Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (PR. 12)
John 6:1-21; Ephesians 3:14-21; 2 Kings 4:22-24
I will start with the obvious. It is wonderful to be home again after ten days in West Africa visiting our son Timothy or as we came to know him in Africa, "Timoté". Travel always makes you appreciate home in different ways than you did before you left. The five days at Tim's house in Tchebébé, Togo were spent without running water, electricity or even LP gas for cooking. (He had run out and there was none available within at least 100 kilometers.) The experience of another culture, society and part of the world quickly reveals the diversity of God's creation. When the familiar and routine is removed you begin to assess with new eyes the categories of wants and needs. For obvious reasons the sound of running water and a flushing toilet have become the sweetest music to our ears.
In our lesson for today Jesus is attracting the crowds because of the continued signs he did for the sick. We assume they were signs of healing. What is commonly called a miracle. It is human nature to be attracted by the unusual and unfamiliar. Every advertiser knows that they need to capture our attention with something new and unexpected. We are attracted to movies, plays and books because they contain an element of the unknown compared to the routines of our daily lives. The crowd is drawn by the promise of seeing and maybe hearing something new. A multitude, we are told, of some five thousand. For those of us familiar with the gospel story the number 5,000 is almost magical. We hear the number 5,000 and immediately assume that we know not only what is next but how the story will resolve itself. The feeding of the 5,000. A great story of food for the masses. A metaphor for our calling to feed the hungry. A perfect text to talk about hunger in our world today.
Togo is not a developing nation. It is not even considered to be on the first rung of the economic development ladder. The country is poor. There is no war or famine but there is also nothing that anyone else in the world seems to want. It has no natural resources of any great significance or quantity. There is no oil or valued mineral deposits other than phosphate. There are no longer any significant wild animal populations having seen the herds destroyed by tourist safaris and poachers decades ago. In a country about the size of West Virginia there is really only one paved road, the Highway Nationale which runs up the center of the country and is about the same size as Riverwoods Road. Yet the people of Togo are a generous and caring people. We received repeated apologies that we could not be more properly received by the chiefs or various families that welcomed us into their homes. Again and again we were told, "Togo is a poor country with much poverty." Yet the interesting observation that Timothy made is that when high school students are surveyed in Togo and asked "What are you most proud of about your country?" the number one response was that Togo has food. Compared to drought and famine plagued regions of Africa, Togo is blessed with temperate climates that allow almost every villager to have a small field of produce to eat and use for barter or even sale. There are sheep and goats, chickens and even turkeys roaming throughout each village. There are few starving children in Togo. Maybe malnourished because of diet limitations, yes, but not starving.
The miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is often seen as a miracle of generosity. It is suggested by some that Jesus presented a witness of sharing to the multitude that inspired them to share from their resources; the result was a multiplying of the loaves and fishes. The more I read this text, however, the more I am convinced that the gospel writer was concerned with more than describing how Jesus catered luncheons. The world changed when Jesus was around. The sick were healed, the multitude was fed and as the story continues almost every law of nature is challenged. The vision of a better world, a better place caused the people to consider drastic steps. Jesus, we are told, withdrew up the mountain for fear the people were going to make him king.
"Will you take me to America?" he asked with a smile. "You can take our son to America. He is small, He will easily fit inside your suitcase," she said with a smile. The painful truth however was that these parents of children from Togo were expressing a yearning and hope that was more than just their acknowledgment that their children were truly beautiful and well behaved. They made the only mildly light hearted offer of their children because they knew we were not just tourists. There was a genuine desire to cross the cultural and national boundaries, a desire to know that we would share their very human stories, their hopes and dreams with people back home. They desired for their children what every parent desires, a good life. We were treated not as some visitor passing through in search of a few souvenirs, a nice place to eat and some interesting photo opportunities. We were the visiting parents of the American Peace Corp Volunteer. The one who lived among the people shopping in the same marché they shopped in and eating a diet with few variations from their diet. Yet even as we lived among the people there was no question who he or we were. Everywhere we went the children would gather to see the people with clear skin. (We were not white but rather clear, since you can see blood vessels through our skin and every insect bite and bruise.) Children would regularly chorus out the Kabye word "Yovo" to alert others of our approach. We sat with the councils of elders in each village we visited. The chief of each canton, village and region had us sitting and photographed at their side. Food and drink was served with a bow. The apprentices would come into our presence with curtsies that swept them to the ground. We were served the tchouk first, fed first (often in a place apart from the others who waited to eat from what was left). The leftovers from our plates were cleaned back into containers from which we were told the children would eat later. The half eaten ear of early field corn roasted on the fire and served to us as a field treat was passed to a young child to be cleaned of any left over kernels. The bones of the chicken were sucked clean, some eaten. Everyone wanted our address to be able to contact us when they get to America (A fact that Timothy repeatedly reminded us was an actual impossibility for any of these rural Togolese.) The yearning for human connections beyond cultural and language distinctions filled each encounter and exchange. Yet at the end of each evening we withdrew with our battery powered lanterns and lights knowing that soon we would return to our country of air conditioning and showers.
