12 Pentecost Yr A

Tom’s got a tee shirt that says “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” It’s a tee shirt from Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, a high adventure base in northern New Mexico. I’ve heard it said that Philmont is the adventure a boy scout loves to hate. At the very least, a boy who goes to Philmont doesn’t return the same way he left. Besides being dirty and hungry, with plenty of scrapes and bruises, there’s a change in the way a boy sees the world. Jacob could’ve been wearing that tee shirt in this story today. The story of Jacob wrestling with God, and the story of the feeding of five thousand and then some in Matthew are both stories of transformation.

Jacob’s story is not unlike ours, except for the two wives, two maids, and eleven children, I hope. Jacob wrestled through the night with God and lived through it. But we’ve learned elsewhere that no one survives a face-to-face meeting with God without dying and rising to the new life that God promises. Jacob wrestled with God and was made a new man, he received a new name, and he received a new wound. Transformation is not an easy journey, it is a journey on which we die to ourselves, our obsessions, our materialism, and we rise to the new life that God offers to us.

There’s an old friend of ours, Jenny, who at age 18 was skiing in Colorado, and her life was suddenly changed. She fell, and never got up again. That fall resulted in Jenny being quadriplegic. She was an athlete in high school, a diver. Jenny wrestled with God; her wound is deep and permanent. But Jenny has worked hard at her independent life, and has been executive director of an organization called Helping Paws. Helping Paws trains dogs and their people to manage life together. Jenny would tell you that she is thankful for the new person she became after her injury. Her injury has made her completely different, and in her opinion, better. The people who know Jenny would attest to the gift she is just the way she is, she has shown that ministry happens out of being wounded.

All of us don’t have that outward wound that Jenny has. Most of our wounds cannot be seen. But just the same, the new life we receive can be a gift. It is not the same as our old life, and it is marked by our wounds. Jesus’ journey to the cross, Jesus’ wounds, and death on that cross is what makes it possible for you and me to survive the wounds that this world deals out, the wounds that sometimes we inflict ourselves. That wound is the place from which we minister. That wound is the place from which our compassion grows. That wound is the place from which our love for our enemies have meaning. That wound is what gives us hope.

Hope. Woundedness gives us hope. Seems like an odd sort of thought, doesn’t it. It seems counter to what everything in our culture would tell us about hope. Hope is about a secure future. Hope is about the American dream, including a house, a yard, healthy children, a pension and good retirement.

The hope of the gospel is nothing like that. Hope is about dying; hope is about being wounded, hope is about having everything you think is important being stripped away, and surviving it. Not just surviving it, but being given a new name. Beloved, delight of God’s life.

The disciples in the story we heard from Matthew today, were forgetting about the hope that Jesus offered. After Jesus retreats for some peace and quiet, and the crowds won’t leave him alone, Jesus teaches and cures the sick. As the afternoon wore on, the disciples thought they would send the 5000 or so people into the towns to find something to eat. Can you imagine, out there on the hillside, sending the crowd into town to find something to eat. Someone wasn’t planning ahead. Instead, Jesus tells the disciples to give them something to eat. Their response, “we have nothing to offer, except these five loaves of bread and two fish.”

The disciples responded to Jesus with an exasperation that tells of their lack of hope. And their lack of understanding of what Jesus was capable of doing. The disciples responded to Jesus from a position of scarcity. “We have nothing here.” They did not see the five thousand and some people in front of them, with all their woundedness, with all their suffering, with all their joy and excitement to just be in the presence of this rabbi.

And Jesus shows them the abundance that surrounds them. Look what we have, five loaves of bread, and two fish, and all these people with everything they bring with them. “We have enough,” Jesus says, “we have enough.” Jesus blesses what they have, and everyone was fed that day. Not only were they fed, they had leftovers. Twelve baskets of leftovers, enough for everyone in the whole world to be fed.

Too often we approach the world like Jacob, and like the disciples. We approach the world from a position of scarcity. Scarcity that is about the wall we put up around us so that no one can see our fear, our lack of hope, our belief that we are not good enough. God wrestles with us to break down that wall, and in the encounter we are wounded. Scarcity is about letting our woundedness be a source of despair, rather than a fountain of strength and hope. It is in that place that we begin to see the blessing that God has given. We begin to see the abundance that God has for us.

Abundance and blessing. We are transformed. We are fed with the bread and the fish. We are nourished and healed. But the abundance doesn’t end with us. That’s the wonder of the twelve baskets of leftovers. Our blessing is to get those leftovers out to those who need them. We meet God in the encounter, and we cannot be the same because of the encounter, we meet one another face to face as we break bread together, and we have enough to bring out into the world to those who need to be fed, healed, and transformed.

It is our woundedness, our broken hips and our broken hearts, that make us compassionate ministers. We are nourished by the abundance of God’s blessings, in one another and in the bread. We have enough, we have all that is needed, to feed the 5000, and then some.

Alleluia. The Spirit of the Lord renews the face of the earth:
Come let us adore him. Alleluia.