The mystery of the Incarnation begins with this young woman, Mary, who was able to see the eternal God coming to her and working within her own abilities, her ordinary gifts, her humanity, to save the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The feast of St. Mary, Mother of Our Lord
   text:  Luke 1:46-55

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

“My spirit rejoices in God my Savior, who has looked on the humiliation of his slave.”

We heard “looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant,” which is good, and interprets the context. But the harsher reading gets us deeper into Mary’s truth.

Mary recognized that the one, true God was identifying with her. This magnificent song is a praise of what happens when God does that. It begins with God looking on our humiliation. Looking with favor on our lowliness. This young woman grasped what it takes many of us a lifetime to comprehend: if God was going to be born in her, then God was going to be working in person in humiliation and weakness to save the world.

Maybe she didn’t grasp it fully at first. But she said yes to the one thing that was asked of her, the one thing: she agreed to be a mother.

She agreed to do what women before her and after have done so often.

As a man, I can’t claim that bearing a child is easy. But Mary said yes to what was a normal thing, something she had already anticipated, hoped for, as her future, something many women had done, including her mother, grandmother, and relatives like Elizabeth.

There was little else given to her. God gave no particular parenting instructions for this child. There was no provision for the child’s food and clothing. No inheritance set aside, no housing, no special gifts.

Mary said, “let it be as God says,” with little guidance for what came next.

But she realized this: what God needed from her was something she could do.

Mary’s call was to be herself. Through that, God would save.

She would bear this child as women do, with the help of women around her, at home, and in Bethlehem. She would do what her body was designed to do.

She would parent this child, as parents always do, with little to go on but her own love, wisdom, common sense, and the advice, wisdom, and love of her family.

She would travel to see relatives, as people often do. She would make a pilgrimage with her son and husband to Jerusalem, as people did. She would deal with life and being the mother of this child to the best of her ability, as mothers do everywhere.

And she understood that this was all God needed. She wasn’t asked to do anything beyond her normal, human capabilities. She was asked to be Mary, mother of Jesus, wife of Joseph, child of Nazareth, herself.

And that would be the way God would begin the salvation of the world.

That’s the grace that surrounds us on Mary’s feast day: the Triune God saves through the ordinary lives of human beings.

Now we celebrate Mary as Theotokos, as Queen of Heaven, as the Mother of Our Lord, lots of capital letters, much praise and glory. In truth, the glory of Mary is found in God’s full identification with the humiliation of our humanity.

What she sings, of God lifting up the poor, casting down the proud, feeding the hungry, sending the rich away, could sound like a revolution of violence and power. In fact, it is a revolution of humiliation of the One who made all things.

God my Savior has looked upon my humiliation, Mary sang, looked with favor on my lowliness. God has decided to enter the humiliation, the lowliness of human life, in all our fragility and brokenness, to bring human life back into the life of God.

If we want to see where God is working, it’s no consolation prize to say, “look at what God’s people are up to.” It’s the place God will surely be seen. It’s the grand prize truth of what the birth of the Son of God to Mary means for the world.

This means we also are not asked to do what we cannot do.

That’s the gift Mary gives us with her “yes.” She reveals how utterly basic it will be for us to be a part of God’s salvation of the world.

We are not called to be someone else, with someone else’s gifts. We are not called to have great worldly power, unless we have it. (And if we do, God will use that, too.) We are, like Mary, simply asked to be ourselves.

To see ourselves as part of God’s great overturning of the ways of this world, and keep that awareness in our hearts and minds as we act, decide, live, love. Mary parented Jesus to the best of her ability, but with that one addition, that she understood her involvement in a greater plan of God. She still had to change his diapers, feed him, teach him, maybe even scold him. She likely parented with similar skills and attitudes as her parents had, as we all do. But with one difference, she knew God was working through her to love the world.

We have the same gift. We live, love, decide, act, work, play in this world as we are able, with the gifts we’ve been given, but now we know something else. Now we know the Triune God is working through us to bring life and love to this world.

God looked on our humiliation, our human-ness, and said, “That’s where I will work.”

It’s terrific news. It’s enough to give each one of us purpose and meaning to every moment of our lives, to give import and grace to every interaction we have with another child of God.

