If we do not understand what God does, every day, then we will not receive what He wants to do when we really need Him.
If with both minds and hearts we do not grasp that it is God who provides for us, day after day, even when we don’t think we need Him, then our minds will be closed and our hearts will be hardened when crisis comes, and we want His help.
This past weekend many of us reveled in the symbols of our nation’s freedom. We flew the flag, we watched the fireworks displays, we hung out on the Mall. We sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America". We listened to the Marine Band pump out Sousa marches. The symbols of America. Images which capture for us the spirit of our nation.
But I have another image that sticks in my head. I have another picture of America. My picture is the salad bar. The salad bar.
Let me tell you a story about why the salad bar is an image of America, and of our national spiritual condition.
A number of years ago, our family had gone to Ocean City for a week in the sun and sand. One night we decided to go to one of those restaurants that offers an all-you-can-eat salad bar. At salad bars you can legally pig out, you are expected to pig out. And, oh, the wonderful illusions that go along with salad bars.
You tell yourself you are getting a bargain, all you can eat for one price. Of course, you don’t think about the fact that most of the stuff there is very inexpensive anyway. But it feels like a bargain. I always get the blue cheese dressing, because when I was growing up, restaurants made you pay more for blue cheese. Salad bar means all the blue cheese dressing you want.
And you tell yourself this is healthy. Look at all the greens and the veggies I’m eating. This is good for me. Never mind that in the eggs, the bacon bits, the salad dressing, you have put in more calories and more cholesterol than a month at Mickey D’s. You still like to think it’s healthy. Heart healthy. An Illusion.
Well, that night we had all gone through the salad bar, picking up all we wanted, and we had just sat down at our table, about to bow our heads and ask the Lord to bless this mess. But our attention was caught by two people who had begun a truly serious assault on the salad bar. Both of them had paid for salad to go, which meant they were each given two Styrofoam plates: one to hold the salad and the other to provide a top. We watched in both amusement and horror as they piled on huge mounds of everything: lettuce, spinach, beets, peppers, eggs, croutons, Cole slaw, mushrooms, carrots, cheese, on and on ... at least six inches high -- and then they bathed it all in enormous spoonfuls of blue cheese, my blue cheese, so much and so high that when they finally finished and put the other Styrofoam plate on top, all this glop and goop came oozing out, running down their arms, and cascading down to the floor in great green gobs of greasy, grimy. Incredible! Just incredible!
A symbol of America? Why? Why is the salad bar my mental image of our spiritual condition? Because we expect abundance. Because we indulge in abundance. Because we think that having enough and more than enough is a way of life, it is a right, it is what we expect.
And because at the very moment a few of us were bowing our heads to offer up prayer to thank the Father for what we had, somebody else was out there blithely taking, taking, taking, I suspect with no thought of who had provided it.
The point is what, then? That in this free land we have held this truth to be self-evident: that we want what we want when we want it, and give no thought to where it comes from. However, I am going to argue today that if we do not understand what God does, every day, then we will not receive what He wants to do when we really need Him.
If with both minds and hearts we do not grasp that it is God who provides for us, day after day, even when we don’t think we need Him, then our minds will be closed and our hearts will be hardened when the crisis comes, and we want His help.
To make it simple, if we don’t see God in our daily bread, or at the salad bar, then we will not understand what He does in the lean times.
Earlier in the day Jesus had taken two little fish and five simple loaves of bread, and, blessing them, had fed some five thousand people. Everybody had all they wanted, and then some. Twelve baskets overflowing. When the feeding frenzy was over, and the disciples were trying to figure it all out, Jesus took off on another tangent. This astounding Jesus did something which seems very strange.
Mark 6:45-52
Did you catch that last sentence? Did you wonder what it means? "And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.”
I think it means that this astounding Jesus decided to teach them a lesson. He gave them a good scare, and on purpose. Because he saw that if we do not understand what God does, every day, then we will not receive what He wants to do when we really need Him.
I
You see, we are not a heart healthy people. We are not a heart healthy people, because we do not understand where our abundance comes from. We, like the five thousand, can be dazzled at all that we have, but never really understand, profoundly, that it is always God’s provision. God provides daily bread. And daily bread, just what you and I need each day, is a miracle just as great as abundant bread for five thousand. But we don’t see that. We lose that in the everydayness of our lives. We take it for granted. That’s what the Bible means about not understanding the loaves and having hardened hearts. We don’t understand that every day God keeps us alive and gives us a new day. It’s lost in ordinariness.
In America we have become accustomed to plenty. We congratulate ourselves on our productivity. And it’s not just the amber waves of grain. It’s turning out consumer products, it’s cranking up the stock market, it’s lifting up everybody’s expectations. We are a people who continue to expect more and more.
