Free Lunch

John 6:24-35

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, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Very 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 his seal.”

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

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There’s no such thing as a free lunch, at least that’s what we're told. But at a cafe just north of downtown Milwaukee, that’s not quite true. In Sherman Park, a predominantly black neighborhood that struggles severely with poverty and obesity, sits one of the best lunch spots in all of Cream City. Sandwiched between an adult novelty shop and an abandoned storefront, Christie Melby-Gibbons was rather intentional when she chose to open up Tricklebee Cafe back in 2015. She wanted to be in a community where access to fresh, healthy, and delicious meals was desperately needed.

When you walk in, the daily rotating menu is displayed on a hymn board. Then you order at the pulpit turned checkout counter. Next you grab a seat at one of the long pews and tables that fill the small space. Most of the ingredients are grown out back or rescued from local grocers.

And the food, all of which is vegan, really is delicious! It was the best tikka masala soup I’ve ever had. But what really sets Tricklebee Cafe apart is that lunch really is free, if you need it to be. It is a pay-what-you-can cafe.

They have a sign up front that explains the policy: “If your pockets are full, please give a bit more. If your pockets are light, pay what you can. And if your pockets are empty please eat and enjoy a delicious, healthy meal in exchange for 15-30 minutes of volunteer time. Thank you!”

Christie, the founder and a pastor in the moravian tradition, says on average there are two people who come in for a free meal each day. And then they will volunteer in all sorts of ways: do dishes, pick up and take out the trash, or even chop vegetables for tomorrow’s menu.

Most of the meals are prepared not by chefs, but by volunteers, who don the title passionate cook.

Mike Betette tells the story of how he found Tricklebee Cafe. He and his family left Los Angeles in 2016 for a new start in Milwaukee. But he didn’t have a job and had a hard time finding one. Walking his new neighborhood, the smell and noise of Trickleebee Cafe lured him in. It was an oasis of joy, according to Mike, because the place was full of genuine smiles, good deeds, and authentic, messy community. He loved the food, but money was tight. So he started washing food, serving, bussing tables, and meeting people. The cafe, both the food and the community, made Mike feel so much better. He attributes Tricklebee for helping get him and his family in a better place. Now, many years later, he returns to the cafe, pays more than his fair share,

not because he has to but because he’s had a taste of the food that doesn’t perish and wants others to have a taste, too.

By providing great food to anyone, regardless of their ability to pay, Tricklebee is doing a lot more than just feeding people. And that’s what Jesus was doing too when he fed that crowd of 5,000 people last week, but that truth was missed.

You see that same crowd that had their bellies full from a free lunch of fish and bread, woke up the next day feeling the familiar pains of hunger all over again. They began searching for Jesus and headed across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum in hopes of finding him. When they did, the crowd asked Jesus, “when did you come here?” In other words, “we didn’t see you leave Jesus, are you avoiding us?”.

Jesus is skeptical of the crowd and their reasons for following him. Not answering their question, he says: “your reasons for searching and finding me are all wrong. You’ve done the right thing for the wrong reason. You’re hungry and you want another free lunch”. Can you blame the crowd? Who doesn’t love a free lunch? More than that, this crowd knew Jesus had healed people who were sick; meaning he can cure and feed. What more would they need in life?

And does it matter why the crowd was following Jesus, or just that they were following him?

Apparently, motive matters for Jesus. So he tells the crowd, “don’t work for food that will leave you hungry. Work for the food that will satisfy you forever.” Now that has piqued the crowd's interest, it sounds almost too good to be true. Food that always last, that always satisfies? It’s like a free lunch everyday, better, even! Tell us, Jesus, what must we do to get this bread.

Tell us what to do Jesus and we will do it, whatever it is. And then Jesus says “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent”. The work is to have faith.

And that’s about the last thing the crowd (or you and I) want to hear. Because it would be much easier, much more certain if Jesus just told the crowd what to do to earn faith. Or how much faith was going to cost. Everything has a price, no lunch is free right? So just tell us what to do Jesus and we’ll do it, that’s what the crowd says.

But Jesus doesn’t, because that’s not how faith works. It’s not something you can earn. You cannot make yourself have faith, as much as we would like. Luther puts it this way “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe, have faith in Jesus Christ, my Lord”. Look at the crowd.

Just yesterday, they were fed from a few loaves and two fish. And even after that, they demanded Jesus perform another miracle, give out more free lunches, because maybe then they’d have faith.

But faith isn’t a work you do or a miracle you see. Faith is trust; trusting that Jesus is who he says he is (the bread of life) and does what he says he does (satisfies our deepest hunger and gives life to the world). Faith holds on to those promises as if your life depends on it, because it does. Which is why God doesn’t leave it up to us.

Faith comes to us, is given to us by the Holy Spirit as a gift. Completely free. Much like a meal at Tricklebee Cafe. Someone else did all the work and you are handed a delicious meal that nourishes more than your body. But you might say, “well people are encouraged to at least volunteer, they have to give something for that meal!” So too it must be with faith, we have to do something for the grace we receive. We have to love God and love our neighbor right? Well how’s that going for you…?

And if not that, then we have to pray the right prayer. But I think that’s all backwards. We love God, we love our neighbors, we pray, we come to worship because of the faith that’s been given us. Not the other way around.

It’s like the meal that someone gets at Tricklebee is so good, so delicious, so transformative that they want to give of their time and money. In fact, just like Mike, they want to do all they can (serve, do dishes, clean floors, pay extra) so that others experience the life changing meal they had. That, to me, is how faith works.

These promises, these experiences of love and grace are so wonderful, so life changing, that we do all we can to share them with others, giving thanks to God who makes it all happen.

And if you feel like you need more of that in your life, more faith I mean. If you have came here this morning with a hunger for hope that you can’t seem to find in the world; If you are famished for forgiveness, if you are starved of spiritual sustenance, then do we have the meal for you right here at this table. The bread of life, broken and blessed, for you and for the sake of the world.

So come and eat. Lunch is free.

Amen

A Gathering of Losers

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.’

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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