FOCUSING Matthew 14:13-21 Theme of the Month Worship as a Lifestyle
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Sharp
Lead Pastor, English Congregation Vancouver Chinese Baptist Church, Vancouver, British Columbia
Sunday Sermon for 31 October 2010
Scripture Passage Matthew 14:13-21
When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. 13
As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” 15
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Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
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“We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.
“Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. 18
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There are many things that I could say today in my last VCBC sermon, but what I want to leave with you are some thoughts about faith and hope and trust in the midst of the difficult, even apparently impossible challenges that face us. Some of you might be familiar with the Rev. Robert Schuller. He is known for his emphasis on positive thinking or possibility thinking as he calls it. In one of his books he tells about a man he once met on a flight to Los Angeles. The man was a mathematician named George Dantzig. Schuller made the comment to Dantzig that this was the first time it had occurred to him that there was a field to which positive thinking didn’t apply. Mathematical problems have only one right answer, so they can’t be affected in any way by how a person thinks. Dantzig said Schuller was wrong. Dantzig went on to say that during the Depression he had been a student of mathematics at the University of California-Berkeley. People were hungry and desperate for any job they could get. Dantzig, along with all his other classmates, desperately wanted the job of assistant teacher in the math department. Rumor had it that the person who scored the highest grade in a certain math course would get the job. Dantzig worked unbelievably hard in this one class. He was determined to be the high scorer. But on the day of the final exam, George Dantzig overslept. He got to the exam late. The teacher handed Dantzig a piece of paper with eight math problems on it. Dantzig thought he could handle those eight problems just fine, but then he noticed two more problems on the board. He finished the eight problems in the time allotted, but asked the professor for extra time to finish the last two. The professor gave him an extension on his exam. George Dantzig was convinced that he was as smart as anybody else in the class. And if somebody in the class could figure out those two problems, he thought, why couldn’t it be me? After all, the assistant teacher’s job was riding on these two problems. So Dantzig labored over these problems all week, and finally solved them on Friday, just before his extension deadline. A few days later, Dantzig was awakened by a pounding on his door. He opened it to find his professor in a state of high excitement. The professor asked George if he had come to class late on exam day. He admitted that he had. The professor explained that the exam had only consisted of the eight problems on the exam paper, which he had solved perfectly. The two problems on the board had been put up there for fun. They were classic mathematical problems that no mathematician had ever been able to solve. Even Einstein had been unable to crack them. The professor had explained at the beginning of class that these two problems had so far been unsolvable, but the students were welcome to play around with them. Because George Dantzig was late to class that day, he never heard that these problems were unsolvable. If he had known that Einstein couldn’t solve them, he wouldn’t have even attempted them himself. But because no one had told him that it couldn’t be done, he had done it! There’s a lesson here. Be very careful when you say something can’t be done. I am sure that Jesus’ disciples thought he was in over his head that day when he set out to feed a multitude of 5,000 men and perhaps a greater number of women and children with only five
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loaves of bread and two fish. The disciples probably said to themselves, it can’t be done! Impossible! It’s like something Charles F. Kettering once said when he was Research Head of General Motors. When he wanted a problem solved, Kettering would call together his staff. However, he would first place a table outside the room where they would be meeting with a sign that read like this: “Leave [your] calculators and hand-held computers here.” If he didn’t do that, he says, he’d find someone reaching for his calculator or computer in the middle of the meeting. In a few minutes, this person would be on his feet saying, “Boss, you can’t do it.” Isn’t that true no matter what we try to accomplish in life? There is always someone saying, “You can’t do it.” “You can’t lose that weight. You can’t get that job. You can’t make that marriage work. You can’t really change. You can’t…; you can’t…you can’t....” And because we listen to people who say it can’t be done, we give up. There is an autobiography titled In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work. It is written by a woman named Rita Levi