It’s also alarming news. To think that what we are doing in this moment, or the next, is something God is working in to make life happen can be intimidating, even frightening.

So we remember Mary. She smiles at us in love and says, “it’s not as scary as you think, and the joy of knowing God believes you are necessary, of feeling at God work in you, is immeasurable. So all will be well. Go ahead and say yes.”

God give us the courage and spirit to do just that.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

When we eat our life’s bread, our Lord Christ, we take God’s very essence into us and we are drawn into the reality, heart, peace, and life of the Triune God and become part of Someone greater than we, yet including all.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 19, year B
   texts:  John 6:35, 41-51; 1 Kings 19:4-8; Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

We all long to know that we matter, that we’re noticed, that someone thinks we’re important.

Our society idolizes the individual, urges us to claim our rights to be whatever we want to be, but at our depth we fear we are alone. What if we don’t show up and no one notices? What if we’re in pain and no one cares? What if we’re struggling and people just pass us by?

People of faith join communities of faith looking to belong, to matter. But it’s amazing how people start to change, and bend over backwards for others they hardly know. People look out for each other in a place like this, pray for each other, notice when people are missing. We come here to find a place for ourselves, but we change.

Paul explains with this truth: “we are members of one another.” The body of Christ is our deeper truth, not our individuality. The more we live into this body we are changed. We do things differently, choose differently, live differently, because it’s no longer about me, or you, but about us. We are members of one another.

Without fully knowing it was happening, we’ve lived what Jesus teaches today.

We have taken Christ Jesus into us as bread of life and he has changed us. This is a deep, confusing teaching, but we’ve started living it.

It’s like what happens whenever we eat. Our body is changed by the foods we eat, whether it’s a meat-heavy or vegetable-rich diet, lots of carbohydrates or sugar, our body chemistry, health and life change.

That’s what happens when we take Christ’s essence and life into us, as our bread of life. We are not who we were before. This is hard to grasp; Jesus lost lots of followers when he spoke like this. People don’t want to be changed. People don’t want to hear strange, disgusting teachings like “eat my body, drink my blood.” People don’t want hard-to-comprehend teachings, just simple answers.

But Jesus is being simple. He says if we can imagine drawing his life into ours, we will discover he is drawing us into the life of God, and we will never be alone, never be afraid of being lost, never wonder if we are valued or important to others again. And even though it’s been happening partly without our knowing, if we look now we can see at least four ways Christ transforms us by drawing us to God.

When we eat of our Lord, take this bread of life into us, we are drawn into God’s reality.

When Christ fills us we are drawn out of our own sense of what is real and what isn’t. The barriers between us and God fall and we see things not as we always have, but as God does. The barriers between us and others fall because we share God’s vision together.

So we’re able to look at the pain of the world as God does and see not only that it needs to be dealt with but also that we have the ability to do something. We’re able to look at the problems of the world and see what we’ve done to make them and start to work in the other direction.

When we are drawn into God’s reality it becomes ours, and with our community of faith we start seeing our path clearly together, not hundreds of different paths.

And when we eat of our Lord, take this bread of life into us, we are drawn into God’s heart.

When Christ fills us we are drawn out of our sense of what is lovable and what isn’t. The barriers between us and God fall and we love things not as we always have, but as God does. The barriers between us and others fall because we share God’s love together.

So we lose our fear that we can’t be loved by others in the joy that we are surrounded by God’s love. Our decisions, our actions, our way with everyone, from family to friends to co-workers to strangers are shaped by love, not fear or selfishness.

When we are drawn into God’s heart we find we are loved forever, and our whole world view becomes deep and abiding love for others in the limitless love of God.

And when we eat of our Lord, take this bread of life into us, we are drawn into God’s peace.

When Christ fills us we are drawn out of what is troubling us, making us anxious, afraid. The barriers between us and God fall and we feel things with the confidence that comes from living in the peace of God. The barriers between us and others fall because we live together in God’s peace and stop being afraid of each other, of ourselves, of life.

When we are drawn into God’s peace we find a place we couldn’t have found on our own, a place of calm in the midst of storms, a place of silence in the midst of shouting, joined together in God’s peace, and we know that all will be well.

