Church on Morgan
The Story God Keeps Telling Us
[MUSIC PLAYING] From Church on Morgan, a United Methodist congregation whose desire is to be a reminder of the beauty of God and each other. This podcast is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised Common Lectionary and recorded weekly in Raleigh, North Carolina. And now a moment of silence before this episode begins. [MUSIC PLAYING] This morning's Gospel text comes from the book of John. And we're going to be looking at the first 14 verses. Here now the word of the Lord. John writes that after this, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberius. And a large crowd kept following him because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and he sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. And so when he looked up and he saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, where are we to buy bread for these people to eat? And he said this to test him for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little. And one of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, well, there is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people? Jesus said, make the people sit down. Now there was a great deal of grass in the place. So they sat down, about 5,000 in all. And 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. And when they were satisfied, he told his disciples, gather up the fragments left over so that nothing may be lost. And so they gathered them up. And from the fragments of the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten, they filled 12 baskets. And when the people saw the sign he had done, they began to say, this is indeed the prophet who was to come into the world. Friends, this is the Word of God for us, the people of God. Thanks, beautiful. So just kind of room check real quick. Where are my half glass half empty people? Who are the glass half empty folks? It's a safe space. Glass half empty. OK, OK. We should be more comfortable owning that. And so let me just-- our worship team this morning, there's six or seven of us involved in leading worship. We went around the circle and answered this question. All of us but one were glass half empty people. So that's who's leading you. I apologize. So glass half empty people. Where are we? Like, we can own this. Yeah, we're real lists. We're just-- our eyes are open, OK? Glass half full people. Where are glass half full people? OK. So this might take a little bit. This sermon may or may not be for you half full people. But try to empathize, just try for a minute to empathize with the rest of us. Here's what it feels like to be a glass half empty guy. I really don't feel like I have enough, right? I don't have enough in savings, at least according to Ramsey. I definitely don't have enough in retirement. My family is fine and well fed, and we are clearly in the 1% of this world. And yet, if I was being honest with you, I would tell you we-- I don't have enough to provide for them in the ways I dream of providing. But it's not just money. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time for all the things I need to get done. There aren't enough days in the week and if hours in the day, enough years in this life, I thought I'd be much further along in many regards than I am right now at the past halfway point. I don't have enough time. I don't have enough energy to get done what I feel like I should get done. Chuck's laughing because he watched me quit on the work site earlier this week at Neighbor to Neighbor 30 minutes early. I'm like, I'm out. I can't paint any longer. I'm done. I know I'm the leader, but I'm going home. I don't have enough. I don't have enough. I don't have enough. I wonder if you-- I'm glad the two-thirds of you in the room have more than enough. The rest of us doesn't always feel like I have enough. Truth is, it's not just that I don't have enough if I'm being really honest. I don't think I'm enough. I don't think I'm enough. At least, definitely not in this job. I've been doing this for over 20 years. It is so disheartening to me that this morning at 6 o'clock, I was at Starbucks crying out to the God of heaven to spare me once again. I have nothing to say. I've been wrestling with this text all week. These people are showing up with very real needs, living very real lives, making space and time, hoping to connect with God, and I've got nothing. I have nothing, which this morning, I was at a brand new hidden Starbucks that I'm not going to tell you where it's at. I was the only customer there. I got the park right in front of the doors. It's somewhere downtown. That's a clue. But I walk in. They give me my cup of coffee. I'm the first person who's entered. I go sit down. I begin to sort of cry out for mercy once again. It happens week after week after week. And I noticed that it looks like they've written my name on the cup. But I'm the only person in the store, so they didn't ask me my name. So I'm like, who do they think I? And so I slide the sleeve down, and it just says, not everyone has to like you. And I was like, oh, God. [LAUGHTER] I was like, will you help me write my sermon? You know, I was just like, I don't have enough. I'm not enough. I can feel the need in this room, and I'm overwhelmed by it, and intimidated by it. And I don't have the answers that you're looking for. I can't offer the healing that I want to provide. You know, strengths finder. Some of you all ever take strengths finder, right? So a