The Miracle of the Loaves & Fishes

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The Miracle of the Loaves & Fishes

Tony Filipovitch  (4/28/19)

  • Synopsis: A mindset of abundance flows from a sense of personal worth and security.  It is the confidence that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody.  It reaches out to possibilities, options, creativity.  The miracle of the loaves and fishes was not that God created something from nothing, but that the people opened their hearts to each other. Fear and insecurity are real and life us full of nasty surprises, yet how might we grow to trust our vision of what our community and our Fellowship might be?
  • Opening Words (from Rev. Sarah Oehlberg)

“We call forth this morning the spirit of spring, of creation, of rejuvenation.  As the earth slowly awakens from its long sleep so each of us stirs beneath the slumber of apathy in anticipation of the Great Mystery of Life, As buds and bulbs swell with potency so our spirits feel the full weight of their soulful pregnancy and prepare to give birth to our empowering potential, We call forth the spirit of spring this morning within each of us, the spirit that moves us to transform who we are into who we can be.”

  • Song: #134  Our World is One World
  • Story for All Ages: Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:  14-29)

“A man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”

 

  • Meditation:
    • Sit quietly, eyes unfocused, follow your breath in… and out… and in … and out
    • Hold in your mind’s eye our blue planet, Gaia, struggling to keep her balance as she is stressed by the human footprint on her:
      • May she be happy.
      • May she be well.
      • May she be peaceful.
      • May she be free.
    • Turn your mind now to our nation, struggling with a migraine as we retreat to our corners shouting at each other.
      • May she be happy…
    • Come now to our own little fellowship, torn between our vision for ourselves and our anxiety that we cannot make them real.
      • May we be happy….
    • Rest now in your own spirit, with all your own hopes and doubts and concerns.
      • May I be happy….
  • Offering
  • Reading: from My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Remen

Earlier in this reading, Remen recounts lighting the Hannukah candles with her grandfather in his darkened study.  The first night, one candle which barely lit the room; the next night, two candles; until finally all 8 candles were lit and the room was filled with light.  Her grandfather goes on to explain:

“The story of Hannukah says that God’s light burns in the darkness even without oil, and it is so,” said my grandfather.  “That is one of the miracles of the light.  But there is more.  There is a place in everyone that can carry the light.  God has made us that way.  When God says “LET THERE BE LIGHT,” he is speaking to us personally…. He is telling us what is possible, how we might choose to live.  But one candle does not do much in the darkness.  God has not only given us the chance to carry the light, he has made it possible for us to kindle and strengthen the light in one another, passing the light along.  This is the way that God’s light will shine forever in this world.”

  • Sermon: The Miracle of the Loaves & Fishes

In preparing for this service I shared it with several people who were generous with their time and comments.  In many cases, they would stress different parts or express similar thoughts differently.  I hope my remarks today do stimulate you to exercise your “free and independent search for the truth,” and while there won’t be time for Q&A as part of the service, I encourage any who wish to join me at one of the tables downstairs to continue the internal conversation that I hope I am about to incite.

So, to begin, let me disabuse you–this will not be the “sermon on the amount.”  I know, you might have expected (feared?) that it would be.  Besides Board President, I have been a past stewardship chair.  And, since we will be talking about abundance and generosity, let’s get this out of the way now—Please, be generous and contribute abundantly to UUFM!

But that is not the point today.  Today I want to focus on “living more abundantly.” Our theme for this month is “Wholeness,” and a few weeks ago Rev. Rita talked about how we create the web on which we also live.  I want to invite you to spend some time today thinking a bit more about the kind of web that you, that we create together.  One of the motivations for spiritual seeking is to live more fully. In John’s Gospel (10:10) Jesus said “I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”  The Buddhists call this “mindfulness.”  And as a Universalist (I don’t believe in Hell, so I don’t need to spend my time now trying to escape it) it is probably the primary reason why I am here.

What does it mean to live a life of abundance?  St. Matthew’s gospel tells the story of the Miracle of Loaves and Fishes (Matthew 14:13-21).  Jesus was teaching at a remote location, and toward the end of the day the disciples realized that he needed to stop so people could go back home to eat.  Instead, Jesus said let’s feed them here.  But, his disciples replied, we don’t have enough!  We only have 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and there are 5,000 people.  But Jesus blessed the bread and fish and the disciples passed them out into the crowd—and after everyone had eaten their fill, they collected 12 baskets of leftovers!  This story is often told to make the point that God will provide.  But there is another interpretation.  Some argue that the miracle wasn’t that 5 loaves and 2 fish fed 5,000—it was that Jesus convinced a bunch of poor fisherfolk and shepherds and small shopkeepers to share what they had stashed in their cloaks!  (And, thinking of the annual pledge drive…. But I digress.)

But do I dare?  Can I depend on God or the Spirit of Life or the Universe to respond to my needs and hold me up? Consider another story, Aesop’s fable of the Grasshopper and the Ants.  As Aesop tells it, the grasshopper jumped around in the wheat field all summer while the ants industriously gathered and stored seed for the winter.  The ants asked him to help, but he preferred to fiddle and dance.  When the snow started, the grasshopper came to the ants, begging to share the warmth of the nest they had built and the food they had stored, for if they did not he would die.  In Aesop’s version, the ants let the grasshopper starve.  I actually prefer the Disney version, in which the ants let the grasshopper share their food and nest—as long as the grasshopper entertains them through the winter with his fiddling and dancing.

