Coming Up Short

-Have you ever come up short in your attempts to get something done?

-Have you ever tried to pull something really cool together and it didn’t quite work out?

-You are in good company. The disciples come up short, way short in their attempts to feed the thousands of people in today’s Gospel lesson. {PAUSE}

-Let me share with you one of my greatest moments in dating

-I showed up to her door. I was dressed to the 9s.

-I had a linen shirt and linen slacks on with Italian leather loafers and a silk tie.

-I looked like a million bucks.

-At least as much as I can look like a million bucks.

-Fortunately, the outfit didn’t cost that much.

-So my girlfriend at the time has cooked an amazing Italian dinner for me

-I brought over a bottle of wine

-After we enjoy a little conversation, the dinner is ready to be served

-I go over and begin opening the wine.

-As I shoved the corkscrew into the bottle, the cork went down the neck.

-There was no way that the cork was coming back up so I decided to push it down.

-It came loose in a flash and wine came up as if shot out of a cannon.

-I had red wine all over the ceiling, the wall behind me, my shirt, my pants, the floor, her table. It was a gigantic mess.

-My attempt to be suave and debonair came up way short.

-However, the bottom line is I got the girl.

-Here’s a good lesson in life guys, any woman who will marry you after you’ve made a complete fool out of yourself is a keeper because you will spend a good deal of your life making a fool out of yourself. At least she’s used to it. {PAUSE}

-In the Gospel lesson for today, Philip and Andrew are in way over his heads.

-You could say that at least Philip understood that he was in way over his head because he didn’t even try to come up with a solution.

-You do have to commend him as well because he is pretty good at math. He computed how much money it would take to buy food for all the people pretty quickly. He must have been an accountant or something in his pre-Apostolic days.

-Can you imagine his fear and trepidation?

-Imagine seeing thousands of people stampeding toward you and your boss asks you to get some food to feed them. {PAUSE}

-When I was a young second lieutenant, I had been at my first duty assignment for about two months.

-When I first showed up almost the entire battalion was at a training exercise working with a National Guard unit in Louisiana so I was the rear detachment commander.

-The second month, I finally got to meet everyone in my chain of command ever so briefing before we started our train up for our Expert Infantryman’s Badge testing.

-The EIB consists of a PT test, day and night land navigation, a 12 mile road march with a 70 lb pack in under 3 hours and 30 stations.

-You have up to two attempts at any one station. You cannot double NO GO any one station. You cannot receive more than two NO GOs. The pass rate for most units is about 5%.

-As we were training up, the FORSCOM commander (a four star general), landed his helicopter on our parade field

-We were being instructed on how to call for and adjust indirect fire (artillery)

-After the sergeant completed the training he asked if there were any questions

-No one dared to ask anything

-The FORSCOM commander stepped forward and said, “Well, if there aren’t any questions then let’s have someone demonstrate. How about you?”

-He pointed right at me

-I was scared to death.

-I was either going to pass or fail in front of my entire chain of command, company commander, battalion commander, brigade commander, division commander and the FORSCOM commander. {PAUSE}

-I think I know a little how Philip felt seeing those thousands of people and feeling pretty inadequate for the task.

-But then look at Andrew.

-He’s a real winner

-He ends up bringing a garden hose to a fire fighting party

-One of my favorite shows is “Everybody Loves Raymond”

-I love the episode where Ray sets the kitchen on fire and drags in the hose from outside and was trying to get the water to hit the kitchen from the living room instead of just using the fire extinguisher in the kitchen.

-Andrew coming up with the brilliant idea to bring forward the kid with the five loaves of bread and two fish was a stroke of genius

-It is amazing what God can do with our ineptitude {PAUSE}