lot of companies, corporations use this. It's basically there are 34, 35 of these strengths that they have identified through research of just what humans bring to the table. And the idea is that you take this assessment, and it will tell you what your top five strengths are. And so when you're interviewing, when you're kind of presenting yourself, you lead out in this place. And it's also kind of like this-- the framework is this idea that you would do much better to play to your strengths and to spend your whole life trying to make up for your weaknesses. So if you know what your strengths are, position yourself and leverage them, right? And so some of you in the room could tell me what your top five strengths are. That's the point of taking the tests. There's 35 of them, but you're trying to figure out what are my five? What are the most highest value add I bring to the table? And I hesitate to tell you this, but this week, I thought it would be interesting to look at my bottom five, which I've never read that far down in the deal. So just to kind of like, half of this room doesn't need convincing, but let me just tell you who your founding pastor is. These are my bottom five strengths. These are my most profound weaknesses in leadership, OK? First, positivity. People with the strength of positivity are upbeat, and they get others excited. It would have been helpful. It would have been helpful to have that in the top five. Second, greatest weakness. We're working our way to the bottom of the barrel. So we're at like 30, we're going to go to 31, 32, all the way through. Second, greatest weakness, developer. People with this strength find great satisfaction in helping others improve. Also, leading a team would have been coming in clutch to have this ability. Third, I swear you start using this stuff against me, and we will ask you to leave the church. But third, empathy. See, now you're asking the same questions that people who gave me this gig asked. People with this gift can sense other people's feelings, once again. And fourth, we're nearly to the bottom. Fourth, included. These are people who notice those who feel out and make them feel included. Would have been so helpful and an inclusive and affirming church. And I'm so glad, Gaudia, Michael, that you're here, and you got married this week, and we're so pumped for it. [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] Bottom, bottom. Biggest weakness, this guy, right here. Harmony. The ability to build consensus. I can't tell you the church runs on consensus. This is the gig, right? I was reminded of this this week as I'm like, we're interviewing people for a youth position and going, like, those are actually the top five things I might want in a senior leader and pastor. And they're my top five weaknesses. The only way you get a gig like this with a profile like that is you start this. No one will hire you for this. I am so over my head. I have been over my head from the day I started leading this. I know what it's like to feel like I'm not enough. I cannot do what I need to do in this room with these people. Maybe you, even some of you, half full people can relate to showing up in a partnership with a spouse and feeling like a commitment for life to live this closely to another human being is just radically crazy idea. I'm so overwhelmed, so over my head, at trying to pull this off. Parenting? I mean, if it was just me on this planet, all alone, caring for myself would be more than enough work to somehow care and raise and steward another person's life, sometimes multiple people's lives who show up very differently in our home with very different, like so over my head. Friend, being a decent friend, remembering birthdays and anniversaries and sending thank you. I mean, it is so beyond, like I just can't get my arms around it. And I know that sense that when you wake up and you go, I wish I had some good friends that is there that maxim, like be a friend to get a friend. I'm like, oh, I guess I'm a crappy friend is why I have no friends. Like this is, it can feel like a lot in this life. Like I don't have enough and I am not enough. For every room I walk into, there is no place where I show up and go, got it, killing it. I have extra, right? And this morning, I just start us there because it's the part that's connected with me emotionally in this story. It's like, if you know what it's like to feel like that, then you've got a friend in the disciples today. You've got a friend in this story of people who kind of look at their own lives and look at the room and the situation they found themselves in and just say, not only do I not have enough, I'm personally not enough to pull whatever this is off. In the face of this need, I've got nothing, or at least not enough. And in the room that they find themselves in, John tells us this, that they've been trying desperately to keep up with the Son of God, OK? Bit of a gap there. It's just sort of like, hey, live like me, guys. It's easy for you to say, Jesus. We've kind of built up slightly different stuff, at least it seems to us, right? And exhausted from watching him live in a totally different sort of upside down way, every day of his life, bringing healing and light and grace and mercy to all those who misunderstand him and hate him and come violently for him. Exhausted by all that, they finally get a break up on the side of a mountain where Jesus is like, let's take a little siesta. And as soon as they sit