Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
July 27, 2003

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Hello. My name is Mathias. I want to tell you a story about a most amazing thing that happened to me many years ago when I was a small boy and what I learned about God from what happened. I lived in Galilee, to the north of Jerusalem, in a time when our land was occupied by the brutal and idolatrous Roman Empire. Life was very hard. We were peasants. We had a little bit of land where we raised sheep, and we had a few olive trees. But the tax collectors who worked for the Romans took so much of our wool, so many of our sheep, and so many of our olives that we just barely had enough left over to feed ourselves. We couldn’t pay the tax that was demanded by the Temple authorities in Jerusalem, so they called us sinners and said God had rejected us. That was very hard to hear. We wanted to obey the law and pay the Temple tax, but we couldn’t. If we had paid it, we would have starved.

Life was particularly hard for me when I was very young because I was born lame. My legs weren’t straight, and I could never learn to walk. My family had to carry me everywhere on a pallet. The Pharisees said I was lame because of some great sin that my parents must have committed before I was born. That was very hard to hear too, since I never understood why God should punish me for something they did. Besides, my parents were decent, honest people who never hurt anyone. It just didn’t make any sense.

Then one day we heard about a man from Nazareth, a village in Galilee not too far from where we lived. His name was Jesus. He would wander around the countryside with a small band of followers teaching the people a new understanding of God. He said that people like us weren’t sinners. He said that we were among those blessed by God. That was very good to hear. But more than that: He not only preached but he healed people too. He laid his hands on them and healed them. Some were healed just by touching the hem of his cloak. He was the most amazing man we had ever heard of.

So one day my parents lifted me on my pallet and took me out in the country to where Jesus was teaching and healing. They brought me close to him. He saw me. He reached out and laid his hands on my head; and all at once my legs became straight and strong and I could walk, just like you see me walking now. I was so happy I didn’t know what to do, and so were my parents. We shouted and laughed and danced for joy, praising God for the miracle God had done for us through Jesus.

Of course, I continued to follow Jesus. I got my parents to let me go hear his teaching every chance I got. I told everyone how he had healed me, and many of them became his followers and were healed too. Then one day, Jesus came to the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and I was part of a large crowd that was following him. He went up on a hilltop with his closest followers. It was getting late in the day, toward supper time, and most of the people had brought nothing with them to eat. I always tried to get as close to Jesus as I could, and I heard him talking with a couple of his closest followers-I think they were called disciples-about how they could possibly feed all those people. It would have taken a huge amount of bread to feed so many. I heard people saying there were 5,000 men, and there were lots of women and children too.

Well, my parents had sent me off that day with as much food as they could spare-five barley loaves and two little fish that my father had caught. They told me to share the food with other people who were hungry. So I went up to one of Jesus’ disciples, and I offered him my five loaves and two fish. I wanted to help. It was all I had. Giving it was all I could do. Maybe it wasn’t much, but to my child’s way of thinking giving it just seemed like the right thing to do. At first the man ignored me. Then he tried to send me away. He said: "Go away little boy! Can’t you see we’ve got a big, grown up problem here? We’ve got over 5,000 people to feed. What good are your five loaves and two fish? Stop bothering us!" Well, that hurt my feelings. Maybe the man was right. Maybe my little bit of bread and two fish wasn’t much. But I knew what Jesus had done for me, and I loved him. I wanted to help. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t accept my help. I mean, maybe if everyone who had a little bit helped, everyone would have enough. So I kept pestering the man-I think his name was Andrew-until he finally said: "All right. Come along. Just stop bugging me!"

I think he just wanted to get rid of me, but for whatever reason he took me to Jesus. And that’s when the most incredible thing happened, even more incredible, I think, than when Jesus had healed my lameness. Jesus didn’t refuse my gifts. He didn’t try to send me away. He smiled at me. He said thank you for helping. Then he took my five little barley loaves and two fish. He had his disciples tell all the people to sit down on the grass. They did, and when everyone was seated Jesus took my bread and said the prayer of thanksgiving for food over it. Then he gave my five loaves and two fish to his disciples and told them to serve it to all the people. Well, they looked at him like he was out of his mind. Five little loaves of bread and two fish for over 5,000 people? He had to be kidding! Well, I didn’t know how it was going to work either; but I knew Jesus had healed me and many, many other people besides, so I just stood by and waited to see what would happen. Then, as the bread and fish were passed among the people, parts of the loaves and the fish were being taken and eaten, but the supply never ran out. It just kept going and going and going. Everyone got as much as he wanted! And not only that. After the people had left and the disciples set about cleaning up the hillside after the crowd, there were enough pieces of my barley bread left over to fill twelve big baskets! I was amazed. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.

I’ve thought about that day a lot over the years. I’ve tried to figure it out. Did the disciples have a hidden supply of food that they kept pulling out of someplace? I don’t think so. Was all that food simply food that the people had brought with them like I had brought my five loaves and two fish? There was probably some of that, but I saw lots and lots of people take bread from one of my loaves. I know they hadn’t brought it with them. No, all I can say is that it was a miracle. There’s no other explanation.

Now, like I said, I followed Jesus as best I could after he healed me. I couldn’t go to Jerusalem with him, but I heard what happened. I heard that the Romans crucified him with the help of those Temple authorities who said people like my parents and me were sinners. I cried when I heard that they had executed him, but then I heard other people saying that after he was crucified some of his followers saw him again risen from the dead. They told stories about how he had some to them, spoken with them, eaten with them, all when he was supposed to be dead. And they were preaching what he had preached, and they were healing like he had healed, so I knew it was true. He was still alive among his followers, the least of whom was me.

And I’ve thought and thought about what the things that I saw that day on the hillside with my little loaves of bread and two fish mean. I thought, they have to mean more than just some hungry people were fed, although that is important enough. And here’s what I think. I think it means that no matter how small the gifts are that you have to give, God can do great things with them if you will just offer them to the people through Jesus. If you offer your little gifts to the people through Jesus, God will take those gifts and multiply them, magnify them, and make them do things for the people that you never imagined. God can work miracles with even the smallest gift. Maybe you can’t see how it will happen. Maybe you don’t really believe it can happen. But I’m here to tell you that I know it can happen because I’ve seen it happen. If God can feed more than five thousand people with my five loaves and two fishes, think what God can do with what you have to offer.

I’ve been watching you. I think I know you. You do much good, but you could do more. You have so much-so much talent, so much skill, so much love. If you just sit on those gifts, keeping them to yourselves and using them only inside your own church, nothing much will happen. But if you offer them to the people of this area in Jesus’ name there is no end to the good that can come of it. Especially when you offer them to people like those on that hillside so long ago, people who are poor and oppressed, people whom the religious leaders of the day call sinners because of things they didn’t choose and can’t change, people who are sick and lonely. If you do that people of all kinds will be fed in body and spirit in ways you can’t even imagine. I know it’s true. I saw it with my own eyes that day so long ago on a hillside in Galilee. I pray that you will see it too.