Feasting from the Altar of the World
10-4-15 (World Communion Sunday)
Revelation 7:9-17; Mark 8:1-10
Water. Bread. Fish. Fruit. By themselves, they’re such simple things - they’re ordinary, even common. Water covers 3/4 of our planet. We include bread with most of our meals and in various forms - biscuits, breadsticks, waffles, toast, crackers, tortillas, and more grace our plates and add dimension to our food. We have fruit juice with breakfast, eat fruit as part of a balanced meal or as a snack, add fruit to our deserts for its natural sweetness, and more. We partake of these things all of the time without a second thought.
And yet it is with such simple things as these that the miraculous happens. We don’t hear the story often from Mark’s gospel, as we tend to explore the feeding of the five thousand more frequently, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a weird statement: in many ways, I’d argue that this story is the one we should be paying more attention to in our teaching and worship. It’s a curious tale, especially considering that we’ve already heard the other feeding story this year, and not too long ago at that. It’s marked by some very similar themes, though interestingly enough, Mark also goes into a surprising amount of detail in his telling: it begins with compassion - Jesus sees the crowd around him. He sees that they have been surrounding him and listening to him for the last three days and that, once again, they are out in the wilderness. And in his compassion, he realizes that there are people who would faint if he sent them out on their own to find food. And so he tells the disciples what he has in mind.
The disciples, once again, express their doubts - and this is the part of the story that is perhaps even more amazing than the feeding itself. They ask Jesus, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?” They’ve been with Jesus all this time - they’ve seen him feed a multitude with less than what they have gathered amongst themselves. They’ve seen him heal people, cast out demons, and more. And yet in the middle of this desert place, they still ask the question: how can we feed them? How can we even possibly do this?
For Jesus, though, this isn’t even a question - in the power of his compassion, the only question he asks is “How many loaves do you have?” And from those seven loaves, blessed and broken, the Lord feeds four thousand. Despite the doubts, despite the weakness of the disciples and their constant questioning, Jesus nevertheless brings about the miraculous - so much so that there are seven baskets of food left over.
As we gather together today to celebrate World Communion Sunday, this story should be incredibly encouraging to us - and in many different ways. We gather as a people surrounded by our own doubts, our own questions - we see the world the way it is and wonder if there isn’t some truth in the words of the doom-prophets predicting the end of the world. We see the war, the violence, the hatred and fear, and wonder what difference we could possibly make in what all too often begins to feel to us like a desert of sin and ugliness. It’s easy for hopelessness to creep in, even when we know we’ve seen God at work in our community and our lives, even time and time again. We know the promises of Scripture; we know the stories of Jesus’ miracles, the creation of abundance even in the midst of the desert… but then we look around us and all we can see are our own meager seven loaves. It’s easy to put ourselves in the place of the disciples, when we start to think of it like that.
But then we should remember Jesus’ own response and be moved ourselves by His compassion — we may only have seven loaves, but we might be surprised at what those loaves can do. Because while our own offering may be simple, our own resources and capabilities meager, we know that God is a master of taking scarcity, blessing it, and turning it into abundance. The Swedish have a proverb that we learned at camp one year: Lagom är bäst - it means “enough is as good as a feast.” Enough is as good as a feast - it’s as simple as taking a chunk from our loaf, reaching out in compassion, and offering it to another.
We gather with one another around this table, united in our need, united in Christ’s compassion, united in a common promise that gives us all hope - and we receive that promise simply. Pope John Paul II wrote, “even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the One who made it from nothing. He, the Eternal High Priest who by the blood of his Cross entered the eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and Father all creation redeemed. He does so through the priestly ministry of the Church, to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. Truly this is the mysterium fidei which is accomplished in the Eucharist: the world which came forth from the hands of God the Creator now returns to him redeemed by Christ.” God takes the simplest of things: bread, water, wine… and through the miraculous gift of grace, we die to our sins. We are sealed in the new covenant of baptism and clothed anew in Christ. We are nourished by bread and wine, made to be for us the body and blood of Christ as we partake together in one holy meal by the power of the Spirit. And we are strengthened each time we celebrate, renewed in the promise of the Lamb and refreshed in the promise of that coming Kingdom in which none go away dissatisfied or hungry. Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantlythan all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Revelation 7:9-17; Mark 8:1-10
Feasting from the Altar of the World
Water. Bread. Fish. Fruit. By themselves, they’re such simple things - they’re ordinary, even common. Water covers 3/4 of our planet. We include bread with most of our meals and in various forms - biscuits, breadsticks, waffles, toast, crackers, tortillas, and more grace our plates and add dimension to our food. We have fruit juice with breakfast, eat fruit as part of a balanced meal or as a snack, add fruit to our deserts for its natural sweetness, and more. We partake of these things all of the time without a second thought.
