Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them, take our minds and think with them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

I can’t tell you how many times I walked directly past this very church that we are together in right now during my four years as an undergrad at UT.  As most of you know my fraternity house is just across the street, and I parked at the house each day for class.  So All Saints’ stood directly between my parking space and my class each and every day of my college career.  Honestly, in all those years and in all the times of walking past those doors, I never once walked in them (FYI: that’s not to say I never went to church, just not here).  And if you had walked next to me on any one of those trips to class and as we passed the doors of this church said, “Miles, this will be your church one day!  You will be a priest in this place to students at UT growing with them, sharing the sacraments with them, and preaching God’s Word to them.  Isn’t that wonderful?”  I would have responded you’ve lost it!  There is no way that will happen!  Absolutely not!  Well, guess what…it did.

Last summer 20 of us from this community and several other colleges in this diocese traveled to Baja California to build a home on the border for a family in need.  You see many people in Mexico emigrate north to try and find work in the US.  The problem is most can’t get across the border and the border towns don’t have the infrastructure to support the numbers of people so shanty towns grow up around cities like Tijuana.  A group called Amor Ministries goes into these communities and builds churches and homes.  We built one of these homes last summer and will again this coming May.  The work is demanding and exhausting.  Completing the home in the allotted time is always a question mark.  Last May, at the end of our first day of building, after 12 hours of slaving away in the sun exhausted beyond words, sunburned, and dehydrated, if you had asked me, at that moment, if we would finish the house in the time we had left, I would have honestly and without hesitation said there is no way.  There’s not time.  It’s impossible.  Well, guess what…we did.

Tonight’s gospel less is the Johnanine version (that is the gospel of John’s version) of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.  This miracle interestingly is the only miracle preceding Jesus’ passion that all four evangelist Matthew, Mark, Luke and John record.  The very fact that all four gospel authors believed that this miracle was important enough to include in their narratives should suggest to us that something is happening here that demands our attention.  There is a richness and depth to this story that offers much insight into how God works in our lives. 

Now, at the surface level, this story is about Jesus miraculously feeding a great crowd of people who are physically hungry with a meager meal of five loaves of bread and two fish.  But that’s just part of what Jesus is doing.  At another level, Jesus is using this miracle to teach his disciples, both those who followed him in his own day and those of us who still follow him today, about the abundance of Eucharistic living. 

John tells us that a great crowd is approaching Jesus because they saw all the sick people he was healing.  As the crowd grows closer, Jesus asks one of his disciples, Philip, where they are going to buy bread to feed all these many thousands of people.  Philip, seeing the size of the crowd, realizes that there’s no way they have the resources to feed such a crowd—they don’t have the food or the money.  Just then another disciple points out a boy who has with him enough food for a meager meal perhaps that would satisfy a handful of people.  Jesus asks his disciples to have the people sit down on the grass.  Then he takes the boys meager meal gives thanks for it (or blesses it) and gives it to all the people.  John tells us 5000 people ate until they were completely satisfied, not till the edge was taken off their hunger but until they were completely satisfied.  If you could have asked any one of the people present that day if they thought 5000 people could be fed to the point of complete satisfaction with a meager meal of five loaves of bread and two fish, I feel certain he or she would have said no way.  That’s impossible.  It could never happen.  Well guess what…it did. 

You see Jesus is trying to teach his followers, including you and me, with this miracle that like the meager meal of five loaves of bread and two fish, if we will allow Jesus to take our meager lives, bless them, and give them to those who are hungry in this world, we too can miraculously feed more people than we could ever imagine.  That is the abundance of Eucharistic living.  During the Eucharist which we also call the Lord’s Supper, the Mass or Holy Communion, the priest takes bread and after blessing it gives it to the people of God to be spiritual food and drink that provides us the energy we need to go out and feed the world.  By feed the world, I mean, metaphorically, to go out into the world as Christ’s heart and hands to offer people the nourishment and satisfaction that their hearts’ desire—to share God’s healing love with all those who need it.  As the prayer we use during Lent at the end of the Prayers of the People says, “God of the hungry, make us hunger and thirst for the right, till our thirst for justice has been satisfied and hunger has gone from the earth.”              

Just as we call the Eucharist a sacrament, if we will allow Jesus to take us, bless us, and give us, our lives become a living sacrament.  I am sure many of you remember the definition of a sacrament that you memorized in confirmation class.  A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward spiritual truth.  When we allow Jesus to take us, bless us, and give us, the abundant good we do out in the world with our lives is an outward and visible sign of the inward spiritual truth that Christ is in us.  Christ is in us taking ownership of our lives, blessing us with his love and grace so that we are empowered give ourselves to those in need around us.  What we do in church ritualistically is intended to happen literally as we leave church and be Christ in the world—that’s the abundance of Eucharistic living.  As I have said many times before, church work is done outside the walls of the church. 

Henri Nouwen, the late Catholic priest and author, writes, “Imagine yourself as being deeply convinced that your love…your kindness to your friends and your generosity to the poor are little mustard seeds that will become strong trees in which many birds can build their nests!  Imagine that, in the center of your heart, you trust that your smiles and handshakes, your embraces and your kisses are only the early signs of a worldwide community of love and peace!”  Jesus wants you to be a living sacrament.  Jesus wants to do a miracle through your life—a miracle that like a stone that falls in a pond blesses more and more people through ever expanding circular waves.

Do you believe in miracles?  Do you believe that through you God can do more good than you ever thought possible?  Do you believe that God will accomplish things through your life that will bless people in ways beyond imagination?  I know I do.  To many times, God has accomplished what I thought was impossible in my own life and experience.

Let me share a final thought.  There is an interesting and perhaps even odd moment at end of this lesson.  John tells us that after all had eaten and were totally satisfied Jesus asks his disciples to gather up all the leftovers and when they did this twelve baskets full of food are left.  Now my parents always take the leftovers home when we eat out.  It’s kind of annoying really.  Most of the time they end up in the fridge and no one eats them, so they get thrown out a week later when they begin to change colors.  You know what I am talking about.  So why does John mention the leftovers—to demonstrate that Jesus is not a wastrel?  Perhaps.  I wouldn’t expect Jesus to be wasteful, but I don’t think that’s John’s point.  I think John is saying that when Jesus takes, blesses, and gives us to the world everyone eats to the point of satisfaction with leftovers to feed even more if necessary.  In other words, God’s grace that moves through us and out to the world overflows with abundance.  You see not just the 5000 are fed—there are leftovers too!  Everyone’s heart is satisfied and there is still more grace leftover for anyone else who might show up. 

You are a sacrament.  You are a blessing to many.  You are a miracle.  Amen.

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