Two Sermons on the Feeding of the Five Thousand

This blog post is based on my February 24th, 2019 sermon, which was originally titled, "The Church Is Always in the Desert."

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." 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. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, beside women and children.   --Matthew 14:13-21, New Revised Standard Version

Years ago I preached a sermon on this text, and after the worship service a worshipper grabbed me by the arm and started jabbing me in the chest with the index finger of his right hand, all the while exclaiming, "I can tell you exactly what happened. There was no need for a supernatural miracle. The people had all brought food with them, but they were afraid to take it out because they didn't know whether the others had brought food or not. But once they realized that others had brought food as well, then they relaxed and were able to share as the disciples and Jesus had shared. That's what really happened."

I replied, "I think you make a very persuasive case, now will you please stop poking me!" Later I told a friend about this man's very emphatic explanation of the loaves and fishes, and he said, "Well, either way it makes a great story."

Either way, it makes a great story, and either way it could make for a powerful sermon. All last week I wondered which sermon I should preach this morning. Should I preach the we-all-need-to-share sermon, or should I preach the we-need-a-miracle sermon? Which sermon did Katonah Presbyterian Church most need to hear this morning?

I wasn't sure, so then I wondered whether I could preach both sermons on the same Sunday. After all, if the four Gospel writers had included the loaves and fishes story a total of six times, then surely I wouldn't be out of line to preach two sermons on this text on the same Sunday!

Now, the compromise I'll make with you is that each of these sermons could be about five minutes, so that with a brief wrap-up, plus the time I've already been speaking, the total sermon length should still be just under fifteen minutes.

So, here's the first sermon: We All Need to Share!

Years ago the Quaker theologian and author Parker Palmer was on a flight from Chicago's O'Hare airport to Denver's Stapleton airport, which was the old Denver airport. Now, this took place in that long ago time when there were no security lines at airports, no electronic screening, and you could carry pretty much whatever you wanted in your carryon baggage.

The plane pulled away from the gate, taxied for a very long time, and then came to a stop at a remote corner of the airport next to a chain-link perimeter fence. The captain's voice could be heard on the intercom, "I have some bad news. There is a storm front in the west, exactly where we are headed. Denver is socked in and shut down. There are no alternatives. So, we'll be staying here for a few hours. That's the bad news. The really bad news is that we have no food on board." (Now again, I should mention that this story took place in that long ago time when when people looked forward to a delicious meal on the airplane, complete with silverware and cloth napkins. I don't remember such a time myself, but I've read about it in books.) Thus, when the captain announced that there was no food onboard, everybody groaned. Some passengers became angry.

(In the days of old, when passengers feasted on airplanes)

But then, Palmer said, one of the flight attendants stood up in the aisle and took the microphone. "We're really sorry here, folks. We didn't plan it this way, and we can't do anything about it. We know that for some of you this is a big deal. You're hungry and were looking forward to a nice lunch. Some of you have a medical condition and really need to eat. Some of you may not care. So I have an idea. We have a couple of empty bread baskets up here, and we're going to pass them around. Everybody put something in the basket. I know some of you have brought a little snack along, just in case--peanut butter crackers, candy bars. Some of you have Rolaids, Life Savers, chewing gum. And if you don't happen to have anything edible, you have a business card or a picture of your kids or a bookmark. The thing is, I hope everybody puts something in the basket. And then we'll reverse the process. We'll pick the baskets up at the back of the plane and pass them around again and everybody can take out what he or she needs."

"Well," Palmer said, "what happened next was amazing. First, the complaining and griping stopped. People started to root around in pockets and handbags and briefcases. Some stood up and retrieved luggage from the overhead racks and got out boxes of candy, a salami, Italian sausage, cheese, crackers, a bottle of wine (again, this was in the long ago days when this was permissible!). Now people were laughing and talking. The flight attendant had transformed a group of anxious people focused on their need, deprivation, and scarcity into a gracious community."