And when we eat of our Lord, take this bread of life into us, we are drawn into God’s life.

When Christ fills us we are drawn out of our sense of the limits of life and death and its finality. The barriers between us and God fall and we see life not as the years we have to live, but as a quality of how we live. The barriers between us and others fall because we realize we share a life together in God that is profoundly more vital than each of our lives apart.

When we are drawn into God’s life we find what Christ means by eternal life. Life in the life of God connected to everyone else and connected to God, we are never alone, we never need to fear, not even our death, because together we are part of God’s life that is now and always.

John doesn’t tell us of the Lord’s Supper, just this teaching. Maybe that’s because the Lord’s Supper was intended all along to remind us of this.

On the night of his betrayal Jesus gave us this meal, calling it his body and his blood, perhaps because he was thinking of this teaching and realizing how difficult it would be for us to grasp. We’re so individual and independent, it would be hard to get what it meant to be drawn into the very being of God through Christ.

Jesus said do the Lord’s Supper to remember him. What if the point of tangible bread and wine was that we would, over time, deepen in our remembering of this prior teaching and our living into it? That we would come to this Table seeing it not as an end in itself, but God’s food that transforms us, food that truly is Christ Jesus in us, food that draws us into the reality, heart, peace, and life of the Triune God for our life going forward.

We would realize we are Elijah in the wilderness, and Christ is urging us, “get up and eat. You need to eat me for this journey of faith, and this bread and wine will help you know what it is to truly take me into you and be changed.”

So now we get up and eat. We take our Lord’s body and blood into us. And now we know what that means for the rest of our lives.

It means that all the barriers between us and God, between us and others, are coming down as we are drawn in, and changed.

It begins here in this place, as we live more deeply the truth that we are “members of one another,” as we deepen in our imitation of God, as Paul invites, living and breathing in God’s reality and heart and peace and life.

It will continue beyond this room, though, because once there’s nothing that keeps us apart from each other, once we all matter to each other, and we all belong to God, once our being in the body of Christ is far more important than any of our individual lives, it’s a small leap to recognize we belong to and are a part of everyone on this planet. To begin to live lives that show that what happens to everyone matters, that there is no one who doesn’t count, no one who isn’t noticed.

What that will look like for us lies ahead. The Holy Spirit will show us. But today we know that’s our path, and we once more will eat and drink our Lord Christ into ourselves for that journey, but now more fully aware of what this food will do for us.

It is grace and life beyond anything we could have imagined.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Our life in faith is summed up in believing in, trusting in, God-with-us for all we need, not for all the answers, not for all things, but that in Christ we are joined to the life of the Triune God and we find life.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 18, year B
      texts:  John 6:(15-21)(22-23)24-35; Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

How can you make someone king who’s already ruler of the universe?

The crowds want Jesus to be their king, or a new Moses, and take care of all their needs. Jesus already is the Son of God, ruler of all things. He doesn’t need or want the role they would give him.

What of us? Do we want a ruler of this world who will take care of all human problems? It’s a moot question; there is no leader who could do that job. So we, too, are faced with understanding the kind of ruler the one true God is for us and the world.

We can’t make God be what we want. So we need to know who God really is, and if that’s enough.

That’s not easy to do.

In the wilderness and Galilee we see the usual approach.

The Israelites were happy to follow Moses when things looked great: leaving slavery, moving to a new land promised by God, life will be good. Until Pharaoh heard and increased their suffering. They finally got out, and again it was good, until they realized they were in the middle of a wilderness with no food. Now they hate and revile Moses, and the God he represents. They complain, and God provides manna and quails.

Jesus faces lesser expectations, as the crowds weren’t journeying to a promised land. But they brought him all of their needs, and he fed them, did healing, taught them about God. Now, on day two, they want more signs. After all, satisfied hunger returns the next day if there still is no food.

We do this. When things are good, we’re happy and we trust God. When things get difficult, we begin to ask the questions about God’s true intention, God’s ability to help us. We start to complain in the wilderness, asking for signs that prove we can trust God.

It’s easy to understand why.

The human needs on this planet are tremendous; just a short list includes war, hunger, poverty, illness, oppression, prejudice, injustice.

