John 6:1-14
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples.
Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all.
Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’
As many of you know, Pastor Cogan and I, along with Angi Johnson, spent the week before last, in New Orleans, at the ELCA National Youth Gathering … with a bunch of losers. And I’m not just talking about John Reece and Jacob Kleine, who affectionately become known as “the Freshmen” over the course of our time together. Or Jack Anderson who we called “Water Boy,” for some reason. Or Max Havel, who garnered a new name that isn’t exactly appropriate for Sunday morning worship.
But I mean we all spent the week with a bunch of losers, because you should have seen and heard the people who were chosen to speak to the over 16,000 young people that showed up for the The Gathering, over the course of those five days. I won’t tell you about all of them, but…
One was Drew Tucker, the proverbial fat kid growing up, who lived in the shadow of his athletic brother as a boy and throughout high school and into young adulthood – never measuring up, he believed, so that he struggled with eating disorders and his body image and all the low self-esteem and struggle that comes along with that. He felt like a loser. But Drew became a Pastor at, among other places, Capital University, my alma mater, and now he’s the head of camps and outdoor ministries in the great state of Ohio.
We heard from young man named Johnson, too, who graduated from high school this year after immigrating to the US from El Salvador when he was just 10 years old. He was a loser, too. Didn’t speak English. Didn’t have friends or finances. Was moved around in surprising ways even after landing at his first home – so much so and so quickly that he didn’t have time to say goodbye to the one friend or two he had made along the way. But Johnson put a face and a story and some humility, courage, and hope to “issue” of immigration that isn’t shared often enough by the politicians, pundits, and our 24 hour news cycle. He reminded me that God’s children are never “illegal” or “aliens” in the eyes of their creator, no matter where they live. And that maybe we shouldn’t consider them that way, either.
Another was Rebekah, a young girl who used to be a boy. At a really young age Rebekah realized the male gender assigned to her at birth wasn’t quite what she was feeling like on the inside. When she revealed all of this on the second or third day of the Gathering, after she’d already emceed the other mass gatherings we’d shared with joy and grace and abilities beyond her years, the adult leader sitting next to our group got up and left in protest, it seemed – because Rebekah was such a loser, I suppose. But she has become an outspoken, prolific advocate for kids of all kinds, writing books, speaking before legislatures, sharing herself and her experiences with churches (her dad is a Lutheran pastor, the poor thing), and living her best, beautiful life, at 17, with the loving support of her family, friends, congregation – and about 16,000 new friends from New Orleans, too.
Another woman, Jacqueline Bussie, was a loser, too. She literally lost everything, on a trip to Iceland with her new husband, the love of her life. He died suddenly on a hike and she was left there, alone in every way, in a foreign land, as a suspect even in her husband’s death, with nothing but his ashes to keep her company when they finally released her to fly home. The shock, grief, and despair she suffered afterward was debilitating. She was utterly lost. But, Jacqueline learned to dance and love and speak and write and teach and live again, anyways.
And there were others, too – losers, I mean …
Lori Fuller, a deaf woman became the pastor of her own congregation, ministering deliberately to children of God who can’t hear. And she reminded us that her deafness didn’t make her a mistake, and that none of us are mistakes, either.
Pastor Sally Azar, became the first female Palestinian to be ordained in the Holy Land. And she reminded us that our identity as God’s children is greater than our identity as Americans, Israelis, or Palestinians, too.
But the overall, abiding message I took from all of these would-be-losers, was that all of this is exactly how the power of God works in and through, in spite of and for the sake of the world. In spite of what makes us losers in the eyes and opinions of others, God creates us to be free of that, and authentic ourselves because of it, and brave in spite of that, and to disrupt the world around us, in response to it, too.
What I experienced and celebrated over and over and over again in New Orleans – and what I read in a strange, new kind of way in this Gospel story from John about the feeding of the 5,000, because of it – is not how coincidental or surprising it is that God takes brokenness and uses it for good … broken bread, fish, or whatever the world might presume about broken people, either.
What I noticed, this time around, is that God is always about using the brokenness of God’s people to bring about wholeness and healing and hope to life. Whether it’s a loaf of bread, or the cynical sinful disciples who distribute it – or whether it’s the death of Jesus himself – God is always using what the world deems “broken” or “lost” in our lives, to teach us about redemption and wholeness and the power of resurrection and new life.
Just like the disciples did that day on the hillside when they doubted that the bread would be enough, or that their wages would be enough, or – I suspect – that their faith would be enough to do the trick, every one of those who shared their stories in New Orleans had plenty of reason to doubt that they were enough to do what God was clearly calling them to do.
By the world’s estimation, they were too sinful, or too imperfect, or too unfaithful, or too different, or too whatever to be instruments of anything good or holy or worthwhile or righteous. But their lives – by the grace and mercy, forgiveness and love of God – tell an entirely different story.
Like so many loaves of bread, they – and we – are broken and scattered for the sake of the world. Like so many loaves of bread, it’s our own broken “lostness” that resonates with this lost and broken world for the sake of mercy and love and justice for others. Like so many loaves of bread, it is our brokenness that feeds the hungry, comforts the sick, loves the lonely, welcomes the stranger, includes the outsider, forgives the sinner.
So one thing I learned in New Orleans – and that Jesus shows us today – is that maybe we should start looking not just at what we’re good at when we wonder about how God might be looking to use us. Maybe we need to start looking at – and letting God take hold of even the crumbs – what’s imperfect or hurting or broken in our lives ... all the stuff that makes us “losers” in the eyes of the world.
Because everyone of us is “less-than” or sinful or lost or different in our own beautiful ways. And if we’re willing and able to humble ourselves – to let ourselves be broken and blessed by the grace of God’s love – Jesus shows us, today, and through his life, death and resurrection from the dead, that there will be more than enough of God’s love and grace and mercy to go around, for us and through us, and for the sake of the world, in his name.
Amen