The flight eventually took off from Chicago and landed in Denver, and as he stepped off the plane, Palmer found the flight attendant and said, "You know there's a story in the Bible about what you did." She said, "I know the story. That's why I did it" (as quoted in a sermon by John Buchanan, "In Remembrance of Him," preached at Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church, October 2, 2011).

This first sermon focuses not so much on the miracle, but on what happens to us when we are motivated to share graciously with one another. As Barbara Brown Taylor explained in a sermon that she preached on this text:

The problem with miracles is that we tend to get mesmerized by them, focusing on God's responsibility and forgetting our own. Miracles let us off the hook. They appeal to the part of us that is all too happy to let God feed the crowd, save the world, do it all. We do not have what it takes, after all. What we have to offer is not enough to make any difference at all, so we hold back and wait for a miracle, looking after our own needs and looking for God to help those who cannot help themselves (from Barbara Brown Taylor, "The Problem with Miracles," in The Seeds of Heaven).

Those who preach this first sermon emphasize the fact that Jesus told the disciples: "You give them something to eat," putting the responsibility squarely on the disciples' shoulders. That's the first sermon: we-all-need-to-share.

In contrast, the second sermon is We-do-need-the-miracle.

Three years ago last summer, another one of my favorite preachers, Nadia Bolz Weber, was speaking at a conference of Lutheran pastors and musicians. She was preaching on the Feeding of the Five Thousand. She knew that Lutheran bishops and seminary professors would be present. She wanted to be sure that she delivered a wise, funny, and learned sermon that did justice to the Lutheran theology of the Eucharist. She struggled to write the sermon. She felt like she was too much in her head. She woke up at two in the morning on the day that she was supposed to preach and rewrote her entire sermon. She decided to write the sermon that she needed to hear and not the one that she thought that the bishops and the professors were expecting.

In her sermon Nadia confessed,

I just couldn't preach a Jesus wants you to be nice and share your juice box sermon to you today . . . Not that thousands of human beings sharing with their neighbors isn't a little miraculous, it is, it's just that . . . maybe this story is too important for it to be [primarily] about people sharing their lunches.

Because miracles, and not lessons about sharing, are what we really need. So as crazy as it is--I believe in miracles--not because I think I'm supposed to but because I need to. I need to believe that God does what we cannot do (from a sermon by Nadia Bolz Weber on the Feeding of the Five Thousand, July 25, 2015, from her blog , the emphasized bold text is her own).

The disciples themselves were just as hungry and just as weary as anyone else in the crowd. They were grieving the death of John the Baptist, how he had been beheaded because the king had been so entranced by a dancing girl that the king promised to give her whatever she asked for, and the girl's mother told her to ask for the head of John the Baptist. That's a grisly story, and I'm struck by the contrast between that lavish, drunken royal banquet and the desert feeding with five loaves and two fish.

The disciples were grieving and hungry and depleted and worn out. They were in need of a miracle. As Nadia Bolz Weber said, "the most important resources that day was not the fried chicken and potato salad that people had hidden in their tunics, but the need of humanity for a God that can do miracles."

Those who preach this second sermon, the we-need-a-miracle sermon, are quick to point out that right after Jesus says, "You give them something to eat," Jesus says, "Bring them here to me."

All of you who are exhausted caregivers, any of you who feel hopelessly overwhelmed the moment that Jesus says, "You give them something to eat," can take heart in the fact that "Jesus includes you in the category of the hungry and himself in the category of bread" (Nadia Bolz Weber).

Which of these two sermons do you most need to hear this morning? The we-all-need-to-share sermon or the we-all-need-a-miracle sermon?

I suspect that some of you probably do resonate a little more with one sermon than the other, and that you may well resonate more with one sermon on one Sunday and with the other sermon on another Sunday.

What I know is that all of us--the we-need-to-share crowd and the we-need-a-miracle crowd--are here in this desert wilderness together and it is time to eat.