Montacini, an Italian scientist. By looking back over her life as a scientist, she is convinced that in research, neither intelligence nor efficiency are what really count. What counts, she says, is a tendency to underestimate difficulties. When you underestimate difficulties, she argues, you are more apt to tackle problems other, more reasonable, persons say can’t be solved. That’s true in almost every area of life, isn’t it? How does an athlete progress? He or she thinks about doing their best or succeeding. Then that athlete follows the steps they must take to accomplish that goal. An example of an athlete using such positive powers is Franklin Jacobs, one of the world’s leading high jumpers a few years back, though he is only five feet eight inches. “People have been asking me one basic question,” he says. “How can a guy five-eight jump twenty-three and a half inches over his head? Quite honestly,” says Jacobs, “I never thought of myself as being small. Height to me is just a relative thing. When I approach that bar, I think I’m six-six.” Jacobs was a winner because he didn’t listen to people who said he couldn’t do it. The preacher/professor Dr. William H. Willimon tells of being in East Germany sometime back when his knowledgeable, university professor-type friends declared to him: “The [Berlin] wall will never come down, not in our lifetime.” Period! Fact! But two weeks later the wall was history. There are always people who focus on what can’t be done or what can’t happen. Jesus’s disciples were like that. They were focusing on their problems—not their possibilities and certainly not the grace and power and presence of God. But Jesus knew otherwise. His focus was on something else. Jesus was focused on the presence and promise of God. And so Jesus told them to give the crowd something to eat and they said, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” Now, look at the passage. Did Jesus ask them what they had to work with? No! Did he ask them if any of them had any experience in the catering business? No! Jesus knew that nothing undertaken at God’s command and with the resources God gives is impossible. It doesn’t matters how big or small that task may be. If God tells us to go out and feed a hungry world—not only FOCUSING 3
with physical bread but also with the bread of life which is the Word of God—is that impossible? No! If Christ tells us to make disciples of all people, is that impossible? No! If the Holy Spirit invades our fellowship and tells us there are things we can do to make this church a better church and this community a better community, is that impossible? No! No task carried out at God’s instruction is impossible. Our God is a God of possibilities and surprise. Jesus knew that and so he took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, he blessed them, and breaking the loaves he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the multitudes, and they all ate, and, according to Matthew’s Gospel, they were all satisfied—5,000 men and an untold number of women and children—they all had plenty to eat. Impossible! But somehow, some way it happened. Matthew gives us no explanation as to how it occurred. Some say it was a supernatural miracle accomplished by Jesus’ power as the Son of God. Some scholars believe that it occurred because most of the people carried with them a little pouch on their person containing food and they shared. We don’t know how this miracle occurred and it really doesn’t matter. What difference does it make how God works? If God wants to miraculously multiply loaves and bread, that’s wonderful. If God wants to open up people’s hearts and cause them to move beyond their comfort zones and share with one another, that’s great, too. The point is people were fed. Everyone had plenty to eat, and baskets full of food were left over. But here is the point of this story for our lives today: Trust God. God is a God of miracles. God can take a very little and make it into much. God can take a present full of uncertainty and disappointment and confusion and turn it into a future with hope and promise. If God commands it, then God can accomplish it. In the late 1920s, Bert Webb was pioneering a church in Granada, in the American state of Minnesota. One night word came to him that an elderly Civil War veteran, Colonel Trumble, wanted to see him. So traveling some 30 miles into the country, Pastor Webb came to the bedside of the old soldier. “I’m not going to make it, Preacher,” the colonel said, “and I want to tell someone about a miracle I experienced during the Civil War.” In feeble tones the man told of being one of many Union soldiers imprisoned at the infamous Andersonville, Georgia, prisoner-of-war camp, a prison where men died by the thousands. Food was scarce, Colonel Thimble recalled, but perhaps even worse was the scarcity of water. In desperation, he said, one day he and several other prisoners went to the western edge of the camp and kneeled in prayer. “We prayed that God would help us,” he said. “To our surprise, in a few minutes a hug black cloud came and stood above the stockade. Suddenly, a brilliant flash of lightning burst out from the cloud, striking a huge rock and splitting it apart. A stream began to gush out and continued to flow.”