down, they see this massive crowd coming their way. We're told 5,000 needy people. And Jesus looks over at his disciples and goes, guys, where should we buy them something to eat? It's about dinner time. What are we going to get? What are we going to doordash for this crowd? It's like the most ridiculous question. Where are we going to buy them something to eat? Just an aside, this is why Jesus would not make it through one meeting on a finance committee at a church, not in the budget. Even if we had $40,000, we wouldn't spend it on a single meal for a room full of strangers, right? This is what Philip reminds him, is like, hey, none of us are flush with cash. I don't know if you missed that. Also, that's about 5,000 people. That would take half of a year's salary. Where are we going to buy them food? There's no shops. We have no money, right? What are you talking about? And so we get less of this in John's account. But in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we're told that the disciples react in the way that I find myself reacting in so many of the moments of my life. Is it facing this absurd reality of profound need in front of them with very limited capacity? The other gospel writers tell us that the disciples just say to Jesus when he goes, hey, where are we going to buy these folks something to eat? They say, Jesus, I think we should just send them away. Like, let's be honest, half a year's wages wouldn't cover this. We don't have money. There aren't no rest. There is no way. They need to go back where they came from. I hear that you care for these people, and they need to get dinner tonight. I agree. They should go eat. We should get some rest. They should turn around and return to where they came from. Can we please ask these people to go away? In my life, feeling overwhelmed, like I don't have enough, and that I'm not enough, I do the same thing. I send the need away. When it shows up, not today, camp. Sorry, on a way, to a meeting. Got something. Not right now, son. Not right now, daughter. We'll get there eventually. I can't. I don't. It's not in me. In the face of this assault of needs every day, by everyone we come in contact with, feeling overwhelmed in our own incapacity, our instincts are just to send them away. John tells us that-- and it's almost John's gospel. He always is telling us kind of like, almost Jesus' inner monologue. I don't know how he has access to that, or maybe he just knew Jesus well enough that eventually he figured it out. But he goes out of his way to tell us like he was messing with him. Like, Jesus was just messing with him. He was testing him, which is like so unfair. It's just kind of like, Jesus was like, all right, I knew you guys would fail, right? But he's testing them because this is content that they've heard and seen before and should know by now. This is one of the things that's most interesting about this story, right? This isn't the first time that they've had kind of this scene laid out in front of them of a bunch of hungry people with nothing to eat wondering how they would get by. These are Jewish folks who've grown up on their core story. Their core identity story is at the God of the universe. You rescued them from slavery. Led them for 40 years in the desert to freedom. And that every single day they woke up and wondered, how in the world are we going to eat? We have no money. There are no stores. Where will we find food? And day after day after day, God provided for them. Mayonna, bread from heaven, fed them daily again and again and again. Jesus says here, I'm going to paint you a picture. Let's see, it's a test. I wonder if you've ever heard. Let's judge the kind of capacity of your own Sunday school teachers. How did they do? Bunch of hungry people. What's our response? Send them away. We got no options, right? It's not just manna in heaven this week. I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you this. I didn't even know this story was in the Bible. The Old Testament story today, this from the book of Second Kings. And it tells the story of the prophet Elijah. One day is in front of 100 hungry, I believe soldiers or men. And Elijah says to his assistant, hey, let's feed all these guys. And the assistant says to Elijah, feed them. We have no food to feed them. I mean, I think there might be like 20 loaves of bread hanging out in the cupboard back there, but there's no way 20 loaves of bread is even going to make a dent in a crowd of 100 hungry soldiers. What are you crazy? And Elijah says, just start passing out the bread. And the servant begins to hand the bread to these soldiers and sure enough, all of them eat their fill with leftovers afterwards. These are our stories. These are the people of God's stories. These are his disciples stories. They've been raised on it. So Jesus stands in front of a crowd of 5,000 and he says, hey, where are we going to buy these guys food to test them? Have you been listening? Do you know our story? One of the things that I've sort of come to believe after just listening to preachers for a very long time is that I think deep down most preachers really just have one sermon. And they just preach it week after week, after week, over a lifetime through a variety of texts. But like if you listen to certain preachers long enough, like I have, there's certain folks who deeply shape my life and I've listened to them on podcasts for a decade, at a certain point you wake up and go, oh, every Sunday, they just say