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

As Tom Long writes in the quote that is printed on your bulletin cover:

Indeed, the church is always in the desert, the place where it cannot rely upon its own resources, which are few. The church is hungry itself and is surrounded by a world of deep cravings, people who are lonely, disoriented, and poor in many different ways. Against the savage realities of human need, the church sees only small numbers on the membership rolls and even smaller ones in the mission budget. It is no wonder, then, that the church joins the disciples in crying, this is a desert. Send the crowds away to fend for themselves. Jesus is still the teacher, though, and there is a lesson for the disciples--and the church--to learn: God is abundantly able to provide (from Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion series).

At the end of the day, I don't believe that these two sermons are contradictory at all. To the extent that we know ourselves as hungry and in need of God's grace and miracle-working power, we will be surprised again and again by what happens when we pass the baskets and share what we have.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

With which of these two sermons do you most resonate, and why?: The We-All-Need-to-Share sermon or the We-All-Need-a-Miracle sermon? Please feel free to use the space below to post your comments and questions.

Corruptors of the Corruption

This blog post is based on my sermon from February 17, 2019, which was originally titled, "You're Gonna Ruin My Bad Reputation!"

[Jesus] put before them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come ad make nests in its branches." He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened."    --Matthew 13:31-33, New Revised Standard Version

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

There's a scene in Robert Duvall's movie, "The Apostle." Robert Duvall's character Sonny is a preacher who believes that God is calling him to start a small church in rural Louisiana. On the very first Sunday there are no more than five or six people in worship. Sonny greets everyone and says, "We're small but powerful." He then has them turn to their neighbors, and they repeat, "We're small but powerful!"

From time to time I've quoted that scene in worship, particularly on a low attendance Sunday such as a snow day or President's Day weekend. We may not have as many in worship as we normally do. We're small but powerful.

There is something very compelling in the thought of someone small being secretly powerful, or capable of growing and becoming strong.

At first glance, this would seem to be the message of a parable about a small mustard seed growing into the greatest of shrubs. Jesus seems to reiterate the point by telling another brief parable about a little bit of yeast being enough to make an enormous amount of dough rise.

Yet as preacher and scholar Thomas G. Long points out, there is a lot more happening in these two very brief parables. (see Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion, pp. 152-154. This sermon borrows heavily from Long's interpretation of these parables. Direct quotes are indented.)

If we read these parables too quickly, or listen to them being read in worship too casually, we are going to miss seeing the twinkle in Jesus' eye or his almost mischievous grin.

A mustard seed is small, but it's not quite the smallest of all the seeds. And a mustard bush is not really the greatest of all shrubs, and it certainly does not grow into a tree large enough for flocks of nesting birds. 

There is a reference in the Old Testament book of Daniel to the Kingdom of Babylon as a tree standing majestically at the center of the earth, with a top that reached to heaven. This tree was visible to the ends of the earth; its branches were broad enough to provide nesting space to all the flocking birds of the air; and from this tree all living beings were fed.

To a people who believed that great kingdoms or mighty empires were supposed to look like massive cedars of Lebanon or giant sequoias, Jesus offers the humble image of a mustard bush.

The main point remains the same: something small grows into something big. But another point gets made as well: this greatness does not come in the form we expect. As New Testament scholar David Garland has pointed out, the realm of heaven is breaking into the world in a disarming way. After all, we do not sing, "A Mighty Mustard Bush is our God." (David Garland, Reading Matthew, as quoted by Long). Try looking for that hymn in our purple Glory to God hymnal. You won't find it.

A Mighty Mustard Bush!

Thus, from small beginnings, the kingdom--or realm--of God grows into something great, but it is not the kind of greatness we expect.

There is an even bigger twist to he parable of the yeast. You and I might hear it as a simple cooking illustration, but that's not what's happening. You and I can go to the store and buy a little glass jar of yeast for our bread machine, and we can store that little glass jar in our pantry until we need it again without having to worry about it.

But in the ancient world yeast was not easily contained, and it was considered highly corrosive. In fact, in Jesus' day yeast was a symbol for corruption. To say something like a little yeast leavens the whole loaf was tantamount to saying one bad apple spoils the barrel. Again, as David Garland observes, saying that the realm of God is like yeast was akin to saying that it was like rust.