These are two different stories, one from a scarcity mindset and one that changes it to a mindset of abundance.  In Aesop’s version, the grasshopper left itself dependent on charity of others, and starved.  In Disney’s version, everybody ends up with a richer life than either had anticipated—the grasshopper was warm and fed, and that ants gained a way to pass the long winter months!  A mindset of abundance flows from a sense of personal worth and security.  It is the confidence that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody.  It reaches out to possibilities, options, creativity.

I am reminded of an Indian folktale in which a child thinks to test a guru by presenting his fist with a bird’s tail feathers sticking out.  “Is the bird alive or dead?” he asks.  “It will be whichever you choose,” comes the reply.  How do you know which version of the grasshopper story to believe?  It will be whichever you choose.  Think of MLK’s trust in “the beloved community,” which was based on his confidence that “the arc of history” was bending toward justice.  For Dr. King, community is a verb, a calling out the dream that we all discern even in slumber.  It is an act of “courageous hospitality,” an act of will, a choice to live from the heart, to create a place of refuge and comfort.  And, if you need a sign to buck up your flagging spirits, whether by divine intervention or not, the Spring does return and the crocuses do poke up through the frozen ground!

I am talking about trust.  Fear and insecurity are real; I am not trying to minimize them.  And life is full of nasty surprises (or “challenges,” if you prefer)—The year after we demolished our savings to buy our house (our first house, the one we still live in), the water heater went out.  The next year the roof sprung a leak.  And don’t get me started on the “surprises” that came with raising children (braces, concussions, serious illnesses).  Our economic system privileges competition over cooperation and teaches the “creative destruction” of the market.   Our current politics of division does not inspire trust.  Yet, I insist, I am talking about trust.  I purposely reversed the Buddhist LovingKindness (Metta) meditation earlier in the service.  It is usually done from self outward to others.  I reversed it because sometimes our anxiety about the world around us infects our ability to trust ourselves.

Think back to the Parable of the Talents which you heard earlier.  This story has befuddled me since I was a kid—it seems so unfair!  “To those who have, even more will be given,” (like they needed it?!)  But now I think the moral is further down in the story—the one who would not risk lost everything!  Or, as hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”  The Midrash says that when Moses raised his staff the sea didn’t part until Nahshon took a first step into the waves. I have always loved water, but well into adulthood swimming was thrashing my way through the water gasping for air.  While learning to scuba dive, I found myself sitting on the bottom of the deep end of the pool, watching my bubbles float to the surface, and realized that water could HOLD ME UP if I didn’t fight it!  When I stopped resisting and started trusting, swimming changed from a struggle to a tranquil practice.

Living abundantly is spiritual discipline—and a self-fulfilling prophecy.  A number of years ago now, at a conference in Phoenix, I was walking around downtown taking in the architecture.  A young guy approached me, and explained apologetically that his wife and baby were nearby, at their car with a busted transmission.  His father-in-law was wiring them money to get it fixed, but in the meantime he needed money to rent a room so the three of them would have a place to stay.  I hesitated, weighing my options.  It could be a scam—a creative one, but still….  Or it could be true.  I had the money—I had budgeted for this conference, and could spare a twenty (prices were cheaper then—it was a while ago) if I ate at less expensive places.  But I didn’t want to be played for a sucker….  In the end, I decided to give him the money.  Even if it were a scam, I did not want what it would do to my soul to ignore a fellow human in need.  I slept well that night, and I prayed that he did, too.

In the Jewish tradition, charity is called Tzedakah (It is S’daqah in Arabic—the obligation of Zakat, or giving to others).  Literally, the word means “justice” or “righteousness,” even though it is commonly translated as “charity.”  Its meaning is deeper, though, than voluntary philanthropy; it is the ethical obligation of right living.  The human animal cannot survive except by depending on others.  Even Chuck Noland in Castaway had to invent a companion, Wilson.  Tzedakah is, in part, acknowledging that we all depend on each other.  The great Medieval rabbi, Maimonides, taught that what you give was never yours to begin with—it was always first given to you in trust from God (remember the parable of the talents?).

In other words, sharing cheerfully from abundance is an affirmation of life.  Perhaps Nature is random, working without will or intention (that is a topic for another day).  But we are different.  Humans do ascribe meaning—to life as well as events.  Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:21).   Living abundantly is in some sense a choice—it is a habit of the heart, one that is cultivated/nourished/ fed/practiced over time.  When I was in doctoral school, I was an assistant on a study of life satisfaction.  Almost always, we found, 75% of people say they are satisfied with their life—even people in nursing homes, even people in hospice.  It is a choice, an act of will, a habit built up over a lifetime.

So, to sum up this rambling meditation:  From the story of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the lesson seems to be that “God” does provide—through our sharing with each other!  From the image of Springtime crocuses, we take the lesson of courageous hospitality.  From the parable of the talents, we are taught to trust; you’ll miss some shots, but fewer than those you didn’t take.  And from the practice of tzadekah, we recognize that giving and sharing is an expression of “right living.”  In the end, living abundantly is a choice!  So embrace the miracle of life, choose to live it abundantly, as we rise together in body or in spirit and sing Hymn #128 “For All That Is Our Life.”

  • Song: #128  For All That Is Our Life
  • Extinguishing the Flame:
  • Closing Words: (from Unitarian Universalist Society of Cleveland?)  “May the little that we know be enough to guide us as we seek the truth that no one can know and no one can live without.”  Go now in peace.
  • Closing Song