After that list, our needs almost seem unmentionable, but they’re ours and they’re real. People we love get sick, every week we pray for new people. We’ve just faced the death of loved ones in our community; that will keep happening. Some of us struggle with illnesses like depression, some of us legitimately worry about making ends meet, some of us fear a threatening world. We don’t have to compare our needs to a starving family to recognize we have needs that on any given day can seem overwhelming, painful, frightening.

If the Triune God isn’t going to meet those needs, it’s normal to wonder if we can trust such a God. If we don’t get our answers, if things don’t improve, if we struggle day after day, how can we trust God?

What sign will you give us so we can believe in you, God?

Wouldn’t it be more sensible to look for an earthly ruler who could actually take care of things?

Jesus says we’re not thinking big enough.

The Israelites are only worried about the lack of food. Despite all God has done for them, they fret that it doesn’t include a plan for feeding them on the journey. They’re following the One God to a place they’ve never seen in the belief it will be their land, and they think somehow God forgot to pack lunch. They’re not thinking big enough.

The crowds compare Jesus to human leaders. Could he be our king? Are there signs he’s at least as powerful as Moses was for our ancestors?

They’re not thinking big enough, Jesus says. First, it was God who gave them manna, not Moses. Also, that God is “my Father,” Jesus says. Then he lays it out: “I am . . . the bread of life.”

You don’t say “I am” in a way like that to people who know the proper name of the God who brought them out of Egypt is “I am,” and not expect them to make that connection. Jesus’ great I Am statements in John are drumbeats of identification of Jesus with the one, true God, and this is the first clear one.

So Jesus is saying, “forget for a moment about another lunch, or even the little bit with the missing boats and walking on water. Forget about comparing me to Moses. In me, in my presence, God is here. I am. I am the bread you need. The life you need.”

In fact, he tells them the only “work” they have to do for God is believe in the One God sent. Believe in me. Because I am.

And Jesus says that’s enough for them and for us.

If we can believe in him, trust he is sent by God, trust him when he says, “I am enough,” it will be, he says.

John tells us later that these signs – water into wine, multiplied bread and fish, walking on water, and more – are given us so we can believe “that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, have life in his name.”  John 20:31

The signs aren’t the point, they point to the real thing, so we can believe, and have life in his name. We don’t stand at sign posts on the road and wait for another, we go where they point.

Jesus says that he is what we need, that this relationship with the one, true God he is bringing to us and the world will be life for us, in spite of our needs and fears and struggles. He calls us to trust that when we come to him, believe in him, our hunger and our thirst will go away.

That sounds great. At some point, though, what difference does that really make? For the world’s problems? For our problems? Do we have enough to go on to not only believe in God-with-us but trust that will be enough?

In this place we have learned that we do.

I’ve been away from you for three months and have had time to think and ponder what it is God has made in this place. I had the privilege of spending some time with a long-time member on Friday where we talked about the same thing. This is a truth about this community of faith: here in this place we gather because we believe in the promise that the one true God, the Triune God who made us and saves us, will meet us here. And we will find life.

We are comfortable with mystery here. We have lots of good theologians here, lots of faithful disciples who might not call themselves theologians (even if they are) but have come here for years to meet God. We have people who are seeking, questioning, we have people who come here and find a safe place, find peace. What joins us all is that in this place we don’t fret about getting all the answers.

We come here because we meet God here, in Word and song and prayer and silence and beauty, and we are filled with the forgiving love and grace of God. We have signs, too: bread and wine, water, the physical grace and presence of brothers and sisters who care for us and surround us as Christ by their lives.

And that’s enough to satisfy us.

We know we are called to do things, and here we find guidance. We know there are problems in the world and our lives, and here we find paths to answers, people who help, promises that God is working to make a difference.

But ultimately, we gather here comfortable with not knowing all, open to mystery, not needing answers because we know and expect God will be with us. And God is. And it’s enough.

In this place a great gift that is passed down is this invitation to trust, not complain.

Here we meet people who have walked this path enough to know that a relationship with the Triune God based on God’s undying love and transforming forgiveness, a life with God’s life flowing in us through the Spirit, is enough to handle any circumstances, enough to challenge any to deeper discipleship and work in the world, enough to calm anxiety and bring peace, even in the face of death.