The other thing to notice in this brief parable about the yeast is what the woman does with the yeast. She does not simply mix the yeast into the flour, which is how the New Revised Standard Version translates that word. According to Tom Long, a better translation would be to say that the woman hides the yeast; she conceals the yeast. In the words of Tom Long:

the parable of the yeast pictures the [realm] of God as a hidden force working silently to corrupt the world--that is, to corrupt the corruption, or as the whimsical lyrics of the 1980s hit country song by Ronnie McDowell put it, "You're gonna ruin my bad reputation." One cannot see the [realm] of God pervading the world, but when its covert fermentation is accomplished, the bland flour of the world will have been transformed into the joyous bread of life. (Long, p. 154).

 Have you ever thought about our ministry in that way? That you and I, through the hidden mercies of God, can be corruptors of the corruption?

I once heard a sermon illustration about a woman named Kathleen, who was a public health nurse in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Some of you may be familiar with the story of Asbury Park, how it was an upscale seaside community in the 1940s and 50s, but by the 60s and 70s it was hopelessly mired in urban blight and corruption. Once fashionable, four-star hotels became nothing more than flop houses. In one of those flop houses there was a nursing home populated mostly by elderly people who were among the poorest of the poor. Conditions were horrific. The management wouldn't allow the public health nurses to come into the nursing home to do an inspection because they didn't want them to see the squalor, and even the city government sided with the management.

So, Kathleen, who was a public health nurse, decided to go incognito. She went down to the nursing home and got herself hired as a chamber maid. She went from room to room changing bed pans, cleaning toilets, and surreptitiously checking blood pressures and monitoring temperatures. As she went from room to room Kathleen said she could see the face of Christ in each patient. (from a sermon by Thomas G. Long, preached at the Duke University Chapel, May 2011).

Now, what can one public health nurse do in the face of urban blight and squalor? Well, what can a little bit of yeast do in a large measure of flour? Kathleen was powerful enough to be a corruptor of the corruption.

I remember another story someone once told me about a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church, who also happened to be a corporate lawyer in Midland, Texas. This particular attorney made a very comfortable living as a partner in a law firm that did a lot of work for the oil and gas industry, but he also did some pro bono work on the side in the area of landlord-tenant law, on the side of the tenants! If he got word that a landlord was up to some abusive practice, he would write a very intimidating letter to that landlord using his law firm's letterhead. That was usually enough to stop whatever shenanigans the landlord had been up to. In telling these stories, the attorney was apt to recline in his plush office chair, prop his cowboy boots atop his mahogany desk, and exclaim how he just loved working for justice! (from a sermon by Patrick J Willson, preached at the Westminster (Virginia) Presbyterian Church. I'm uncertain of the date). I think this attorney was another example of someone working to be a corruptor of the corruption.

I recently learned about the Peace Drums Project, which is an interfaith initiative in modern-day Israel, in Galilee, which is where Jesus grew up. The Peace Drums Project supplies steel drums for middle school students who are Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, and helps them make music together in a single band. The hope is that the students and parents will get to know each other and that some of the stereotypes that they have of each other will disappear as they make music together.

To learn more about the Peace Drums Project, please click here.

What can a small band of drummers do in the face of historic conflict, in the midst of rockets, tanks, bombs, and bullets? Well, what can a little bit of yeast do in a large measure of flour?

In the midst of a complex world with complex problems, you and I can go out and be corruptors of the corruption. We can spread radical gospel ideas such as we're all created in the image of God! We all have a place at the table! We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to return no one evil for evil.

We can infiltrate society with these radical ideas until society looks more and more like the realm of heaven.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Please use the space below to post comments or questions. 

When have you felt like you were acting like a corruptor of the corruption? Do you believe that you are being called now in some way to be a corruptor of the corruption?

A Tale of Two Houses

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon from February 10, 2019. To listen to an audio recording of this sermon, please click here.

