The Bread Also Rises<\/p>\n
A Sermon For The Chilmark Community Church<\/p>\n
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Pugh, Clergy<\/p>\n
August 5, 2012<\/p>\n
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Children\u2019s Sermon:<\/p>\n
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We are going to be reading John\u2019s Gospel: the story of a time when the people followed Jesus, asking him to whip up more miracles for them. He has already turned the loaves and fishes into a feast for 5,000, and they want him to do it again. But he says, watch yourselves; be careful; keep track of your hungers and see them for what they are.<\/p>\n
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I have a story for you, told to me by a member of our church in Ipswich this week. It seems that a lady had a parakeet, and it died. She took it to the vet, and the vet, without needing much analysis, told her that the parakeet was indeed dead, and she should bury it. But she said, \u201cNo, it\u2019s been my pet for a long time. I really like it. Can\u2019t you do anything?\u201d And the vet said, \u201cNo, not now; it\u2019s dead.\u201d But the lady begged him for more work to be done on the parakeet. So the vet finally agreed. He opened the door to the back room, and a technician came out, with a silver tabby cat on a leash. The cat walked up to the parakeet, sniffed it, pushed it to the other end of the desk, and then walked away. Then, out of the same back room door, another technician came out, with a Labrador retriever on a leash. The Labrador bounded up to the parakeet, sniffed its feet, sniffed its head, and then lay down and panted. The vet turned back to the lady. \u201cSorry lady. Your bird is dead.\u201d \u201cOk,\u201d she said. \u201cHow much do I owe you?\u201d \u201cFive hundred dollars.\u201d \u201cFive hundred dollars to tell me that my bird is dead?\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d said the vet, \u201cIt was going to be fifty for the office visit. But with the cat scan and the lab report, it\u2019s five hundred.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Sometimes we start with a simple problem, and we make it really complicated. Like the lady with the dead bird, sometimes we do not need a lot of help to understand a situation, but we want it to stay complicated, so we go looking in strange places. This is a similar situation to what Jesus is talking about in John\u2019s Gospel. Sometimes we get all mixed up, he says. Sometimes we feel sad, but we think we are hungry. Sometimes we feel lonely, but we think we are thirsty. It gets all jumbled in our brains, and we go out looking for the wrong cures, when the answer is straightforward. What we really want is comfort, and love, and food in our body just when it\u2019s hungry.<\/p>\n
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Sermon for All Ages:<\/p>\n
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John 6: 25 ff<\/p>\n
The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the sea saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberius came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, \u201cRabbi, when did you come here?\u201d Jesus answered them, \u201cVery truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on him that God the Father has set the seal.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is a sermon about hope. I would like to thank your minister Arlene for inviting me to fill in for her while she is away. It is an honor to be here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (1450 \u2013 1516) has a painting hanging in the Prado in Madrid called \u201cseven deadly sins\u201d and he depicts a man, sitting in a tidy room, on a chair with a pillow in his painting segment called \u201csloth\u201d. He has a fire in the fireplace, a dog at his feet, music playing outside his window, even a nun, coming to his doorstep to pray the Rosary with him. But he sleeps. He has 100 beautiful things waiting. But he sleeps and waits. Alas, he is sleeping still, 500 years later.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes I think we get stuck waiting for happiness, or fullness, and we do not realize the joy that is around us. We can get so distracted that we miss our chance to be free.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n