At any given time some of us forget this, because life happens. We gather here because there is always someone in this place who will remind us that in the life Christ gives us we have food and drink enough to satisfy all our needs. There is always someone here who will help whichever of us is inevitably struggling like the crowds and the Israelites.

Jesus says it’s enough for us to believe in him, to come to him, and if we trust him, we’ll find our hunger satisfied, our thirst quenched.

So, Christ Jesus, we are here. Come to us now and fill us with your life. It will be enough.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Christ comes to change our hearts, fill us with the power of the Spirit and with the love of Christ living in us, so we can be a part of the pouring of God’s abundant love into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 17, year B
      texts:  John 6:1-15; Ephesians 3:14-21; Psalm 145:10-18

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Of course they wanted to make Jesus king.

Wouldn’t we?

About 20,000 people will die of hunger today. 1.5 million children will die of hunger this year. If a leader could make bread appear out of nowhere, why wouldn’t we want that?

That’s what we want from our leaders, isn’t it? The ability to solve intractable problems, without any commitment from us? The daunting number of people who want to be elected president in 15 months time are already exciting crowds with impossible promises, hoping to fool people into believing they are able to make bread out of thin air.

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if Jesus were here, and could just end world hunger? While he was at it, maybe he could also take care of our war making and violence, end oppression and injustice, clean up a lot of things? Our world has far more than 5,000 needy people; Jesus could be a big help.

Unless that’s not what Jesus means to do.

Jesus slips away at the end because he wasn’t about providing bread.

Jesus fed 5,000 people with a little boy’s lunch, and there were leftovers. Of course they wanted to make him king. Anybody with that kind of power should be in charge. The next day after this miracle, the people were looking for Jesus again, wanting another sign. Wanting more bread.

My friends, Jesus isn’t about the bread. This story isn’t about the bread. This astonishing lunch is simply a byproduct of Jesus’ unstoppable compassion for people in need. He couldn’t ignore that they were there, and they were hungry.

But he went away when they wanted to make him king because he didn’t come to give them bread. He came to give them himself.

Jesus knows the needs of this world are a people problem, not a God problem.

It’s a people problem that 20,000 will die of hunger today, because every reputable agency working on world hunger tells us there is more than enough food in this world to feed everyone. This planet produces enough. God’s hand is open, and offering enough to satisfy all.

Yet millions are starving. And in places like the United States we throw 40 percent of our food away every year, about $165 billion worth. Imagine today’s story if some of the 5,000 started grabbing bread and fish from their neighbors and hoarding it, so some of the folks got nothing. Then after getting the food away, they threw nearly half of it into the trash. That’s our world. That’s a people problem.

The Son of God coming to offer food to all people today would look exactly like the world looks today, because that’s precisely what God is already doing. It’s a people problem, not a God problem that we can’t feed everyone. That’s why in all four Gospels, Jesus asks the disciples what they’re going to do about feeding the people.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, one of his temptations was to turn stones into bread. Maybe he refused to do it for the same reason he walked away from the people after this lunch, and for the same reason he’s not miraculously placing stacks of food in every poor village and city in the world. You don’t need to turn stones into bread if there’s enough bread for all. You just need to transform the people’s hearts so the bread is shared.

The same is true about most of what we are anxious about, what we need, what we lack.

People worry about security, about jobs, about having enough money. People worry about their health. These are the things we’d ask Jesus about if we were in that crowd.

But if we were living in a world that truly understood God’s abundance, most of these would never be a problem. People wouldn’t fret about retirement income, or loss of a job, if everyone took care of everyone else. People wouldn’t lose sleep over security, over a threatening, violent world, if everyone looked out for each other. We would still have our health concerns, but we’d have a world where everyone got the care they needed, and safety nets below safety nets to make sure no one fell through.

Our needs and the needs of the world are almost universally people problems, not God problems. When the Triune God looked at the world and decided to come among us, the answer wasn’t miraculously solving needs. It was changing the hearts of the people.

Paul proclaims this today.

There are three abundant gifts Paul tells the Ephesians he is praying they receive.