Who would have thought a few years ago that some 95% of American homes would have television sets? Did you know that more people have televisions than have telephones! When I was a boy, after the Second World War, I kept asking my parents when we were going to get our own TV, so that we wouldn’t have to go over to somebody else’s house to stare at one little eye in the middle of a huge box in order to see "What’s My Line?" Now, my house has accumulated four working TV’s and couple that don’t even work any more! Abundance! We have come to expect abundance!
The core issue is expectations. We take more, we pile up our salad bar plates to running over, and we don’t acknowledge who provides it. We don’t remember who gives it. Our hearts bypass it. What does the Bible say? "They did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened."
II
And so sometimes the Lord just leaves us on our own, so that we can find out how much we need Him. Sometimes our God deliberately withdraws from us, so that we can discover how much we depend on Him. For, you see, if we do not understand what God does, every day, then we will not receive what He wants to do when we really need Him.
If with both minds and hearts we do not grasp that it is God who provides for us, day after day, even when we don’t think we need Him, then our minds will be closed and our hearts will be hardened when crisis comes, and we want His help. He may just choose to withdraw.
Listen to the provocative language Mark uses to tell you about this astounding Jesus. After the feeding of the five thousand, "Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead .... [while] He went up on the mountain to pray." Disciples, go on your way, go it alone. Get out of here. Sometimes the Lord withdraws from us.
And then, "when evening came, the boat was out on the sea, and he was alone on the land. When he saw that they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea." Did you hear that time gap? He let them struggle all night long, from evening until early morning, before He even approached them. Sometimes the Lord withdraws from us, so that we can discover how much we need Him.
And perhaps the most arresting sentence of all. Mark says, "He intended to pass them by." He intended to pass them by! How can this be?! Isn’t the Lord always there for us? Doesn’t He always respond when we need Him? Isn’t He the celestial bellhop that when we send for Him, He jumps?!
Oh, no. No. Not at all. Sometimes the Lord withdraws from us in order to teach us how much we need Him. Sometimes He stands aside, so that in the midst of all of our abundance, all of our competence, our self-reliance, our independence ... in the midst of all of that, when the adverse winds blow, and we strain against the oars, we discover that we do need Him. Illusions all! We do need Him!
When do we pray? Do we pray only in the crisis times? Do we pray mainly when we are in such deep trouble we know we can’t get out on our own? Where are we when things are going well? What is our prayer life when we sail calm seas and prosperous voyages? If we have not cultivated a living, breathing, every-day, daily bread kind of relationship to God, then it just may be that when the tough times come, and we really need Him, He will use this very strategy on us. He will withdraw from us, for a while; He will make us get into our little boats and make us paddle against the adverse winds all night long. He will intentionally pass us by. And we will be terrified, because we have not sought His presence each day, every day, in all circumstances.
Do you see? Again, if we do not understand what God does, every day, then we will not receive what He wants to do when we really need Him.
If with both minds and hearts we do not grasp that it is God who provides for us, day after day, even when we don’t think we need Him, then our minds will be closed and our hearts will be hardened when crisis comes, and we want His help. If we cannot trust Him for daily bread, and our hearts bypass Him, then maybe, for a time, He must also pass us by.
III
And yet there is good news this morning. There is good news, even for those of us who have forgotten Him; and that is that He has not forgotten us. There is good news, even for those of us who have let our hearts bypass Him; and that is that He will not forever pass us by. He will be here for us. He will be a living presence, and not an illusion. He is an asset, and not a liability; He is a commanding strength, and not a willowy weakness.
"Immediately", it says, that is, after they cried out to Him, "Immediately he spoke to them and said, ’Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased."
Take heart today. Take heart, because Christ will get into the boat with us. His personal, powerful presence, right here with us, filling us with His love. Take heart, take heart, for He is a personal, powerful presence. He is not the ghost the disciples thought they saw; He is our flesh and our blood. He is not the vague "divine providence" spoken of by Washington and Jefferson in the fashion of their day; He is the word made flesh, right here with us.
He is not the phantom of the philosophers, just an idea or a principle. He is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob; the Lord of Sarah and Rebekah and Rachel. He is the one with whom men and women of faith have lived on an intimate, closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet, basis. He will not forever pass us by, for at the end of the day, He is Emmanuel, God with us. Who can say it any better than this passage, "He got into the boat with them and the wind ceased"!
Do not let your heart bypass Him, lest He have to pass you by for a time. For if we do understand what God does, every day, then we shall receive what He wants to do when we really need Him.
If with both minds and hearts we do grasp that it is God who provides for us, day after day, even when we don’t think we need Him, then our minds will be open and our hearts available when the crisis comes, and we want His help.
If we trust Him for daily bread, and our hearts do not bypass Him, then surely, surely, He will not pass us by.
Understand the loaves, and do not let your heart be hardened. Maybe the folks at the salad bar had at least one thing right: when God gives, "a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap"
Understand the loaves ... and the cup which runs over …and do not let your hearts be hardened, or bypass, this presence.
