Faith Beyond Visible Resources

John 6: 1-21

One of the most precious memories I have of Donna is the mission trip we took together to Guatemala. She went twice as part of a medical team, and I went once, with her, and went to Guatemala another time, driving through Mexico. Doing a mission trip is an expensive proposition, true now, but true then, too. The plane tickets were, I think, about $1500 each, and there was also the medicine that needed to be bought, and the equipment that needed to be brought with us. We each were responsible for 2 suitcases, but our clothes and stuff only went into one. The other bag was medicine or eyeglasses. And all of that gathering took money. I was a starving seminary student, and both Donna and I were going, so we were in some need of help. There were 10 or so people on the team, and while some of them were able to pay their own way, by no means did everyone have the ability. So we had fundraisers. The biggest one was an auction of items donated by supporters. We all were responsible for the finding of items, and came up with things like gift baskets, a handmade quilt, gift certificates to Dallas area restaurants (and Dallas is a GREAT restaurant town), and the like. Then we got a call from someone who wanted to donate their boat. Stuff came from places we didn’t expect, and the auction was a great success. Now, when we went to Guatemala, I was darn near useless. We had an optometrist, the leader was a dentist, a doc, and a Nurse practitioner, who would do the women’s medicine behind held up shawls. The dentist had limited tools, and couldn’t fill cavities the way he would back in the U.S. so he had to just pull really bad ones. He “slicked up” quite a few people that week. We took sunglasses to help with the UV-induced blindness the farmers in mountains that high that near the equator suffer from, and prescription glass for those who were tested by the optometrist. We had a pharmacist who dispensed lots of Bactrim and sulfa drugs, the cheapest meds we could take. It was a wonderful trip, and for the people we met, we helped. Did we help every Indian in the Guatemalan highlands? No. But we were mighty important to the ones we met. None of that trip would have been possible if there hadn’t have been an idea, and a trust in faith that our resources did not control our ministry. We had faith beyond the visible resources, and through God’s grace, it got done. And Phil, the dentist and leader, did this trip about 6 times before finally moving down there. Jesus is the epitome of trusting beyond the available resources. Philip’s eyes get all big and saucerish when he sees all of these people coming to hear Jesus and be healed by him. Jesus is almost teasing when he asks Philip, “well, how are we going to feed all these people?” Andrew pipes in saying “well, there’s this kid with five loaves of barley bread and two fish.” So Jesus takes one and breaks it in half, and hands one half to someone. Then he breaks it in half again, and hands that away. Then he breaks it half again, and then again, and then again. And so all of these 5000 people are fed. And remember: in Biblical times, those counts actually counted just men: there were more, because there must have been wives, and children along, too! So they discover that, out of lunch for 5 people they have fed thousands. And the crowd wants to make Jesus king right then and there. And he disappears up the mountain rather than allow that. Later, when the disciples are crossing the lake, he’s walking along on top of it, and they want him to get into the boat with them. He makes the boat go immediately to the far shore, like Josiah will sometimes open automatic doors in grocery stores with his “Jedi” powers. God will not be controlled. So the story is for us that we can do great things in the name of God, through the power of God, if we will follow God. If we trust beyond our available, visible resources, we can do great things. Imagination is one of our greatest gifts from God. What are the needs of this community? How could we creatively address them? Do not think first of budgets, or resources. We know from this story that if it is of God, the resources will come. So what is needed? What can this church do to serve the Kingdom of God? --Pastor Drew, 7/29/12.

Reflections on Coming Away

Mark 6: 30-34

It may surprise you to know that your preacher spent last week in a monastery. It may surprise you to find out that your preacher considers himself a Benedictine. I was in Kansas last week, attending the yearly retreat of the monastery I am a member of, which is called St. Brigid of Kildare Monastery. It’s not like what you may think of-there is no brick and mortar, there are no monks or women monastics in the traditional sense—there are certainly no nuns. The members are both men and women, are married, are in committed relationships, and single, and we are located all around the country, and even one guy in the Dominican Republic. We are mostly Protestant and mostly Methodist, and about half clergy. What we do hold in common, though is an interest in and a desire to structure our lives, as best we can, according to a 1700 year old document called the rule of St. Benedict. That document tried for a balance of prayers, work, and rest. Some over the years have tried for a literal balance of three equal parts, and some have tried for a more dynamic flexibility. When we think about our lives, here, in this church today, we can usually s say that we have the work part down. We may not be very good at the rest part, many people in our culture are chronically sleep deprived. But the prayer part? Honestly, other than the occasional snap prayer at a red light, a meal grace, or a halfhearted Lord’s prayer as we go to sleep, one we don’t even finish as we fall unconscious, prayer is not a part of our lives. It would be hard, however, to really believe that anyone who doesn’t pray is Christian. Prayer is how we talk to God. More importantly, prayer is how God talks to us. One of the monks who came to talk to us said something interesting about prayer. As he was talking one morning, he didn’t actually refer to the psalms or the songs as prayer, that which the monks do every day, four or five times every day. That’s not the prayer part, he said. The praying comes in the silences. To pray is to listen. Silence is one of the things that is the hardest to obtain in our world. We are deeply uncomfortable with silence. I would experiment with silence in worship, decide that I am going to stay in silence for a minute before a pastoral prayer, and after about 30 seconds, there are already people getting restless, looking at their watches, rustling their bulletins, or looking at each other with desperation in their eyes! (that’s just a slight exaggeration.) But silence is where the soup gets cooked. Prayer, and silence, is at such a premium in our lives that it may actually take the discipline of putting it in your calendar, like going to the gym, or scheduling a date night with your significant other. Then, once you’ve done it, you may not know what to do. That’s where you could read “The Upper Room”, or “Our Daily Bread”, (ODB also has a phone app), or Oswald Chambers “Our Utmost for his Highest”, or anything else you find that is spiritually meaningful to you, including, of course, the Bible itself! Read it, then set it down and be quiet. This is where the things of your rushabout life will begin to crowd in; the grocery list, the sudden memory of a child’s uniform that’s still in the dryer, the bills you need to pay, the lawnmower calling to you. Don’t feel bad about being distracted. It happens to everyone-it happened to Jesus, too. He had asked the disciples to come away to a quiet place, after running here and there, doing the work of God, and the people ran around the side of the lake to meet him on the other side. Set the distraction aside in your mind, and return to the nothing. And listen. If someone pops into your mind, maybe you need to call that person. If an issue that’s troubling you pops up, maybe you can be honest about your feelings about it, and find a way to resolve it. Like working out, it takes practice. It takes time. But in prayer is where we can hear God. And if we are serious about being Christians in the real sense of it, what else is there but trying to hear God? So this is my challenge to you this week. Carve time out, schedule time in for prayer. It can be in the morning, it can be at night, but probably not a good idea to do it after you’ve turned out the light at the end of the day. That’s a good way to only get half of what God might say; you’ll miss the other half because you’re sawing logs! And be quiet. And listen. -Pastor Drew, 7/24/12