this same thing in a new lens in a new way. This is their one message. This is their big idea. This is the thing that they have been bringing their whole lifetime to, right? Like one of Sam and I's favorite preachers, a guy named Sam Wells used to be the Duke of Dean Chapel and is now the rector of St. Martin in the Fields in London's wonderful church there. He knows his core message. In fact, you probably know mine better than I do. I can't hear my own, but you could tell me what it is. But his is clear that the good news of the gospel is that God is with us. That's it. So if you ever listened to a Samwell sermon, at some point in time, he will remind you through that filter that the best news of all is that God is with us. He's just bringing this message all the time, his whole life. Doesn't matter what the content, context, sermon, it will always be God is with us. Listening that this week, I started wondering like, this is this story of Jesus miraculously feeding people. It's one of the few accounts that shows up in all four gospel texts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, doesn't happen often. And when you think about it, it's a little bit strange. Like, Jesus raises some people from the dead. There are folks miraculously healed that others are like, nah, don't need it, right? But the day that he turned it into like the golden corral, it's like, that's gotta stay. That, that one, that all you can eat buffet thing, we definitely have that in there, right? There's this sense that there's something about this story. In fact, some folks will say, not only is it in every four, every one of the gospels, but this story actually, some argue shows up six times in four gospels, believing that the account of Jesus feeding the 4,000 is just another riff on the 5,000. As if to say, two of these gospel writers thought, that story was so good, I couldn't get it done in once. So let me tell it to you twice. I'll just change the number, right? There's something here you can't forget. This is the story that God is always telling. So as much as you've heard this story, and I have, the challenge this week has been, keep listening, keep listening. This is perhaps the operating system that God is working with, that we are to hear. We get one interesting detail in this story from John's account that we don't get in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We're told that they're on the side of a mountain, that 5,000 people come, that Jesus says to his disciples, where we're gonna buy these people something to eat. The thing that John tells us that the other gospel writers don't tell us is that it was a little boy, you may know this, it may be in your imagination, right? Just from hearing the story. But it was a little boy who had five loaves and two fish. This is like classic VBS stuff, right? But it's only John who tells us it was a little boy, and all the other accounts, we just hear, there's five loaves and two fish. But in John's account, he tells us it was a little boy who had five loaves and two fish. One commentator this week began to tease that out, and say we shouldn't miss here, that it was a little boy who brought the beginning of the solution. Jesus himself tells us that the kingdom belongs to children, that the way that God operates in the world is like hardwired into kids. And then for whatever reason, we try to reprogram them in time, but they show up with a kingdom imagination. That you can hear a child as the adults discuss the absurd task of feeding 5,000 with nothing. You can hear a five-year-old going, I've got some bread, I've got some fish, and kind of rolling your eyes at it, right? And yet the commentator pointed out like this, is this not how children operate? Is this not sort of a glimpse into the truth, the way of this world and how God has built it, that what a kid says is like, if we have some, we have enough. If we have some, we have enough. There's kind of a faith there that says, well, I've got a little, it's not that we have nothing, we have something, look, I have something here, and something is enough. Here would be the North Carolina example of this. I grew up in New England. I lived in a town that got over 100 inches of snow every year. And when we moved to North Carolina 10 years ago, it's still snowed here, which hasn't happened in like four or five years. And sadly, I don't know if it ever will again. But when my kids were little, I remember the first couple of times that it snowed here. And it was like, we're shutting down school, two days in advance. We're all watching the news constantly. We've bought everything from the grocery store. We're at home in our cozy clothes with the fire. It's 45 degrees outside. We're like, it's coming, right? We go to sleep, you wake up in the morning, I hear my kids squealing, it's snowed, it's snowed. And I'm like, oh my God, that's amazing. I open the window and it's like a dusting, right? And I'm just like, no, that's not snow. That's frost, that's so sad, right? But as little kids, it's sort of like, no, it snowed. We want to go sledding, to which I'll be like, you can't sled in that. Like, let me show you a picture of what real snow looks like. Let me remind, like, where I grew up, we had snow so we could sled. You can't sled on this. That's like barely wet grass, right? But they persist and they put on their winter clothes, which are really fall clothes. And then it comes time for a sled. And we remember, oh yeah, we don't even