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Webb thanked the dying man, prayed with him, and returned home. It was a fascinating story, but he wondered if perhaps it was just a figment of the imagination of a dying soldier. So for 5 years he kept the story to himself. In spring 1935 Webb was speaking at North Highlands Assembly of God in Columbus, Georgia, on “The Water of Life.” He suddenly felt impressed to tell the story. After the service people swarmed around him. “We know about that spring,” they said. “The site of Andersonville is just a few miles from here. The story is true.” The next day Webb went with friends to the site. There in the center of the former camp was the spring with a stone spring house covering the rock from which the water flowed. And above the door was a sign that read “Providence Spring”, commemorating the miracle that had produced it. God is a God of miracles. God can provide for our needs. God can help us accomplish our dreams. God can sustain us when the circumstances around us weigh us down and discourage us. God can take our little, our little faith and turn it into much. This means, as followers of Jesus Christ, we need to dream great dreams—because God is a God who rewards great dreams. What is your dream? Do you have a personal dream? Building your own business—educating your children—going back to school—finding a mate; moving forward into uncharted waters. If your dream comes from God, it can be accomplished. What is your dream for this church? A greater ministry to young people—an outreach to our community—a warm fellowship where everyone feels loved and needed and cared for? A place where everyone is empowered to find their gift and their place of service? A community of healing and wholeness where emotional hurts are healed and where vulnerability and compassion are permanent features/virtues? If it comes from God, it can be accomplished. Jesus blessed the bread and the fishes and many persons were fed and baskets full were left over. God wants to do something extraordinary in your life and in the life of this church. God wants to take our little and turn it into much. God wants to take our dreams and use them to God’s glory. Will we give God a chance? I don’t know how you are feeling today. Some of you have told me that you feel lost, drifting, rudderless, not sure of your direction or the direction of the church. It is a difficult and challenging time. We are all sad, we are all wondering how God is going to bring good out these circumstances, but the reality is that God can and God will, IF we learn to trust him and trust one another. Gardner Taylor is an African American pastor and a great preacher. He likes to tell about his early days in ministry when on one Sunday night during the Depression all the electricity went out in the church. Taylor was right in the middle of his sermon, but he was silenced by the sudden darkness. Then, a deacon called out from the back of the church, “Preach on, preacher, we can still see Jesus in the dark Do we believe that—that we can still see Jesus in the dark—the dark times of our lives? FOCUSING 5
We can help each other to remember that and live in that promise. Herman Ostry was a farmer who had a problem. His barn floor was under twenty-nine inches of water because of a rising creek. So he invited a few friends to a barn raising. He needed to move his entire 17, 000 pound barn to a new foundation more than 143 feet away. A seemingly impossible task. His son Mike devised a network of steel tubing, and nailed, bolted, and welded it on the inside and outside of the barn. Hundreds of handles were attached. After one practice lift, 344 volunteers walked the barn up a slight incline, each supporting less than fifty pounds. In just three minutes, the barn was on its new foundation. Like those friends, the body of Christ can accomplish great things when they work together; when we remind each other that we are God’s people and that God is with us and God desires to honored in us and through us.. My friends, perhaps there is some worry in your life right now—some uncertainty that Christ is with you as you look at your present and move into the future. Maybe all you see around you is darkness. All you see and feel is uncertainty. I would ask you to check your focus and focus on Christ—the Christ who is high and lifted up. The Christ who is there in the darkness. The Christ who promises us his Holy Spirit to guide and to strengthen us is not far from you. Someone once said that there are three kinds of people found within the walls of the church, first there are the rowboat people. They are pulling with all their strength at the oars as they try to row up the stream. They make some progress. But it is difficult going against the current. In their effort to row upstream, they get all worn out. Second, there are the sailboat people. Given the right winds, the right kind of environment, their sails are full and ready to travel for God. For a time everything is wonderful. But when the winds stop blowing, the boat stops sailing and begins drifting. These people often get depressed and don’t amount to much for God until the new wind blowing in the right direction comes along. Third, there are the steamboat people. The steamboat doesn’t care about the current. It does not care about the wind. It is powered by fire and water that turns the great propellers and moves it to its destination, regardless of wind or weather. It is only when we allow Christ to come into the center of our lives and take control and indeed be Lord, that we can be a steamboat person. And steamboat people don’t stand around wringing their hands, overwhelmed by the size of the challenges, they get to work. So today and the weeks and months ahead, are you focusing on the darkness—the uncertainties and the challenges or are you focusing on Christ?
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Reflection Questions 1. As you read and reflect on today’s scripture passage (Matthew 14:13-21) what are your thoughts, reactions, questions? 2. Have you ever been told that you can’t do something? How did you feel? 3. How do you think Jesus’ disciples felt about Jesus’ charge: “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat”? 4. Have you ever found yourself focusing more on the problem or challenge or difficulty rather than the resources which God places at your disposal? Why? 5. Have you ever experienced a “miracle”? 6. What are some of your personal dreams? Dreams for the church? What do you think God would have you to do to make these a reality? 7. Have you ever had the experience of “seeing Jesus in the dark”? What are you going through now that having this promise can provide hope? 8. How can we help one another to remember that no matter how dark it might be, we can “still see Jesus in the dark”? 9. Of the three kinds of church people mentioned, what kind are you? 10. What questions, thoughts, reactions do you have to today’s sermon?
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