Sermon: "Six Months Wages"

The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

July 29, 2018 – Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

John 6:1-21

“Six Months Wages”

What would you do with 187 million dollars?

I didn’t just make that number up - it’s the current jackpot in the national Powerball Lottery.

Even if you’ve never purchased a Powerball ticket, you may have at one time played the game in your head where you ask yourself:

“What if I won the lottery? What would I do with all that money?”

Of course, we only seem to ask ourselves this question and may only consider buying a lottery ticket when the jackpot gets up to 187 million,

or 420 million, or 750 million.

But if it’s only 40 million? 

Eh, chump change. 

Not worth the effort.

So, what would you do with 187 million dollars?

Pay off your credit card debt, your kid's student loans, your mortgage?  

Buy a bigger house, or a vacation home?

Buy a new car, or several cars? If one is not enough.

Perhaps travel? – to Europe, Africa, Asia, or South America.

Be generous with friends and family members – well, at least the ones you want to be generous with.

And of course, give a good portion of it to charity - 

to hunger relief, to cancer research, to your church –

to give back to God what you’ve been given.

The “what if I won the lottery?” game is one we like to play because there’s some satisfaction in imagining what we would do in the face of abundance.

If we finally had enough.

Enough to meet our needs, and the needs of those around us.

Of course, when it comes to the lottery, there aren’t many who are blessed with this particular kind of abundance.

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 292 million to one.

In the last Powerball drawing, which took place last night, nobody won the jackpot.

To win the grand prize you have to match six out of six numbers.

If you match five numbers, but miss the Powerball number, you win a consolation prize of 1 million dollars.

Not bad.     

One person won that prize last night.

If you match 4 numbers plus the Powerball number the prize drops down to $50,000.

Still not bad. $50,000 is a lot of money even in today’s world. 

In last night’s drawing, 20 people won that prize – out of the 22 million tickets sold in the nation. 

The next prize drops all the way down to $100.

To give it a local perspective, in NH only 10 people won $100 last night.

The better odds are of course with the lower prizes.

Last night, 360 New Hampshirites won $7 and 5,223 won $4 – just slightly more than what it cost for the ticket.

But ya gotta be in it to win it.

There was one time when the odds of winning increased unexpectedly.

On March 30, 2005, the Powerball folks had to pay out almost $20 million dollars in consolation prize winnings when 110 people correctly chose five of the six numbers.

Typically there are only 1 or 2 winners who manage to do that.

While fraud was initially suspected, it turns out the only connection between the 110 winners was they had all played numbers they found in a fortune cookie on the day they bought the ticket - 22, 28, 32, 33, and 39.

The cookies came from the same distributer in Long Island City, NY.

And the fortune on the other side read:

"All the preparation you've done will finally be paying off.”

Now, there are times when one or two people beat the astronomical odds, and win the jackpot of 187 million, or 400 million, or 750 million.

Which is why given even these very slim odds, we’re tempted to imagine what we would do if we ever happen to be gifted with such abundance. 

The story of the Feeding of the 5000 that we find in all four of our gospels helps us to imagine that as well.

Yet typically we look at this story not as a story about abundance, but as a story about generosity.

As we imagine Jesus taking the five loaves and two fishes and multiplying them through the selfless giving of those gathered around him.

We may picture the disciples passing the baskets among the crowd, with each person sharing something they brought for themselves and adding it to the communal table – an extra loaf of bread, a few additional fish, until miraculously there is enough to feed everyone present.

This is a valid interpretation, and it works, especially if we’re a little uncomfortable accepting the story of Jesus’ miraculous multiplication at face value.  

The story becomes more real, and more relatable, if there’s a tangible example that we can follow – such as: the true miracle found in the face of scarcity is that we become the hands of Christ, and God feeds the world through our generosity - our willingness to share what we have with others.

But the story as we find it in John’s gospel is about so much more.

While the other gospel writers have Jesus blessing the bread and fish and handing it off to his disciples to pass amongst the crowd, in John’s gospel Jesus passes the blessed meal to the crowd himself.