After Jesus withdrew to the mountain, the disciples set out by boat for home. Into the darkness of the night with an increasing wind and growing sea the disciples rowed until they were encountered by yet another moment of wonder. Jesus appears walking on the sea. We are told their response is fear. The unknown and unexpected brings fear. So too does the miracle of wonder and the unexpected when it breaks into our world. Jesus comes to the disciples with a simple word, "It is I; do not be afraid." And we are told the disciples wanted to take him into the boat, to get close to this dispeller of fear. And immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going. To arrive and be safe. It is not just a matter of destination but faith.
The first Sunday we were in Togo we left the capitol city of Lome early in the morning heading north by bush taxi to Adéta in the hopes of attending the 10 a.m. house church service. This was the home of Tim's host family for the first three months he had been in Togo. He had lived with them to learn how to purify water, purchase and safely prepare food, and how to basically set up a household and survive in a foreign country. They also taught him basic tribal and social customs as well as key phrases in the various languages while providing him opportunity to practice his French, the national language. The road to Adéta was rough and took us longer than anticipated. We arrived around 11 a.m. to find over 50 people spilling out of the single room of the small house that served as a gathering space for worship on Sunday morning. We were met at our car and led into the gathering to the only four chairs in the room. Everyone else sat on benches, stood or squatted in a doorway. They had waited, held up the worship service for an hour for us to arrive. The service was led by Tim's host father, Davíd, who had been baptized years before by Lutheran missionaries passing through the village. Davíd led the Lutheran worship service using prayers, readings and singing hymns in French and the native language Ewe. They used the old "clucker" method of singing, where one voice would sing the melody and the others would follow her lead. The hymns and words were unfamiliar until the final hymn, a very slow and broad version of "Jesus loves me."
There is safety in the familiar. Back on land again the disciples did not fear. They were with Jesus standing on solid ground. The increasingly familiar litany still rang in their ears, "Do not fear." So easy to say, so much more demanding that we trust in the one who speaks. It is so much easier to believe in our own power and might. Yet the terrors of the world threaten to overwhelm.
After the Sunday service we stayed with Davíd and his family for the night. Through our translator son we learned of Davíd's work with the local council to bring clean water from the mountain to his village and we visited the construction site of a new three room school building. He told us that all the work that is being done is being completed with the assistance of non-government support which has made the community question the need to support the old guard ruling political party. Davíd told of how during the last election a little over a year ago armed men came to the village to look for opposition party members. Thousands fled the country in fear but Davíd stayed. Protected, he said, by his God. The soldiers came looking for him, but Davíd believes God kept him safely hidden from them.
Miracles are the stuff of which faith is made. Faith does not produce miracles but faith does open us to the possibility of God's grace revealing to us that which we otherwise would never have known. Faith does not create bread for 5,000 but it does discover a miracle of feeding those in want. Faith does not enable you to walk on water but it does open the eyes of those who believe to the miracle of Jesus coming even in the most impossible of situations. Faith does not make a man invisible to militia death squads but it does empower him to see beyond the moments of risk and danger to a future of life giving water and community. The people would have anointed Jesus their king. They would have created the power they wanted to trust. But God moves to change our world in ways unexpected. In ways that faith recognizes as the miracle of grace. Food enough. Resources enough, if we but use them as God intended rather then to our too limited human ends. In the end we need the faith to believe Jesus when he says, "It is I, do not be afraid." And when we do we will find that we too will have reached the land toward which we were going.
Amen