First, that they would be strengthened inwardly, in their inner being, by the power of the Spirit.

Second, that Christ would live in their hearts through faith, so they would be rooted and grounded in love.

Third, that they would have the power to comprehend the incomprehensible, to know the unknowable, that is, that they would begin to grasp the height, depth, breadth, and length of God’s love.

This, Paul says, is God’s abundant gift in Christ to us, to the world. And somehow, he says, in giving these gifts, God is doing far more than we can ever ask or imagine.

Since we tend to ask and imagine God saving the world from all these pains and fears and suffering, that’s saying something. What it’s saying is that when God enters our hearts and transforms them, the people problems of the world start to disappear.

The eyes of all wait upon you, we sang, and you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

How does God satisfy every desire, if it’s not about the bread, about the miraculous ending of all human problems?

By giving us God’s very self in Christ Jesus, not just bread, and changing our hearts. Hearts that hunger not for our needs to be fulfilled but for God’s love to fill our hearts and lives. Hearts that long not for God the great vending machine of the world but God the one whose love will root and ground us and give us strength of heart and the love of Christ in our lives.

When we begin to comprehend the incomprehensible love of God, we are changed. And we become part of God’s saving of this world. The only way everyone in the crowd gets fed, with leftovers to collect, is when everyone in the crowd passes bread and fish to their neighbor.

It’s far more than we usually ask and far more than we can imagine.

That’s our problem. Like people looking for political leaders who promise to fix everything without any involvement or sacrifice on the part of the people, we simply haven’t had the imagination or the will to consider that God could end all of human suffering through us, the people of the world. The problems seem so unsolvable, so daunting, whether it’s poverty or hunger or racism or war, or the systems that perpetuate all those things, we can’t imagine how any of that could be changed.

God can, and does imagine how all this can be transformed, and the world made into a better place, where all are fed and healthy and strong, and there are leftovers. This will happen when we are transformed by God into people who, rooted and grounded in God’s love, reflect that love in our lives, our decisions, our votes, our work, everything.

What would happen if we asked, if we imagined?

What if we imagined that through changing the people of the world God would bring life to the world? What if we asked God to transform our hearts so we’d be a part of the needed solutions? What might happen then?

We don’t know exactly. But we know God can accomplish this, and far more even than that.

It seems foolish if we don’t at least ask. And prepare to be changed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Christ comes to change our hearts, fill us with the power of the Spirit and with the love of Christ living in us, so we can be a part of the pouring of God’s abundant love into the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 17, year B
      texts:  John 6:1-15; Ephesians 3:14-21; Psalm 145:10-18

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Of course they wanted to make Jesus king.

Wouldn’t we?

About 20,000 people will die of hunger today. 1.5 million children will die of hunger this year. If a leader could make bread appear out of nowhere, why wouldn’t we want that?

That’s what we want from our leaders, isn’t it? The ability to solve intractable problems, without any commitment from us? The daunting number of people who want to be elected president in 15 months time are already exciting crowds with impossible promises, hoping to fool people into believing they are able to make bread out of thin air.

Wouldn’t it be great, though, if Jesus were here, and could just end world hunger? While he was at it, maybe he could also take care of our war making and violence, end oppression and injustice, clean up a lot of things? Our world has far more than 5,000 needy people; Jesus could be a big help.

Unless that’s not what Jesus means to do.

Jesus slips away at the end because he wasn’t about providing bread.

Jesus fed 5,000 people with a little boy’s lunch, and there were leftovers. Of course they wanted to make him king. Anybody with that kind of power should be in charge. The next day after this miracle, the people were looking for Jesus again, wanting another sign. Wanting more bread.

My friends, Jesus isn’t about the bread. This story isn’t about the bread. This astonishing lunch is simply a byproduct of Jesus’ unstoppable compassion for people in need. He couldn’t ignore that they were there, and they were hungry.

But he went away when they wanted to make him king because he didn’t come to give them bread. He came to give them himself.

Jesus knows the needs of this world are a people problem, not a God problem.

It’s a people problem that 20,000 will die of hunger today, because every reputable agency working on world hunger tells us there is more than enough food in this world to feed everyone. This planet produces enough. God’s hand is open, and offering enough to satisfy all.