"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And anyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house, and it fell--and great was its fall!" Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teachings, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes."                                                                                                                                                    --Matthew 7:24-29, New Revised Standard Version

"Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching." That is the first recorded reaction to the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. The word "astounded" in the original New Testament Greek carries the meaning of "bewildered, stunned, or struck with a powerful force."

Have you ever had an intense conversation with someone and almost felt that he or she had struck you with a fist? Their words were that forceful. Perhaps someone delivered an order or gave you an ultimatum, or simply spoke a truth that left you defenseless and utterly vulnerable.

That must have been what happened when Jesus finished speaking. The crowds were astounded, stunned.

In the words of my friend and mentor Roland Perdue, a retired Presbyterian pastor, it is almost as if the "Word became flesh and punched them in the face!" (from a sermon by Roland Perdue, "Oh My Goodness!," preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, North Carolina, February 20, 2011).

What would it take for Jesus to astound you?

What would Jesus have to say in order to astonish you?

That the one who begs or borrows is never to be refused?

That if someone strikes you on one cheek, you are to offer the other cheek as well?

That if you hate someone it's just as bad as murder?

That if you call someone a fool you're liable to the hell of fire?

That if you have lustful thoughts it's just as bad as adultery?

That if someone compels you to walk a mile, you should voluntarily walk a second mile?

That not only are you supposed to be non-violent, but more than that, you are supposed to love your enemies?

That the meek, of all people!, will inherit the earth.

(As Garrison Keillor once said, "it may be true that the meek will inherit the earth, but so far they only have North Dakota!")

Suppose for a moment that the Gospel writer Matthew had never collected different sayings of Jesus and assembled them into the Sermon on the Mount. Suppose that a preacher like me simply said them one morning from the pulpit:

That the one who begs or borrows is never to be refused.

That if someone strikes you on one cheek, you are to offer the other as well.

That if you call someone a fool you're liable to go straight to hell.

What would you say after the worship service? "Thank you, pastor, your sermon really made me think" ?

I think not! I suspect that you would be utterly astounded, like I had punched you in the face!

Through the years there's been a debate among Christians about how best to interpret the Sermon on the Mount. Did Jesus really expect us to live out these teachings, or did Jesus' teachings represent some kind of ideal that we could never attain in this lifetime, and thus serve primarily as a reminder of our need for grace?

It seems to me that Jesus, according to the Gospel writer Matthew at least, answers that question for us:

Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who builds a house upon the rock.

Jesus did not say, "Well, if you're a truly wise person, then you would know not to take my words too literally, and you could pat yourself on the back for being so sophisticated."

No, instead, Jesus says "everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who builds a house upon the rock."

In the words of preacher and scholar Tom Long:

Jesus calls those who hear his message to put his words into practice, because the Sermon on the Mount expresses God's will not just for the church but also for the world. The commands of the sermon describe what it means to be fully human, not just what it means to be religious. Only a life based upon the vision embodied in the Sermon [on the Mount] can stand firm and true when all the storms of life have done their worst.

 The house of greed washes away when the rains of economic crisis come.

The house of power collapses when the political climate changes.

The house of pragmatic living-for-the-moment slips off the foundation when life opens up with a mystery like birth, deep suffering, or death. (Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion, pp. 84-85). 

 But a house built upon the vision that Jesus gives us in the Sermon on the Mount is sturdy enough to stand through any storm of life.

When the Gospel writer Matthew sets up the scene for the Sermon on the Mount, he invites us to imagine Jesus speaking to two different groups--first, to the disciples, who have come near, and then, secondarily, to the crowds, who are close enough to overhear.

Jesus, therefore, is speaking symbolically through the disciples to the world, anticipating the mission of the church to teach all the nations to obey everything Jesus has commanded. (Long, p. 46)

You could say that Jesus is creating the church, giving birth to a separate reality in the midst of the crowds. The disciples are being made into a new community, the ecclesia--the called out--the word that Matthew uses for "church."

And the church is called to embody these teachings of Jesus, to show--primarily through their actions, not simply their words--that these teachings are indeed God's will for the whole world.