And yet it is with such simple things as these that the miraculous happens. We don’t hear the story often from Mark’s gospel, as we tend to explore the feeding of the five thousand more frequently, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a weird statement: in many ways, I’d argue that this story is the one we should be paying more attention to in our teaching and worship. It’s a curious tale, especially considering that we’ve already heard the other feeding story this year, and not too long ago at that. It’s marked by some very similar themes, though interestingly enough, Mark also goes into a surprising amount of detail in his telling: it begins with compassion - Jesus sees the crowd around him. He sees that they have been surrounding him and listening to him for the last three days and that, once again, they are out in the wilderness. And in his compassion, he realizes that there are people who would faint if he sent them out on their own to find food. And so he tells the disciples what he has in mind.
The disciples, once again, express their doubts - and this is the part of the story that is perhaps even more amazing than the feeding itself. They ask Jesus, “How can one feed these people with bread here in the desert?” They’ve been with Jesus all this time - they’ve seen him feed a multitude with less than what they have gathered amongst themselves. They’ve seen him heal people, cast out demons, and more. And yet in the middle of this desert place, they still ask the question: how can we feed them? How can we even possibly do this?
For Jesus, though, this isn’t even a question - in the power of his compassion, the only question he asks is “How many loaves do you have?” And from those seven loaves, blessed and broken, the Lord feeds four thousand. Despite the doubts, despite the weakness of the disciples and their constant questioning, Jesus nevertheless brings about the miraculous - so much so that there are seven baskets of food left over.
As we gather together today to celebrate World Communion Sunday, this story should be incredibly encouraging to us - and in many different ways. We gather as a people surrounded by our own doubts, our own questions - we see the world the way it is and wonder if there isn’t some truth in the words of the doom-prophets predicting the end of the world. We see the war, the violence, the hatred and fear, and wonder what difference we could possibly make in what all too often begins to feel to us like a desert of sin and ugliness. It’s easy for hopelessness to creep in, even when we know we’ve seen God at work in our community and our lives, even time and time again. We know the promises of Scripture; we know the stories of Jesus’ miracles, the creation of abundance even in the midst of the desert… but then we look around us and all we can see are our own meager seven loaves. It’s easy to put ourselves in the place of the disciples, when we start to think of it like that.
But then we should remember Jesus’ own response and be moved ourselves by His compassion — we may only have seven loaves, but we might be surprised at what those loaves can do. Because while our own offering may be simple, our own resources and capabilities meager, we know that God is a master of taking scarcity, blessing it, and turning it into abundance. The Swedish have a proverb that we learned at camp one year: Lagom är bäst - it means “enough is as good as a feast.” Enough is as good as a feast - it’s as simple as taking a chunk from our loaf, reaching out in compassion, and offering it to another.
We gather with one another around this table, united in our need, united in Christ’s compassion, united in a common promise that gives us all hope - and we receive that promise simply. Pope John Paul II wrote, “even when it is celebrated on the humble altar of a country church, the Eucharist is always in some way celebrated on the altar of the world. It unites heaven and earth. It embraces and permeates all creation. The Son of God became man in order to restore all creation, in one supreme act of praise, to the One who made it from nothing. He, the Eternal High Priest who by the blood of his Cross entered the eternal sanctuary, thus gives back to the Creator and Father all creation redeemed. He does so through the priestly ministry of the Church, to the glory of the Most Holy Trinity. Truly this is the mysterium fidei which is accomplished in the Eucharist: the world which came forth from the hands of God the Creator now returns to him redeemed by Christ.” God takes the simplest of things: bread, water, wine… and through the miraculous gift of grace, we die to our sins. We are sealed in the new covenant of baptism and clothed anew in Christ. We are nourished by bread and wine, made to be for us the body and blood of Christ as we partake together in one holy meal by the power of the Spirit. And we are strengthened each time we celebrate, renewed in the promise of the Lamb and refreshed in the promise of that coming Kingdom in which none go away dissatisfied or hungry. Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantlythan all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
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