2020 has been a doozy of a year, and we’ve still got five more months to go! Let’s see. We’ve had raging forest fires in Australia, plane crashes in the Middle East, riots in India and locusts in Africa. We’ve had floods and protests, racially motivated killings, killer bees, unprecedented high temperatures, civil unrest, earthquakes and the death of a beloved basketball player along with his daughter and friends. The Olympics have been postponed, our kids are home from school and staring at screens for far too long, the pools are closed, Megan and Prince Harry have stepped down from their royal duties, the President has been impeached, the economy is in rough shape, the unemployment rate reached its highest since the Great Depression, oh, and we’re all stuck in our houses because there’s a global pandemic that has killed over a half a million people worldwide, including over 150,000 in the US alone.
And our little church is struggling to hang on, to hang in there, for a little bit longer. We’re anxious and concerned and waiting for God to show us whatever the next step should be for our tiny, little community. All this, and now the onions have been recalled.
I was telling our book group on Thursday that I’ve studied and worked and filled my toolbox full of tools that I can’t really use right now. It has me feeling pretty useless. I mean, I can do community and feeding and connecting and reaching out. I can go to the least of these and hear their stories and connect to their lives. I can write a sermon. I have communication skills and I have a passion for metaphor. But to be honest, I don’t really have the particular skills needed to face the specific challenges we’re facing these days. I can’t balance budgets or put in an IV. I’m not good with technology. I don’t make fancy webpages and I’m not very charismatic.
I’ve never been popular. I don’t know how to get people to “follow” me or subscribe to my channel. I haven’t done enough community building or anti-racism work, I’m not a trained therapist, and I’ve never built a business. I’m filled with self-doubt and a good helping of anxiety. I was not built for such a time as this. I have not prepared for the struggle that is 2020. I have two empty hands, a mortgage, some used furniture and a voice. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.
Compared to what the world needs, it feels like a whole lot of nothing.
Or, at least, almost nothing. As good as nothing. Might as well be nothing, considering how much the world needs right now. I’ve been plunked down in front of a hungry world with nothing but the desire to relieve a little pain, with nothing but two empty hands and some empathy for those who are hurting and starving and waiting for some healing.
And yet, here is Jesus, with us still, telling us, telling me, “You feed them.” You heal the sick. You comfort the mourning. You find the lost. You heal the earth and fight for justice and end corruption and greed. You do it. You.
These worlds we enter in to today are just as messy as ours is now. Our passages today are so very human. So very fleshy. And hard. Wrestling and hunger and deserts and crowds of sweaty, noisy, coughing people, and broken hips and dead fish.
First is Jacob who is in the middle of a frantic race to save all his stuff, because surely his brother, Esau, from whom Jacob stole his birthright, is coming, and surely, Esau is gonna be pissed.
So in a last ditch effort to save his family - or maybe to just save himself - he sends them all across the river with all of his stuff and camps out alone. Where, somewhat strangely, he starts wrestling with some guy. And like a honey badger, Jacob keeps at this guy even after he’s been struck in the hip. Jacob is so worried about stuff and flesh and food and more stuff, he won’t let go until this guy blesses him. He thinks he needs more. What is Jacob expecting, I wonder? More wives? More children? More cattle and camels and goats? What does he need that he doesn’t have already?
Don’t we always want more? If we just had that one thing or enough money or that relationship or that job or that notoriety, we’d finally have enough, we’d finally be content.
Jacob is scrambling to save all his things, all this stuff that he has, and he demands more. What more could Jacob need? Whatever it is, Jacob doesn’t get it. Instead, he simply gets a new name. He wants to know the name of God, but Jacob gets the name instead. And a limp.
Struck in the hip, the tendons and sinews stretched, the ball pulled out of its socket, Jacob asks for a blessing and gets…essentially…nothing. Nothing more than who he is already. Nothing more than his brokenness. He gets less than nothing. He gets a limp and name. That’s it.
And then in our New Testament reading, we get more bodies and their incessant, messy, need. A small city of limping, dirty, sick humans gathers in the desert, searching for the face of God, searching for some healing.
They’ve got nothing, not even lunch. And they’ve come for something, anything, that will make their lives a little bit better, and they get tired and hungry instead.
And what does Jesus do? Does He snap his fingers and make fish and chips and tartar sauce fall from the sky?
Nope. He gives them…nothing. Instead, he says, “YOU feed them.” Looking right at the disciples.
And they look at him pretty incredulously, I’m guessing, and then they look around, and then they say, “Uh, Jesus, we’ve got nuthin.”
And they back track a little bit - “Well, ok. Almost nothing. Five measly loaves of bread and a couple of fish.” So, in comparison to all these hungry people, we have what is close enough to nothing. It might as well be nothing. It feels like nothing.
They’re not social workers, they’re not trained in crisis intervention, they don’t have degrees or pedigrees or businesses or bank accounts. They’re not firefighters or frontline workers or politicians or engineers. They aren’t immunologists or virologists or economists. They aren’t even chefs or grocery workers or food bank managers. They are totally unprepared to face the needs of the day.
The disciples see the face of God. God is right there, right in front of them. They’ve been living with and listening to and following Jesus around for a few years now, and they still have nothing. Nothing enough to feed five thousand. Nothing enough to even remotely address the needs of this ever-growing crowd.