From time to time, I invite us to look at a statement that is printed on the Announcements page in our bulletin. It's a statement that was first used in our bulletins when Bruce White was pastor (1971-2000). Each week the statement is included in the very first paragraph. It reads:

What does it mean to be a Christian church in our time? We believe it means that we have decided to take seriously the teachings of Jesus about the Way of Life. It means that we have made a commitment to be open to the power of God's love.

As a church we have decided to build a house on rock. We have decided to take seriously the teachings of Jesus about the Way of Life. This means that we will not fit into "a crowd that seeks its security in prestige, property, or propriety." (Roland Perdue) Instead, we will be part of a group that looks to the birds of the air and considers the lilies of the field, knowing that our ultimate security lies with God.

These days our Monday morning study group has been reading short stories by Flannery O'Connor. She once wrote, "the Bible says, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. It should have said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd."

When we talk about the meek being blessed, or about the command to love our enemies, we will indeed seem odd.

I invite you sometime soon to read through the Sermon on the Mount. It's found in Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7. It takes about eight or nine minutes to read through silently. Read through it and let it sink in how odd it is, but also how life-giving it is.

As a church, we--the members and friends of Katonah Presbyterian Church--have said that we intend to take seriously the teachings of Jesus, which means that we are called to do this work together.

Together, we do our best to apply the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount to our own lives and the life of our community.

We learn to talk about each other in ways that honor the child of God in each one of us. When Jesus says that if you say "you fool" you'll be liable to the hell of fire, he is engaged in a bit of word play. That word translated hell is gehenna in Greek, and it refers to the place outside the city walls where trash was burned. Don't trash-talk anyone, Jesus says, or you might be taken out with the trash yourself.

As a church, we do our best to interpret the hard sayings and difficult commands in the Sermon on the Mount. When, for instance, Jesus spoke very strict words prohibiting divorce, he was speaking primarily to a situation in which men would attempt to abandon their wives on a whim while relying on the technicality of obtaining a certificate of divorce. (see Long, pp. 58-60).

So how do we apply Jesus' words about divorce to our own day and time? As a church we should do everything we can to support couples who are doing their best to honor the commitments that they have made to each other. At the same time, the church should support those who have concluded that the most loving, most honorable path available to them is to sever the marriage ties. In both instances, we are taking the words of Jesus seriously, and doing our best to figure out what it means to follow Jesus in our own day and time.

As we take seriously Jesus' teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, we realize that the famous Golden Rule--do unto others as you would have them do unto you--is not simply another way of saying that if you scratch my back, then I'll scratch yours. Instead, in the words of Tom Long, we learn to interpret the Golden Rule in the context of the entire Sermon on the Mount.

What do the children of God want others to do to them? They want to be recognized as who they are, God's very own people, and they want to live in a world where mercy, meekness, and peace prevail. So, Jesus now calls them to treat the world in the same way, to treat the world as if it were already restored, as if it were already what it one day will surely be, a place were the merciful God is all in all and humanity is gathered at the great and joyous banquet. (Long, p. 81)

Are you astounded yet?

I know I am.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Please feel free to use comments section below to post observations or ask questions.

Consider the Lilies

     (thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon from February 3, 2019.

Last week there was a story on the BBC about a mother and daughter in Chippenham, England. The mother has dementia, and one day the mother was being visited by her GP, Dr. Philip Grimmer. He noticed a whiteboard that had been positioned in his patient's line of sight. On that whiteboard were written such messages as:

YOU'RE OKAY.
EVERYONE'S FINE.

YOU'RE NOT MOVING.
NO ONE IS MOVING.

YOU HAVEN'T UPSET ANYONE.
YOU DON'T OWE ANYONE ANY MONEY.

When asked, the daughter explained to Dr. Gimmer that she had written on the whiteboard the responses to her mother's most frequently asked questions. The daughter said that her hope was to reduce the number of frantic phone calls that her mother made to her and to other family members, but more than that, the hope was that the whiteboard would relieve her mother's anxiety.

