Mark 6:30-44
“I Don’t Want to Feed ‘em; You Feed ‘em”
By: Rev. Ken Sauer, Pastor, Grace United Methodist Church, Soddy Daisy, TN
According to the Chattanooga Times Free Press, “Anthony Wayne sat in front of his makeshift tent Monday, his few belongings packed in two suitcases and three or four plastic tubs.”
“I’m packing up,” He said.
“I don’t know where I’ll go…”
Mr. Wayne, a retiree is among some 30-35 homeless people who had to vacate “tent city” this past week, an encampment of tarps and cast-off chairs along the railroad right-of-way off East 11th Street near the Community Kitchen.
On Tuesday morning Northern Southern Railroad left people without shelter as they bulldozed the encampment.
It is said that we have a “chronic” homeless population in the city of Chattanooga.
A displaced woman was escorted in the early morning darkness from the encampment by Norfolk Southern police as bulldozers ran over campsites.
The woman gave her name to be “Marie” and said she couldn’t recall her last name.
She talked about domestic abuse at her home before she became homeless.
Two ministers who rushed to the scene weren’t able to convince local mental health workers that “Marie” needed immediate help.
A representative from the Chattanooga Housing Authority told the paper: “If there were 80 people burned out of an apartment building, there would be an immediate response: The Red Cross would step in and there would be a process in place…But with tent city nobody was doing anything.”
A man who works with Rev. Barry Kidwell’s Forrest Avenue United Methodist Church was quoted as saying: “There’s been a lot of money appropriated locally for homeless dogs and cats, but nothing for homeless people.”
Why did Norfolk Southern Railroad bulldoze literally the only “homes” of some of the most marginalized and outcaste persons in our community?
According to Norfolk Southern spokesperson Susan Terpay railroad officials were concerned about the encampment’s proximity to the rail line, and some individuals had approached railroad employees to panhandle.
She added that some of the homeless folks had been seen on the track and it had become a safety concern.
Sadly enough, they didn’t appear to be very concerned about the safety of the displaced persons after they bulldozed their dwellings.
Where would they live?
Where would they go?
I saw a picture of some of the women who used to live in Tent City.
They looked so sad, so dirty, so lost, so forgotten.
They are human beings, people whom God loves.
They are no different than you or I.
It’s sad that a city with a church on every corner…
…a city with a Christian Church on every street block…
…a city with so many who profess Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord…
…the same Jesus Christ who, at the beginning of His ministry proclaimed:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
Because he has anointed me
To proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
And recovery of sight for the blind,
To release the oppressed,
To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Is unable or unwilling to do more for those who are poor and marginalized.
We live in a restless culture.
We are all so busy!!!
Stress is almost built into our body clocks.
I don’t know about you, but oftentimes I find myself hurrying to get somewhere.
I think so often, we feel so rushed that we are too tired or too hurried to notice those around us who are starving for love and meaning.
Last year we were visiting my sister and brother-in-law who live right on the Ohio River.
Both of them are high ranking executives for Proctor and Gamble.
One evening, we decided to walk across the bridge in order to go see a Cincinnati Reds game.
We were running a little late, and so we were walking fast.
As we began to approach the stadium, along with thousands of other baseball fans who were headed in the same direction…we came upon literally hundreds and hundreds of destitute, poor and homeless persons…and they were all begging for money.
As we rushed past them, I turned to Jeanne and remarked, “If I lived in this town I’m not so sure I could enjoy going to a Red’s game where tons of money is wasted on 5 dollar hot dogs, 8 dollar beers, and 4 dollar bottles of water…while there are so many hungry folks outside the gates.”
What makes us so much greater than them?
Absolutely nothing!!!
I had nothing to do with the fact that I was born a white male into a middle to upper middle class family…a family that loved me…would do anything for me…made sure I got a good education…and made sure I would have all the tools needed to have a good life.
So many, not all, but vast majority of the poor, homeless and marginalized persons have not been so privileged.
Many of them have not experienced God’s unconditional love.
A lot of them have been treated like so much human garbage their entire lives, that they know nothing different.
I was listening to a missionary recently who had returned from living in some of the poorest sections of Africa.
She became sick…she developed M.S….
…and eventually had to come home.
But she told me that her sickness was a bit of a blessing in that the people she had been ministering too didn’t think white people got sick.
They thought that their race had, for some reason, been picked out to be doomed with poverty, sickness and death…
…and that the white persons were somehow a better or superior race.
How sad.
How sad to think there are persons who feel subhuman…and not as good as the rest of us…
…how sad.
What a tragedy!
What a motivator to really, really start loving people not only with words, but with actions as well!!!
I mentioned busy-ness.
Yes, we are all busy and it is tiring!!!!
It’s hard to care about others when you are coming home from a hard day’s work…exhausted and hungry…ready to do nothing but relax.
I mean look at Jesus and the apostles in our Gospel Lesson for this morning.
We are told that “because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat,” Jesus said to the disciples, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Jesus and His friends were exhausted.
All they could think about was getting away from the business of other people’s lives and problems…eating a good meal…and getting some shut-eye.
“So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.”
But things didn’t go as planned, did they?
Instead, we are told that “many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them.”
And “When Jesus landed he saw a large crowd…”
But He didn’t want to be bothered so he quickly got back in His boat and high-tailed it in the other direction!!!
Oh, no!
That’s not what it says at all.
