The Lord provided. This is just one of the many times in my life when penury
licked its lips in my direction but failed to swallow me.
In
2022 the church’s treasurer and I counted the beans and concluded that, should
the congregation’s expenses and income follow their current trajectory, Faith
Lutheran would be closing her doors for good by the following Easter. Four
years later we’re still up and running. The Lord has provided.
All
four of our Gospel witnesses include the story the RCL gives us for Pentecost
10, Year A (Matthew 14:13-21). The wonderful miracle story of the loaves and
fish should be a reminder to us of God’s desire to see all of us get our daily
bread. This is a tale of God’s abundance amidst our human fear of scarcity. I
think it’s darn Christian of the disciples to care about the hunger of the
crowd (v. 15), but more significant is Jesus’ reaction to the situation. He
tells the crowd to sit down. Then he says a blessing over the food he
has. He doesn’t lament a potential shortfall. He gives thanks for the goodness
which God provided, and he trusts that it will be sufficient.
We
can be grateful, or we can be fretful, but we cannot be both simultaneously.
When we say grace, we are in grace. Our acknowledgment of God’s goodness
doesn’t leave a lot of room for our anxiety.
If
we put this story in context, we should notice it comes right after the beheading
of John the Baptist. In verse 13 Matthew tells us that Jesus, upon learning of John’s
decapitation, wanted to go and be by himself for a while. Can you blame the
guy? Even if you’re the only begotten Son of God the violent death of someone
you love has to take something out of you. If you’ve ever been through a
bereavement or some other emotionally draining experience, you’ll know how the
Savior was feeling. Some things in life just suck all the emotional energy out
of you like a plague of mosquitos with the munchies. But Jesus isn’t given a
chance to grieve in this story. A bunch of folks with sick relatives and no awareness
of personal boundaries come chasing after him. You’d think he was well within
his rights to tell them to shove off and give him some space. But no. Jesus’
tank of compassion hadn’t hit “E.” The Lord provided. Even when we think we’ve
got nothing left, when someone has drained the last ounce of our patience and endurance,
when life is suffocating us and we can’t breathe, God’s Holy Spirit can still
give us the guidance, the love, and the energy we need to get to the other side
of our grief, frustration, despair, and weariness. The Lord provides.
A
final thought: Who are we in this story? Who are you? Are you one
of the hungry multitude or one of the disciples, worried that you don’t have
what it takes to fulfill Jesus’ direction to care for the others? Jesus tells
his followers, “You give them something to eat.” Would he give us this
command if he didn’t think we had enough?
Thanks
for stopping by this week. Give thanks to the Lord in all things and leave me a
comment if you wish.
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