-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}
-While I was going to seminary, I spent a quarter doing some field word at the St. Louis County Jail
-I was making my rounds talking to some of the guys, getting to know them and what they were accused of
-One guy was locked up awaiting trial for rape
-He told me during one of the visits that it wasn’t really rape
-He said that he had done a sex for drugs deal and the girl had misgivings later
-I thought some about that after the visit so I decided to confront him about it the next time that I came to see him
-I told him that I thought about what he said and I was wondering if because it was a sex for drugs deal that made it alright
-Oh, he was upset
-He started yelling
-He accused me of working with the cops
-He wanted to know if I was wearing a wire
-To prove to him and everyone else I wasn’t, I lifted up my clergy shirt and showed him that I wasn’t wearing a wire
-He would not calm down, he just starting yelling so I had to walk away
-I thought that I had really blown it
-I really walked away with my tail between my legs
-I went around the corner and talked to a couple of other guys and had a great conversation but I couldn’t get this guy out of my head
-I came back the next week, expecting to get more of the same treatment but as soon as the guy saw me he waved me over and wanted to hear all about what God had done for him in Jesus Christ
-I don’t know what happened to him but what I thought was a major disaster God turned into a success, at least in the short run
-That is what God does
-That is why we call Him the Redeemer
-Because He fixes stuff that we jack up {PAUSE}
-That’s what Jesus does in our text
-He calmly has the people sit down
-He gets the bread and the fish, gave thanks and had them distributed to the people
-They not only had enough but had twelve baskets full of scraps
-This text goes to show that God cares about all of our needs not just our spiritual needs
-He will take care of our physical needs as well
-In addition, we don’t have to worry about the results of our efforts in life
-We can bring our measly efforts to God and allow Him to use them to bless the lives of others
-For crying out loud, if God was willing to sacrifice His Son Jesus Christ on the cross for you, how will He not give you everything else that you need
-You see, God doesn’t come up short like we do. God finishes what He starts. From the cross, Jesus didn’t say, "It’s almost done now I’m tired, you finish it." He said, "It is finished".
-The word in Greek is tetelestai. It was the word put on the top of a document when it was paid in full. It’s done.
-Your eternal salvation has been accomplished when Jesus died on the cross for you.
-He was able to turn water into wine. He was able to heal the sick, raise the dead. Heck God even raised Jesus from the dead; don’t you think that He has the power to turn our efforts into something great? Go out this week and do something weak for God and watch Him turn it into something outstanding.