We are told that when the exhausted and hungry Jesus “saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”
Jesus’ love and compassion for a lost and dying people was so great that it caused Him to forget about rumblings in His own tummy.
It was much more important to teach and save those who were so desperate, so needy, so in want!
Jesus knew where His priorities should be.
Do we have a good grip on our priorities?
Or does the mad rush to collect stuff and entertain ourselves override whatever compassion we might have for the lost, the desperate, the alone?
One thing I do, that drives my wife nuts, is to try and put invitation cards to Grace United Methodist Church on every car in a parking lot we come to.
This takes a bit of time, and I am becoming better at understanding that we have come to a particular place for a particular reason…not just to put invitation cards on cars…so these days I don’t get to all the cars.
But I always get some.
I put the cards right between the glass that he bottom part of the driver’s side window so that the person will not have to reach over and bend to get the thing out from under his or her wiper blade.
What if we all did this?
I know many of us do.
But we can all do better.
What if we all left invitation cards wherever we went?
In public bathrooms, in grocery store aisles, anywhere people will see them…
…and what if we actually handed them out to persons personally as well…inviting them to come to church and meet Jesus!!!
It doesn’t take much time…it doesn’t even take much effort…but it could…it could…just save a life!
There is no greater reward than what we receive when we put into action the compassion of Christ!!!
Pamela Stephenson is a missionary who visited a home started by Mother Teresa in Calcutta for abandoned Children.
Stephenson’s life was changed by a four-year-old boy.
“I still can’t talk about him, because I just cry,” she said.
So she wrote a poem:
“Always a barrier,
Preventing me from loving.
Little boy standing by my side,
Beautiful hair, hideous sores on his legs,
Open wounds, I don’t want to pick him up,
Yet his arms reach up to me, asking to come.
I let him struggle, hoping he will go away.
But he persisted, until I could no longer refuse.
Reluctantly from behind, I pulled him to my lap.
Only then I saw that he was blind.
My heart went out to him, my shell was cracked
As he clung desperately to me.
Close as we were it was not close enough.
I held him tightly and resting my head on his, Wept in despair.
Blind in Calcutta—what hope for him With me so blind?
Observed in him, the child in me
And wept again
With joy and pain
Experiencing the mystery of a Love that overcomes.” (From the book How Much Is Enough? by Arthur Simon)
How much Pamela Stephenson gave to the child is not clear.
That the child gave much to Pamela Stephenson is abundantly clear!
Even in such brief encounters with other people whom God loves, lives and hopes are transformed!!!
Compassion is an essential for Christians.
Identification with the oppressed is clearly essential.
And for this to happen, personal contact and, if possible, personal friendship with those who suffer is an invaluable step.
This can be done, for example, by connecting with a family struggling in the absence of an imprisoned father, helping in a soup kitchen, visiting the lonely, sick or aged, assisting the physically or mentally impaired, becoming a special Christian friend to a neglected child, or helping our church to become more engaged with people such as these.
In doing so, we will experience the humbling joy of receiving much more than we give!
As Christians, our purpose and our identity are anchored in God.
If we are cut off from our anchor we are adrift, alienated from the source of our being and therefore—it should not surprise us—alienated from our own selves and from one another.
Saint Augustine said, “Our heart is restless until it finds rest in God.”
And the Bible links this hungering for God with our physical hunger and well-being.
God’s own work of reconciliation is always accompanied by works of love.
The feeding of the 5,000 sheds light on this connection between physical and spiritual hunger.
Jesus was busy teaching the multitudes many things.
And soon it became late in the day, “so his disciples came to him. ‘This is a remote place and it’s already very late. Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
It didn’t even occur to them that some of the people might not even have money to pay for a meal.
But Jesus answered His disciples and Jesus answers us: “You give them something to eat.”
Who is going to care for the outcastes of society?
Who is going to bring the hungry to God?
Jesus says we are to do this!!!
Are we doing it?
We are called to nourish the world with the Good News of the Kingdom of God, as well as with food you literally put in your mouth and chew!
But we are to distinguish between the two.
Bread for the body and bread from heaven are not the same; so, Jesus warns that we better not set our hopes on bread that perishes, but on bread that endures for eternal life!
This is World Communion Sunday.
And as we think about this passage of Scripture…
…and as we think about the desperate straits of the world…
…let us take note that the in Christ…there is enough to go around for everyone to have more than enough!!!
Jesus is the Bread from Heaven who gave His life for the salvation of the world!!!
And we are to share this bread with everyone we come in contact with!
In our Gospel Lesson we see how extravagant a God…how big a God we serve!!!
There were 5,000 mouths to feed and only five loaves and two small fish.
But Jesus was not deterred, He had His disciples divide the fish and the loaves between all the people—so that all would have more than enough to eat!
And we are told, “They all ate and were satisfied.”
There were even twelve baskets of left-overs!
Christ died for the entire world!
And we are sent into all the world to make disciples of all nations.
How are we doing at this?
Monday morning as Anthony Wayne sat in front of his makeshift tent…an area that has now been bulldozed over…
…he was quoted by the paper as saying, “The Lord will provide. But local homeless officials said that” his wait for help could take a long time.
Jesus loves Anthony Wayne just as much as Jesus loves me or you!
And there is a whole world filled with people just like Mr. Wayne.
And Jesus has given us—His Church the marching orders: “You give them something to eat.”
May it be so!
Amen.