have a sled. And Ace already sold out of the 15 they had, right? And so it's just kind of like, well, that's the second, there's no snow and we don't have a sled, to which it's like, I found this tray, or what if I use the bottom of this garbage can lid? Or what, and you're like, at a certain point, you're just like, go ahead, like, have your heart broken. Like, I'm sorry, I've tried to spare you the emotional discomfort of what's about to take place but go sit in our front yard, right? And lo and behold, they get out there on their makeshift sled on this fraction of a dusting of snow and somehow miracle of all miracle they make their way down. There's just a sense of like, I understand that the adults feel like this isn't enough but some is enough. This is the imagination of the kingdom. I don't have to see how the whole plan comes together. All I gotta know is I got enough to start working on it, right? There's this openness to this. It says, Jesus, like that child with the five loaves and the two fish, he said this to them to test them 'cause he already knew what he was gonna do. You know, like here, Jesus getting giddy, just like, oh, watch this. And he invites the boy over who seems like a nuisance, he takes the five loaves and it says that he tells him to have everybody seated and taking the loaves, he gives thanks to his father. He breaks it and he asks them to start passing it out. And as they pass it around, everyone has their fill, not just a little, but it's fully satisfied with 12 baskets of leftovers. A lot of people wanna get in the weeds of this thing. So what went down? People all start fessing up and sharing the little extra they had in their bag. They weren't kind of coming clean with, maybe. It's Jesus multiply the bread and the fish in like real time, every time something tears off another grows back, maybe. I think what's more important for us this morning is like a couple reminders for us adults who are living on an operating system that is so different than that of the kingdom of God. I wanna remind you that it's not just this story that gets told over and over again, but it gets told through every parable and miracle and healing that you see that there's not a single, parable in the gospels, a single story or sermon that Jesus ever taught where he said, there was a significant need in the world. And thanks be to God, fortune 500 company with huge market cap, stepped in and fixed it. It never happens that way. It's always some small, insignificant person, gift, contribution is put forth in the midst of a kind of daunting need and somehow something miraculous, glorious happens and it just grows and takes over. This is the story of the kingdom. Jesus is reminding us in this story that John is again and again, like what it means to be human. That one, that we keep our eyes open instead of like taking on the habit that just says whenever need shows up in our life, be as quick as you can to make it go away. No, see the need. Notice the need, bring the little you have, whatever that little something is, bring that little something to it and then leave the miracle to God, right? Which like side note, burnout is when you leave the miracle to you. This is kind of the reality that we're being invited into is that we wouldn't like the disciples be so overwhelmed by the need that we close ourselves off to it. We also wouldn't put ourselves in the seat of Jesus thinking that somehow the weight of the world is on our shoulders and we have to perform the miracle. We see the need, we bring the little we have to it, we wait for the miracle. This is what our life with God looks like. We've kind of had a front row seat. So this sort of story, you kind of wonder is this stuff still happened, it does. It's happening right now. We're gonna celebrate it happening tonight at this house at neighbor to neighbor. If you live in Raleigh or just America, I guess, at this point, right, you know that like affordable housing is like such a profound need. There are fewer and fewer people who feel like a taining home ownership is even like a possibility in this life, which is really devastating when we know like how beneficial it has been historically for people to generate wealth and to put their kids in a better situation and to pass that on. And so neighbor to neighbor our local partner that's been in the community serving for 25 years. 25 years ago, they listened to the community and they said, we need somebody to come along and support our students, to mentor them, to care for them, to educate them so that they can get the resources that some of their peers are, that they won't be so far behind and they got to work and they did that. And over 50 of you participated in that. Mentoring kids, it was amazing. And then later on, they said, but it's not just education. We need good jobs, especially for those who've had a bit of a rough start in this life, who've made a mistake or two or found themselves in a difficult position and now can't find themselves gainful employment and definitely not a dignified living wage. And so neighbor to neighbor began these social enterprises to create meaningful work and to help people get out of poverty and to find dignity in what they do every day. And then eventually they got to this point where they said, well, it's great when we're educating their children and when we're creating opportunities for employment. But if you don't have stable housing, if your life is always at the whim of some landlord who's changing the rent on you, always more than you can make, you will never actually get. And so they just sort of stare right into the mountain of affordable housing, which by the way, I don't even know, this houses aren't cheap, right? This isn't like bread and soup for a family. This is like a house. This is like, we're how, right? It's like the, who do we think's gonna solve this for us? But they just said, I see the need. I'm gonna bring the little I have and we'll wait for the miracle. And so neighbor to neighbor said, we see the need. We know you guys do too, quit acting like you don't. Church on Morgan, right? Other partners around the city. And we think it's worth at least bringing the little we have. We're gonna try and build a duplex and house two families that we think if they live there two or three years and they're able to save half of that, that they, we can put them on a home accelerator from their own house and then we'll do it again three years later. I understand it's only two families and may only add up to a dozen or so over the next decade, but it's still worth doing and we start with the need and the little we have and we see what happens. And so they've been doing that. We got the privilege to participate in that, to help give to that. This week, many of you've been helping paint that, right? And tomorrow or this week two families are gonna move in and their lives are gonna be profoundly changed because of that. It's a miracle, but here's the crazy part I heard this week. As I was sitting there at the house talking to Spencer and Roy's was that there was someone in our community, not church I'm organized to, but in Raleigh community, who heard what neighbor neighbor was doing and got curious. They invited them in, they showed them kind of the house, the model, what they were up to. This person says to neighbor to neighbor. So here's the deal. I actually own about an acre of land, right? A block or two away. And I've been planning on building 10 townhomes on it. I have all the blueprints and the plans, but after seeing what you're up to, I know now that that's what this land is for. And so if you're up for it, if you're interested, I would like to sell you this land that you can build 10 of these affordable housing units on for what I bought it for 25 years ago, right? $200,000. And with that, there's equity, immediate equity and leverage. And what started as a whole bunch of people go and how could you possibly make a dent in affordable housing? It'll take three churches and hundreds of people to come together to build one house, serves two families, and two just became 11 in your hearing, right? And from that 11, now there's a model that's being proven and working in the city that Raleigh can look at and say, well, it turns out we have a bunch of land that we're willing to make 99 year free leases on for anyone who's got a proven model. And now your dozen homes is moving in the direction of 30. And now the family, now we're in 100. Like, this is how the kingdom of God works, right? We see the need, we don't ignore it, we bring our little and then we wait for the miracle. I was talking to Royce about this and he just said, you know, in our world, they call this asset based community development. We just sort of go, the people in the community know what they need, they know what the solution is, and then there are also people in our community who have the resources. And so we just, we bring the whole community together to meet the need. And he says, this is what we do at Neighbor to Neighbor. We're community, but you also understand this is just the kingdom of God, right? This is a story to remind us that there is always more available than what we are bringing to the table. And it turns out that our lack, that our need, that me standing up here and kind of noting quickly that I'm terrible at X, Y, and Z, part of that is what draws other people in, allows other people to step up. It's in our lack and our need that we actually find connection. It's in our lack that we get qualified for the work we're doing, that we get to witness the miracle itself. This week I've been trying to battle these two lies that have been at work in my life for so long that I don't have enough and that I am not enough. And the way I've heard it clearest is Father Greg Boyle, he's become such like a clear voice in my life and for our church. And I came across this quote of his this week where he says this, he says that scarcity, like separation is an illusion. This is the lie, scarcity that we don't have enough, separation that we're all alone and not connected. This is an illusion. Jesus in this story, he keeps telling us, keeps reminding us that we have more than enough, that we have more than enough. And then when we don't have what we need, what we need is still available. It will just come from God and each other. And there will always be baskets left over. May we have an imagination for that. May our own scarcity, our own isolation be challenged this week. May we lean into the abundance of God and of this life. May we think about the problems of this world, the way a child would. The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. - Thank you for joining today. If this episode has been meaningful to you, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? To support this ministry or learn more about our community, visit us at churchonmorgan.org. (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]