There is no middleman.

It’s a minor difference, and we might say – “Why should it matter?” – once the crowd had the fish and the bread they still could have added to it from their individual stores.  The theme of generosity remains the same.

It matters because John wrote his gospel with one over arching agenda in mind:  To tell the world about the miraculous and powerful presence of God that is revealed to all of humankind through Jesus.

John doesn’t give us the wiggle room to explain away the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 with a multitude of imagined picnic baskets being present and opened for all to share.

Instead, while the disciples busy themselves trying to figure out how much it might cost to feed so many people, Jesus blesses the five loaves and two fish and feeds the people with the abundance that God has to offer through him:

The loaves and fishes are a symbol of the abundance of God’s love and grace that nourishes and feeds us in much the same way as Jesus fed the masses in the gospel story.

All were fed, without question, and no one was deemed as less deserving than another.

The love and grace of God is given abundantly to show us that each and every one of has value and worth…

and that we are so much more than the mistakes that we make,

and so much stronger than the fears that rule our lives.

We can tap in to this sense of abundance at any time, when we carry Jesus with us in our hearts.

Not in the “have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior” kind of way.

But rather in the “God lives in us because God lived in Jesus” kind of way.

We may be followers of Christ, and see him as a wise and great teacher worthy of emulating in our words and actions, but sometimes we’re reluctant to give him the power over our hearts that we so willingly give to others.

We may get into passionate and sometimes heated discussions with others over a particular sports team we follow,

or business or brand that we’re loyal to,

or a politician or political agenda that we support,

but rarely are we so moved to speak or act with such passion about issues of justice, or grace, as they relate to our faith,

especially when they collide or conflict with the “real” world in which we must live.

Jesus said "Love thy neighbor" – and we say, “Who is my neighbor? Surely not the one who seeks to do me harm or take what I have.”

Jesus said "Welcome the stranger and the foreigner" – and we say, “Certainly not the one who crosses borders and doesn’t follow the rules that everyone must follow.”

Jesus said "Feed my people" – and we say, “Six months wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little. We can only feed as many as our budget allows.”

We think so small at times. 

We take what we know about how the world works and try and fit our faith into that limited framework.

Like a child trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.

We take God’s perspective and overlay our human perspective and miss the spaces that God is inviting us to grow into.

And that was John’s point when he wrote his gospel.

John loved to tell the miracle stories –

where Jesus turned water into wine,

healed the sick with touch of his hand,

and walked on water to calm the storm.

For John, Jesus was the presence of God in the world, sent here to show us that as powerful as we think we are, we don’t have the ability to do it all.

But God does.

When we think we don’t have enough to go around, God will show us that we have much more than we believe.

When we think our love should be limited to those we know and trust,

God will challenge us to love bigger.

When we think our space is limited and can only accommodate so many, God will challenge us to see bigger.

When we think our resources are limited and can only be spread so far,

God will challenge us to give bigger.

If you carry anything with you this week from our gospel reading this morning carry this:

When the disciples said to Jesus, “There’s not enough.”

Jesus said “Make the people sit down.” And he fed them.

When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the rising sea and were terrified.

Jesus said, “Do not be afraid.” And the seas calmed.

When we hold Jesus in our heart we hold within us the power to feed the people and calm the storms.

But that power doesn’t come from us, it comes from God.

When we take this understanding that God’s love and grace is abundant and offered to all – and we hold it in our heart – we can’t help but see beyond the limitations that our human perspective places on our God perspective.

When we see the world through the lens of abundance we begin to see the spaces that God is calling us to grow into.

It may be satisfying to imagine all the things we could do and all the needs we could meet if we won 187 million dollars in the Powerball lottery.

It’s even more satisfying to imagine all the things we could do and all the needs we could meet if we carried our God of abundance with us in our hearts.

If we’re looking for power to change the world, we won’t find it out there.

We’ll find it, right in here.

Thanks be to God, and amen.