It’s important to note that both of our stories today happen out in the wilderness - the wild “out there” where rebellion and wrestling with God happens. Both of our stories happen out there in the desert, where there’s a whole lot of nothing.
Psalm 78 asks, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” In the place where there’s nothing. Where nothing grows. Where nothing stays alive for long. Where nothing thrives. Where there’s nothing but searching and fear and brokenness and barren land? Where there is nothing but emptiness and lack? Can God spread a table in the wilderness? Can God spread a table in the year 2020?
This miracle story, the only miracle story that is included in all four Gospels answers, “yes.” Yes. God can spread a table in the wilderness. But not without us. Not without our nothing. Not without our lack and flesh and mess and limping hips.
Jacob wrestles with God, sees the face of God, and ends up with nothing but a bum hip. He asks for God’s name, but instead, God gives Jacob a name - Israel, which means, “One who struggles with God.”
The disciples follow Jesus around, they see the face of God, they call to Jesus to fix it, and Jesus turns it back on them, gives them the responsibility, tells them to do it.
“When you see my face,” God says, “you’ll struggle, you’ll probably fight, or argue, or look at me incredulously, and then you’ll walk away broken, limping, with “nothing” to offer.” And then God says, “ok, now, feed them.”
Feed them from your lack.
Feed them out of your pain.
Feed them in the desert.
Feed them with your stories of heartache and hunger and feelings of rejection.
Feed them with the measly ration of five loaves and two fish and a bum hip.
Feed them with your nothing.
Because we are the hands and feet of Christ.
We are the holes in his hands and his feet.
We are the broken hips and the bruised ribs and the bleeding temples of Christ.
We are his cry to God, “Abba, Father! Why have you forsaken me?”
We carry with us the stories of heartache and pain and grief that are the flesh and blood of Christ.
And we offer that Christ to each other. And it is the face of God.
And there is enough to feed five thousand lost souls wandering the desert, searching for some hope, some healing, some answers, some chance to see the face of God.
It is enough.
It is more than enough. Enough to fill baskets and to-go boxes to take home with them.
Our nothing, when it is a part of the Body of Christ, when it is blessed and broken - yes broken - is enough.
That’s the resurrection.
Jesus still carries his wounds, his story, his pain and his suffering with him after he is laid in the tomb and raised on the third day. The holes in his hands and his feet are still there. The wound in his side is still there. He’s not healed, but rather, made whole. Made complete.
And so are we.
We want our need and our pain and our bum hips to go away. We want to get past it. We want to ignore that we were ever hurt. Or that we ever failed. Or that we walk with a limp. We want to be able to say that we can’t do anything because we have nothing. Or we don’t have enough. Or we’re not prepared. Or we don’t have the skills. Or we’re not good enough. Or that the world just doesn’t want what we have to offer.
So we don’t show up. We don’t share our nothing. We pass the buck.
But because of who Jesus is, we are changed. Because we have wrestled with God, we are different. Our name has changed. We have been marked. And we can never take it back. We’ve been given a whole pile of nothing, and then told to feed them all.
Jesus says, don’t wish the need and the lack away. Don’t wish for your struggles to vanish. That nothing is enough. That nothing is exactly what you need to get the job done. Jesus wants us to draw closer to it. Live in it. Share it. That is wholeness.
When you carry the scars around with you and you are no longer ashamed, when you can say, “come, touch the holes in my hands, place your hand in my side, see, I’m a little like Christ, I’m part of the body of Christ, and I’ve got a whole lot of nothing, but Jesus broke it and blessed it and now there’s so much food. And here, have some bread,” that’s wholeness. That’s what God calls us to. That is redemption and resurrection and freedom.
This miracle story usually ends with us Christians divided in two camps. The first camp says that the real miracle is that a whole bunch of people got together and decided to share their lunch. And in the sharing, they realize they have more than enough to go around. The miracle comes from the people.
The second camp is one where God defies the laws of physics and makes real food appear out of nowhere. This camp believes that the miracle resides solely in the hands of Jesus and his unearthly abilities. Look at what God can do with so little!
But here’s the thing. I need them both. I need a community that can come together and feed each other. And I need physics-defying miracles from God. I need Jesus to tell us to feed them. And I need Jesus to step in, and feed them. I need a God who takes a whole bunch of our “nothing” and transforms it into something, something that feeds and nourishes and satisfies. I need a God who needs me, broken, limping, me, my failures and flaws and ineptness, to show up with what little that I have.
I need a God who needs me to be present and here with all of my faults and defects and lack of resources and not enough skills or knowledge. I need a God who can take all that nothing and turn it in to something. And I need you to join me. None of us can do this alone. Not even Jesus. Or, if Jesus could do it alone, he chooses not to, and that’s basically the same thing.
Come, bring your nothing. Bring your brokenness and your heartache and your limp. Come before Christ. Demand a blessing. Wait and see what happens. He’ll tell you to pack up your nothing and get out there and get to work.
Oh God, give us patience. And perseverance. And peace. Give us nothing. Transform it into something. Something that feeds and nourishes and heals and connects and unites. Help us to see that with our nothing in Your hands, we can face the trials of this day.
Thanks be to God.
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