Manny Odom
January 17, 2010

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.

What is a miracle? This sermon is about hospitality as the story from John's gospel is, we know all the characters.The hungry multitude , the nervous diciples and the doubting. The good hearted lilttle boy with five barley loaves and two fishes and Jesus who makes it all happen.There is little here to surprise us. We know how the story ends and as we hear it once again we ask ourselves the question"is it true?" In some sense depending upon the way we are prepared to receive it,we will either hear or not hear what the story has to say. The story as truth or "is it true?" is the wrong question to put. Miracles are not arguements or propositions to which there are yes or no answers. The question to be put about a miracle are not "is it true?" or "how can this be?" but rather what does it say. At its core a miracle is a message, an illustration or demonstration of a message that God chose to communicate to us.A miracle is God's message extraordinaire in the midst of the ordinary. It is not an exercise in the supernatural or in the irregular but a communication. To understand a miracle is to understand something of God. , to see a miracle is to see something of God.The ancient people of the bible may not have known what a miracle is but at least in a rational or intellectual sense they "knew one as they sees it" . At the birth of Jesus, angels descended over the Bethlehem plain bringing good news of the child's birth; the shepherds tending their sheep after being assured that there was nothing to fear gathered their sheep and followed the star to the place where the bambino lay. There was not enough time to debate the existance or non existance of angels. They went,fell down at the manger and worshipped.

The blind man who had his sight restored did not ask to understand what happened to him. He acknowledged with simple eloquence that he could see.

The feeding of the five thousand; once hungry, did not ask the question,"how did he do that?" but recognized that he was the one who was to come into the world. They heard and received the message and when the people who was the sign that he had done they said "this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world." A miracle is a message from God to us. Now what is the content of that miracle?The message the miracle; now the facination with miracles is that they appear to be an illustration of raw, naked, unambiguous power,or reversal of the natural order , and we see in Jesus a miracle, at least in the first instance so in so far as he demonstrates for us the use of power, power to heal the sick as with the lame of the blind or the woman with the issue of blood, as with the power to do the right and good thing. But the essence of the miracle is not in it's power, nor in it's extraordinary capacity nor in it's ability to attract attention with it's high visibility, but rather in its capacity to meet and satisfy needs. A need is a response to what is most needed not a show of power but an answer to prayer. In feeding the five thousand the immediate need of the crowd was satisfied by the wondrous extension of the loaves and fishes, but that was not the miracle. The miracle was what the people saw in it, the prophet who has come into the world. their eyes were opened and they saw Jesus as he was and that was God's message to the world.

The great temptation is attempting to spiritualize this story, to see the loaves and fishes and the feeding of the crowd as mere metaphor for the kind of spiritual refreshment that Jesus offers his people.There is some warrant for reducing the food services aspect of this story . However Jesus warns later in John's gospel that we should not go after the bread that perishes and spoils like the manna of the Exodus, but seek food which endures through eternal life. "This the sone of man will give you ; for the bread God gives is that which comes down form heaven and gives life to the world. "I am the fread of life , the person who come to me shall in no ways be hungry and the person who believes in me shall never thirst." It is no mere satisfaction that Jesus offers, no mere sating of the appetite. It is substance that bread of life which the world neither give nor take away. What is important to remember is that Jesus does meet the real needs , he feeds the hungry. Not with the resolutions or presidential commissions but with so much bread and fish that there is an abundance left over. Having satisfied the physical hunger, the hunger of the heart can be addressed. The message of the miracle is clear. It is not the will of God that people should go hungry. The gospel is never offered as a substitute for the fundamental need of Human survival for it is the will of god that those who hunger be given food and drink, that they be provided generously and with out stint.

The hunger of this world are not signs of insufficient piety, they are signs that we continue to mismanage the the resources that God has given us. The poor rebuke the rich, not because of their moral superiority but to remind them that no one is truly rich when some are truly poor.Now Jesus makes it quite clear tht there is a real relationship between the hunger of the body and hte hunger of the soul. Now the physical and the spiritual are each a part of the divine concern and the divine plan. Jesus fed the hungry on the hillside and while he did not make light of the physical hunger, he did not stop when that had been satisfied, he went on to meet the hunger and need of the soul.

What about the hunger of the satisfied? What about the needs of those who hunger after righteousness? As long as it is possibe to define hunger as the absence of the loaves and fishes we can work , pray, and fight to provide enough loaves and fishes for those who need them. But what happens when the satisfied are not satisfied with satisfaction? The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is that God is willing to provide not only bread but he offers the bread of life as well as the food that does not perish but endures to eternal life.Once again we learn that the fundamental lesson of hospitality is not in simply giving but in receiving as well that which we most need to have. Jesus offers not simply food to the hungry but himself as well. "I am the living bread which came down form heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. " When you take communion remember that Jesus fed the hungry on the hillside with loaves and fishes and in that act of human charity he was revealed to the crowd as God's message of love to the world. To that world he offers not only sustinance without which our bodies cannot live but substance without which our souls cannot live. What he offers he gives of himself and this memorial that he makes of his body and blood allows us to become a part of that message, a part of that miracle where by we come to be those who hunger and thirst after righteous may yet be filled .

AMEN