We didn’t learn about it all at once. I understand why. We needed time to get to know each other, to
develop trust. The church I served on
Long Island worked in El Salvador with a group called, UCCES, which stood for
the Union of Christian Communities of El Salvador. We had found them through a Presbyterian
missionary. Their dedication to the
poor inspired us. The Bible studies we
did together helped us see the Gospel in new ways. And how they were successfully bringing
hope, along with water, electricity and education to very poor communities
impressed us.
But as we worked together, we learned how they all had
come together. They had fought
together. During the civil war that had
just ended, they had been soldiers, but not with the government. They had been rebels, revolutionaries,
camping out at the legendary rebel mountain, Guazapa. It felt strange to realize that these gentle
people with whom we worked had been warriors, guerrillas in a brutal civil
war. But while the war was where they
had begun, it was not where they had ended up.
Together they put down their weapons.
They left the war behind. And
with the support of the Lutheran Church, they formed their mission to the poor.
Now they still had the same passions that had led them
to the rebel mountain. They remained
revolutionaries. They had just joined a
different revolution, one that could do what the revolution at Guazapa could
not. They went with Jesus’ revolution. What was that revolution? Here in this very familiar story, Jesus shows
us the way. Let’s listen to what Jesus
has to say.
I have heard this story, I can’t tell you how many
times, but I never saw it. I never saw
what was really happening. On the
surface, it looks like such a nice miracle, Jesus hosts a picnic. But so much more is going on here. In this story, Jesus is literally meeting
with the revolutionaries, with the guerrillas of his day. But in response to the revolution they
want, Jesus gives a very different answer.
To understand what really is going on here, we need to
understand what just happened. King
Herod has executed John the Baptist.
The violent revolutionaries, who want to overthrow the Romans are
looking for a new leader to rally around.
And now they are looking at Jesus.
Then they hear the news. Jesus is coming. You see, when Jesus and his disciples to go
to the other side of the Sea of Galilee for some R & R, he is not just going
to a remote region. He is going to the Guazapa
of Israel, the rural areas where the rebels had their strongholds. So when Jesus pulls up to the shore, he
finds thousands waiting for him. But why
are they there?
As the gospel of John puts it, they intended to come
and make him king by force. And Jesus gets
it. It’s why he calls them sheep
without a shepherd. Normally the
shepherd image means something more pastoral, as in the Lord is my Shepherd,
but not here. Jesus is quoting the
words Moses prayed before anointing Joshua his successor, “so the Lord’s people
will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”
These people are looking for a
new Joshua, who will conquer the land for Israel like the old Joshua did. They want a revolution.
But what does Jesus do? In response to thousands ready for a
revolution, Jesus teaches and feeds. They
want weapons. He gives them word and
bread. Jesus is saying. “I’m bringing a revolution, yes, but not the
one you expect. You want me to deal out
death. But I bring life, life in all its
abundance.”
It’s why Jesus called himself the bread of life. Today, bread just means bread, or maybe
gluten, if you have that issue. But in
Jesus’ day, bread meant life. And when
Jesus speaks the word and breaks the bread, he is declaring. I have come to bring life through the words I
speak, and the deeds I do.
In teaching them, Jesus is telling them. What you truly hunger for can’t be found in
any change of circumstance, even the overthrow of Rome. You need a change of heart, a transformation
of mind. And if I don’t address that
hunger, no matter what happens outside of you, inside you will be starving to
death. So forget the weapons, listen to
my words. Only that will fill you at
the core. Even the atheist philosopher
Jean Paul Sartre knew this. Famously he
said, “That God does not exist, I cannot deny.
That my whole being cries out for God, I cannot forget.”
But
Jesus doesn’t stop there, he backs up his words with deeds, in this case with a
miraculous deed. But does Jesus feed
these thousands just to impress them, just to wow the crowd? No, Jesus never did miracles as part of a
show. If he intended hat, he could have
done way better than this. He could
have flown loop the loops over the Sea of Galilee. He could have thrown balls of fire from his
hands. That would have really wowed the
crowd.
But
Jesus didn’t do miracles to put on a show, but to show that he had come to restore
the world that God had originally intended.
William Stringfellow put it this way about Jesus’ healings. “A miracle in healing is not the conjuring of
some magic, nor a disruption in the created order or something
supernatural. Rather healing exemplifies
the redemption of fallen creation, the restoration of the created order, the
return to the usual, the normative, the natural.” “Jesus’
miracles aren’t suspensions of the natural order. They’re restorations of the natural order.” (Tim Keller, The Good Shepherd) In this
feeding miracle, Jesus is saying. “This is
the world God created, where everyone has enough. And this is the world I have come to restore
to you.”
But
how is Jesus going to bring this revolution?
That’s when Jesus’ revolution gets even more shocking. Look at how Jesus works here. Does Jesus create a feast out of thin air? No, Jesus tells his disciples. “You feed them, yes you feed them with the
paltry bit of loaves and fish you brought,”
And how do they respond? They’re
appalled. They say. “That’s impossible.” And they’re right. It is impossible. What they’ve brought is woefully inadequate
for the job. But Jesus uses it. In fact, the miracle only happens after he
gives the disciples the bread and the fish.
What is Jesus saying? He is
saying. “I have come to do the
impossible with the inadequate through the woefully unequipped. That’s my revolution.”