Dr. Grimmer told the BBC that he had not seen anything like it before in thousands of house calls. "It's caring, reassuring, and sensible," he said. "It's such a simple idea."

Dr. Grimmer had tweeted a photo of the whiteboard messages to a few of his interested colleagues, and since then the tweet has been liked over 40,000 times and has helped spark a global conversation about caring for people with dementia. (see Kris Bramwell, "Dementia Whiteboard touches hearts around the world", BBC News, February 1, 2019)

It seems to me that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus has done something very much like taking a whiteboard and writing on it the messages that we most need to hear when our own chronic anxiety threatens to overwhelm us.

To those of us who obsessively worry about having enough--enough money, enough health, enough time--Jesus takes a dry erase marker and writes on a whiteboard for everyone to see:

DO NOT WORRY ABOUT YOUR LIFE,
WHAT YOU WILL EAT OR DRINK,
OR ABOUT YOUR BODY ABOUT WHAT YOU WILL WEAR.

IS NOT LIFE MORE THAN FOOD,
AND THE BODY MORE THAN CLOTHING?

Jesus continues:
LOOK AT THE BIRDS OF THE AIR,
THEY NEITHER SOW NOR REAP
NOR GATHER INTO BARNS,
AND YET YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER FEEDS THEM.

And then later Jesus says:
CONSIDER THE LILIES OF THE FIELD, HOW THEY GROW;
THEY NEITHER TOIL NOR SPIN, YET I TELL YOU,
EVEN SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY WAS NOT CLOTHED LIKE ONE OF THESE.

As preacher and scholar Thomas G. Long points out:

At first, Jesus' words about the birds and the lilies, lovely as they are, are not very compelling. Sure, birds and lilies don't worry about life, but they also don't have mortgages, car payments, grocery bills, and college tuitions to keep them awake at night. All of us would like to be relieved of worry and anxiety, but Jesus appears to be suggesting an unrealistic strategy--"look at the birds, look at the lilies"--to which one is tempted to reply, "Yes, but look at the bills!" (Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion, p. 75)

Jesus is not suggesting that human beings can be like birds or lilies. Instead, Jesus is using a teaching technique that was fairly common in his day--arguing from the lesser to the greater. If God so generously provides for the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, then how much more so will God also provide for you and me?

There is something else we should notice. The verbs look at the birds of the air and consider the lilies of the field are, in New Testament Greek, very strong verbs. (Long, p. 75)

Jesus is essentially imploring us to scrutinize the birds of the air and painstakingly examine the lilies of the field.

What is it that Jesus wants us to see?

The poet Mary Oliver died last month, and I'm reminded of her admonition to "pay attention," which she said is "our endless and proper work."

In her poem "Wild Geese," Mary Oliver wrote:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert,
repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of
your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will
tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles
of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the
clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and
exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
(Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese," originally published in Dream Work, 1986)

In telling us to scrutinize the birds of the air and painstakingly examine the lilies of the field, Jesus is inviting us--no, Jesus is commanding us, compelling us--to look, really look,

at a world where God provides freely and lavishly, a world where anxiety plays no part, where worry is not a reality. Jesus [tells] us to allow our imaginations to enter such a world, to compare this world with the world in which we must live out our lives. (Long, pp. 75-76)

The rent is still due, of course.
Middle schoolers still have to contend with school bullies and all kinds of social pressure.
More than a few of us anxiously await the results of the latest medical scan.

But as Tom Long reminds us:

We have seen this other world, this world of God's gracious and tender care, and it promises to overthrow the power of anxiety. We still worry [about all kinds of things, but having seen this other world, we now know] that there is nothing in this world that can take away what God provides--dignity, a sense of worth, the confidence of being treasured in the heart of God. (Long, p. 76)

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.

Questions for Discussion:

1. What would your whiteboard tell you to stop worrying about?

2. How compelling do you find Jesus' admonition to look at the birds of the air and consider the lilies of the field?