Yet millions are starving. And in places like the United States we throw 40 percent of our food away every year, about $165 billion worth. Imagine today’s story if some of the 5,000 started grabbing bread and fish from their neighbors and hoarding it, so some of the folks got nothing. Then after getting the food away, they threw nearly half of it into the trash. That’s our world. That’s a people problem.

The Son of God coming to offer food to all people today would look exactly like the world looks today, because that’s precisely what God is already doing. It’s a people problem, not a God problem that we can’t feed everyone. That’s why in all four Gospels, Jesus asks the disciples what they’re going to do about feeding the people.

When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, one of his temptations was to turn stones into bread. Maybe he refused to do it for the same reason he walked away from the people after this lunch, and for the same reason he’s not miraculously placing stacks of food in every poor village and city in the world. You don’t need to turn stones into bread if there’s enough bread for all. You just need to transform the people’s hearts so the bread is shared.

The same is true about most of what we are anxious about, what we need, what we lack.

People worry about security, about jobs, about having enough money. People worry about their health. These are the things we’d ask Jesus about if we were in that crowd.

But if we were living in a world that truly understood God’s abundance, most of these would never be a problem. People wouldn’t fret about retirement income, or loss of a job, if everyone took care of everyone else. People wouldn’t lose sleep over security, over a threatening, violent world, if everyone looked out for each other. We would still have our health concerns, but we’d have a world where everyone got the care they needed, and safety nets below safety nets to make sure no one fell through.

Our needs and the needs of the world are almost universally people problems, not God problems. When the Triune God looked at the world and decided to come among us, the answer wasn’t miraculously solving needs. It was changing the hearts of the people.

Paul proclaims this today.

There are three abundant gifts Paul tells the Ephesians he is praying they receive.

First, that they would be strengthened inwardly, in their inner being, by the power of the Spirit.

Second, that Christ would live in their hearts through faith, so they would be rooted and grounded in love.

Third, that they would have the power to comprehend the incomprehensible, to know the unknowable, that is, that they would begin to grasp the height, depth, breadth, and length of God’s love.

This, Paul says, is God’s abundant gift in Christ to us, to the world. And somehow, he says, in giving these gifts, God is doing far more than we can ever ask or imagine.

Since we tend to ask and imagine God saving the world from all these pains and fears and suffering, that’s saying something. What it’s saying is that when God enters our hearts and transforms them, the people problems of the world start to disappear.

The eyes of all wait upon you, we sang, and you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

How does God satisfy every desire, if it’s not about the bread, about the miraculous ending of all human problems?

By giving us God’s very self in Christ Jesus, not just bread, and changing our hearts. Hearts that hunger not for our needs to be fulfilled but for God’s love to fill our hearts and lives. Hearts that long not for God the great vending machine of the world but God the one whose love will root and ground us and give us strength of heart and the love of Christ in our lives.

When we begin to comprehend the incomprehensible love of God, we are changed. And we become part of God’s saving of this world. The only way everyone in the crowd gets fed, with leftovers to collect, is when everyone in the crowd passes bread and fish to their neighbor.

It’s far more than we usually ask and far more than we can imagine.

That’s our problem. Like people looking for political leaders who promise to fix everything without any involvement or sacrifice on the part of the people, we simply haven’t had the imagination or the will to consider that God could end all of human suffering through us, the people of the world. The problems seem so unsolvable, so daunting, whether it’s poverty or hunger or racism or war, or the systems that perpetuate all those things, we can’t imagine how any of that could be changed.

God can, and does imagine how all this can be transformed, and the world made into a better place, where all are fed and healthy and strong, and there are leftovers. This will happen when we are transformed by God into people who, rooted and grounded in God’s love, reflect that love in our lives, our decisions, our votes, our work, everything.

What would happen if we asked, if we imagined?

What if we imagined that through changing the people of the world God would bring life to the world? What if we asked God to transform our hearts so we’d be a part of the needed solutions? What might happen then?

We don’t know exactly. But we know God can accomplish this, and far more even than that.

It seems foolish if we don’t at least ask. And prepare to be changed.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen