Henrietta United Church of Christ
Rev. David Inglis July 30, 2006
John 6:1-14
"Living into Abundance"
Every time I dig into this story, I find something new and exciting. This
time, the story invited me to look at it through the eyes of three of the
main characters–Philip, the young boy, and Jesus. If you had been there,
I wonder which one you would have most identified with. 
Let’s start with Philip. He came from the area this story took place, so
it made sense for Jesus to ask him, "Where are we to buy bread for these
people?" But John tells us that Jesus wasn’t looking for the address of
the nearest super market. He was testing Philip, to see where he was in
his spiritual development. 
Philip answered Jesus, "Six months’ wages wouldn’t be able to buy enough
bread for each of them to have even a little." What does this tell us?
Philip was on the level where most of us live our lives–in the "real
world," where there’s only a certain amount of resource, money, power, or
love to go around. If you get more, I get less. So we have to compete for
our fair share. 
This seems very natural to us, because this is the way our whole society
looks at reality. But what if Jesus had looked at the food problem in
this story the way Philip saw it. Jesus might have responded to Philip’s
calculation like this:
"Wow, really? Six month’s wages, huh? Then we’ve got a problem on our
hands, don’t we? A hungry mob, high expectations–this could get ugly. You
and the others see if you can make them go home. Try to get them out of
here. Tell them their needs aren’t our problem. If they start getting
surly, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll tell them that young boy over
there is holding onto five loaves and two fish all by himself. When the
crowd starts mobbing him, we’ll all hightail it down to the boat, and
we’ll make our getaway across the Sea of Galilee before they can catch
us. Just make sure you bring your own food baskets with you."
If this had been Jesus’ response, the story would have turned out very
differently–and of course never made it into the Bible! But that’s the
kind of reality that we create when we operate on the fear of scarcity.
Someone sent me a picture of an ordinary toll booth. It seems that two
drivers were operating on the belief that time was so scarce, they
couldn’t afford to let the other go first and lose a few precious
seconds. From the looks of the picture, it was a tie. The only problem
was, there’s only room for one car in a toll booth lane. Both cars were
crunched into each other, and neither could move forward or backward. 
That’s a pretty accurate picture of the world we live in. Many Israelis
and Palestinians believe that the land is too scarce to support them
both. So they are destroying the beautiful country of Lebanon again.
Sunnis and Shi’tes believe that power is too scarce to share it in Iraq,
so they are daily bombing away hopes for a stable democracy. If you
approach your own family with the assumption that there’s not enough
love, appreciation, respect, or control unless you demand it or
manipulate for it, you know what kind of family life you’ll have. 
When we look at the world through the fear of scarcity, there may be
short-term winners, but everyone ends up losing peace and security, don’t
they? 
But there is another way to respond to the needs that are part of life.
In our Bible story, a young boy steps forward offering what he has–five
little barley loaves and two fish. 
Andrew is inspired by him, but then his calculating mind gets the best of
him and he feels overwhelmed by the problem. 
What does it take to go ahead and offer what you have when it won’t be
enough? This boy wasn’t acting in fear. He was stepping out in faith,
trust and hope, which inspire generosity and service. The question that
guided him wasn’t, "How can I get my fair share?" but "What am I called
to give?" He was living with the attitude expressed by Edward Everett
Hale, who said, "I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but
I can do something. The something I ought to do, I can do. And by the
grace of God, I will." 
To reach this stage of spiritual development, you have to expand your
awareness from what’s right in front of you and be open to the big
picture. In God’s eternal universe, there is truly no true lack, no
lasting loss, no death. In God’s universe, there is enough love, power,
and even physical resources for everyone. But they have to be shared for
everyone to experience their abundance. 
Jesus said, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly"
(John 10:10). God’s Spirit and God’s creation support life as it grows
and flourishes. Jesus came to show us how to tap into God’s awesome
creative energy that empowers us to grow and flourish in love, freedom,
creativity, courage, and fruitfulness.
A few weeks ago I was in a seminar called "The Art of Empowerment," where
we learned how to tap into this power in order to stretch towards our
fullest potential. I’d like to share something of what I experienced,
because it is already influencing how I approach my ministry. 
We began by becoming aware of where we felt stuck in our lives. I wanted
to work on the disconnected, stressed out feeling I get when I'm
operating under chronic time pressure. 
We were then led to envision our lives on the other side of the
stuckness. I envisioned myself flowing with life energy, being
open-hearted, creative, centered, and present to myself, others and God’s
Spirit in every moment. It was a very powerful, inviting vision for me. 
We then had to identify the limiting beliefs that held us back from
living into our vision. I realized that I had an unconscious belief that
if I didn't "produce" well enough in my work, people would be
disappointed and lose respect for me. If I don’t produce a tight,
polished sermon every Sunday, I think there’s a part of me that’s afraid
that the only one left in the congregation will be Carolyn, and she’ll be
yawning and looking at her watch. 
Our limiting beliefs often have a grain of truth in them. But they are
only a piece of the truth that gets greatly exaggerated. The bigger truth
here is that I’m not an entertainer and you’re not an audience who’s
going to walk out if I’m not polished enough. We’re a faith community,
and we’re here to experience the living Word of God coming alive in our
lives as fully as we can. That’s the focus. So I was able to turn my
limiting belief around by saying that I want to do ministry and lead
worship with the same trust in other people and in God's acceptance of me
as I preach about. So I didn’t write out and polish my sermon today,
because that puts my focus on my performance. I’m sharing more from my
heart and less from my memory, in hopes that this will bring God’s Word
more alive for us in our midst. [This manuscript was typed from my notes
and memory, which I’m doing because so many people receive my written
sermons. If you have experience with speech recognition software, please
let me know!] 
That reminds of the pastor who was telling a deacon how he prepared his
sermons. He said, "I always write out the first half. And the second half
I leave to the Holy Spirit." The deacon looked at him and said, "Welllll,
pastor, that’s pretty good. Your half is always better than the Holy
Spirit’s!" So I’ll count on you to let me know whether this way is more
helpful to you or not. 
The last step in our empowerment process was to envision our next action
step towards living into our vision. What came up inside me surprised me.
I realized that I need to continually feel caring towards myself
throughout the day. I saw how I let myself get stressed out because I
taught myself early on to ignore my own feelings and needs and charge
ahead towards my mind's goals. So I’ve been cultivating a more caring
awareness of what’s going on inside me, of when I’m losing touch with my
center, and of when I need to give myself a breather, so I can be a
better channel of spiritual love flowing through me. This is really
making a difference in my stress level and spiritual aliveness. 
This is how the presenters of the seminar see our world moving forward
toward a hopeful future–as people move through their self-imposed limits
and self-constricting fears and awaken to the fullness of who they are
and what they are called to give to the world. I’ll be offering a retreat
on his empowerment process in the fall for anyone who wants to growth
through their blocks and fears and experience empowerment in their lives.
 
I think something like this is what happened in today’s story in John’s
gospel. Jesus had ministered to the people, taught them, healed them, and
helped them get out of their fear and into their faith, out of their
grumbling and into their gratitude. Mark’s account of the story mentions
that Jesus had them sit down in groups, which would help them connect
with each other, person to person. So that for me, the miracle in the
story is that 5000 people together moved from a situation of scarcity to
one of abundance. They caught the attitude expressed by Vietnamese nun
Sr. Chan Khong, who said, 
If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is
to start right away doing whatever little work I can do. I try to give
joy to one person in the morning, and remove the suffering of one person
in the afternoon. If you and your friends do not despise the small work,
a million people will remove a lot of suffering.
This brings us to the third main character in the story–Jesus. He
demonstrated the highest level of spiritual development–the power to call
forth the best in the people around you, and the power to call forth the
kingdom of God from the world around you. 
I believe this is the primary way that Jesus saves us, redeems us,
transforms us, and sanctifies us. He was and continues to be a channel of
God’s amazing grace, boundless love, eternal truth, and transforming
wisdom. And when we open to these gifts, we loosen our grip on our fears,
our wounds, our resentments, our pride, our guilt, our shame, and our
selfishness. These are what the Bible calls sins–the things that separate
us from God, from each other, and from our deepest selves. It’s
interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus never said, "Worship me." He said
"Listen to my voice," and he repeatedly said, "Follow me." "Let this same
eternal love that fuels me fire you up and empower you to rise beyond
your fears, rise beyond the level of this world, and create with me a new
reality of love, generosity, faith, peace, and joy." Jesus wants us to
stretch and grow in our spirits to the point where we can join him in
creating a new world. 
So where are you in this story? Are you with Philip, who is held back by
the fear of scarcity and looking for how to get your fair share? 
Are you with the young boy, who was able to step forward in faith and
offer what he had to give?
Or are you even with Jesus, purposefully calling forth the best in people
and calling forth God’s kingdom out of the part of the world you’ve been
placed in? 
You know, how you answer that question will determine the kind of world
you create for other people, and the kind of world you create for
yourself.