When
the church I served on Long Island began to work on El Salvador, it was
ridiculous. We had almost no money. We spoke almost no Spanish. And we were going into a country just out of
a brutal civil war, and working with a bunch of former guerrillas. Sheesh.
But God worked, and we saw lives transformed. And that work, twenty five years later, is
still going strong. And here when we
began working in Haiti, it was ridiculous.
We had no money. We spoke no
Creole. And we were working with a guy
who was virtually homeless to help orphaned kids who had an incurable
disease. And on top of that, we were
pairing up with a synagogue. How was
that going to work? But ten years and
one devastating earthquake later, that mission is going stronger than
ever. Now we are joining up with
twenty churches in our county to change a region of millions of people, to
reform a government with billions at its disposal? How is that going to work? It’s going to work because that’s how Jesus’
revolution always works. In Jesus’
revolution, only the inadequate are adequate.
How
did a few hundred Jesus followers grow over two centuries to where they
overturned the Roman Empire? How did
Christianity become the world’s largest faith community? It happened because Jesus uses woefully
unequipped and inadequate people to do the impossible. That’s how Jesus’ revolution works. And if we look around us at the needs of
our community, and at our resources, and go, “We don’t have what it
takes.” Guess what. We’re in Jesus’ sweet spot. We are right where he wants us. Yes, we’re inadequate, of course we
are. But that just means, we’re ready
for Jesus to do the impossible among us. For the work of God is always impossible. That’s what makes it the work of God and not
us.
But
still how did Jesus bring about his revolution.
Every revolution has one crucial moment. Our nation’s was at Lexington and Concord,
with the shot heard round the world.
What was Jesus’ shot? What set
fire to Jesus’ revolution, the revolution of all revolutions? Mark points to it in two simple words. Before Jesus gave the bread to his
disciples, he did two things. He
blessed and broke. In those two words, Mark is telling us
everything.
For
in Chapter 14, Mark tells us. Jesus sits
down with his disciples for another meal, his very last. And there he takes the bread again, but this
time he says, this bread is my body.
Then what does Mark tell us happened next. Jesus blessed and he broke, same two words. Those are the words to which Mark points
here. Those are the words that mark
Jesus’ shot heard round the world.
What
was that shot? These people wanted a
new Joshua, who would conquer their enemies, and give them the peace for which
they yearned. But Jesus is telling them? You want a new Joshua? I am the ultimate Joshua. But I haven’t come to conquer some enemy
that will be here for a while and then gone.
I have come to conquer the ultimate enemy, the enemy behind all enemies,
the enemies of sin and death. And when
I do, I will give you the ultimate peace, peace with God, a peace that passes
all understanding. So how did Jesus do
that? How did Jesus bring about his
revolution?
On
the cross, his enemies, the ones who had brutalized and then crucified him, were
standing around and mocking him. And
what Jesus do. He says. “Father forgive them for they don’t know
what they do.” Then he bows his head,
and gives up his life. He blesses and he
breaks. He blessed the people who were
killing him and then he broke. And as
you see Jesus blessing and breaking on that cross for you, first as your
substitute and then as your example, it will bring about a revolution in
you. How so?
If
you are to eat bread, what do you have to do?
You have to break it right? If
you don’t break it, then you can’t have it.
And without the bread, you’ll starve.
You’ll waste away. You’ll
break. You’ll fall to pieces. It’s either you or the bread. Either the bread breaks or you do. And what did Jesus call himself? He called himself the bread of life. And Jesus meant it. He broke himself for you. Why, so that as he was broken, you could be
made whole. So you could have the bread
that endures for eternal life. On that
cross, Jesus took all our brokenness, all our injustice, all our evil, and he
absorbed it into himself. Why? So that in his brokenness, we would be made
whole. When you see that, when you see
how profoundly God loves you, how infinitely God values you that will fill the
deepest hunger of your heart; that will feed you until you want no more.
But
don’t stop there. See how in doing this,
Jesus sets the ultimate revolutionary example.
What do revolutions do? They
overturn the way things are. And on
that cross, Jesus did that. We live in a
me-first world a world that says, if I’m going to be whole, then you have to
get broken for me. Your life broken for
me. I step on you to get to the
top. That’s how you do it in the
world. But Jesus turns the tables. Jesus says. No, it’s my life broken for you. That is how God ordered the universe. That is the way of true fulfillment. That is ultimate reality. And if you live in
that reality, the reality of the God who dies for his enemies, that will
revolutionize you, it will revolutionize our world. This week, our nation has been focused on
Francis, a 78 year old man from Argentina.
Why? He lives out of this
reality. He washes the prisoners’
feet. He reaches out in love to his enemies. He shows the sacrificial love of Jesus. And just by doing that, he is
revolutionizing the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
That’s
what the gospel does. It transforms you
on the inside as you see what Jesus did for you. And then it turns you out, to do the same
for others. And when you do that, it
brings about a revolution in the world.
That is the revolution that will touch our neighbors’ hearts; that will
heal our communities; that will restore our broken world. And if you look at that revolution and find
it overwhelming. You’re right where you
need to be. Remember. It’s only the inadequate that are
adequate. For the work of God is
impossible. That’s what makes it the
work of God.
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