Call to Worship:
Praise God for the gift of life!
Praise God for the miracle of creation!
May the lands ring out in a song of praise!
May the morning proclaim God’s goodness!

Unison Prayer: Prayer of St. Patrick
Christ be with us, Christ before us, Christ behind us, Christ in us, Christ beneath us, Christ above us, Christ on our right, Christ on our left, Christ where we lie, Christ where we sit, Christ where we arise, Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of us, Christ in every eye that sees us, Christ in every ear that hears us.  Salvation is of the Lord; salvation is of the Christ.  May your salvation, O Lord, be ever with us.  Amen.

Words of Assurance: Romans 8:14, Good News Bible
Those who are led by God’s spirit are God’s children.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.

Opening Song: Keith & Kristyn Getty, “Be Thou My Vision”

Scripture Reading: John 6:5-11, RSV
Seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii 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 lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand. Jesus then 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. 

Sunday Sermon

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a magician. I wanted it so bad that I ordered things from the back of comic books and talked my parents into getting me a deck of trick cards. The problem was that I was a horrible magician. I only learned one trick well, but after that I had nothing. But I did have one ace up my sleeve: I had a little sister, who was seven years younger and very gullible, and she thought I was a great magician.

My sister had somehow ended up with two copies of the Golden Book We Like Kindergarten, but I hid one, so she forgot she had two. I would take one copy of the book and throw it under the couch. Then I would take it out of the refrigerator, and she’d be amazed! Then I’d take that copy and put it under the rug, then I’d take it out from under the couch, and she’d be amazed again. Then I’d put it in the windowsill and take it from under the rug. This could go on forever, and it never got old.

Sometimes we can read a Scripture for years and then suddenly notice something about it, even though we’ve never noticed it before. Usually this is because we finally get it, or it finally applies to us. But today we’re going to look at a Scripture that we all know and notice something that isn’t there, and was never there, although all of us probably think it is, because we’ve been told that it is throughout our lives.

The story of Jesus multiplying the loaves and fishes is the only miracle found in all four Gospels, and it’s a story so nice that some writers tell it twice. There may have been a million sermons preached on this story, most of which have to do with how Jesus can multiply things in our lives, which he totally can. But here’s the kicker: there are no words saying that he multiplied the loaves and fishes. You can look at it again and again, and it’s still not there, like the missing 4998 fish and 4995 loaves.

Now I’m not saying that Jesus didn’t multiply the loaves and fishes. I’m saying that maybe Jesus didn’t multiply the loaves and fishes, and the miracle happened another way, and if so, it was one of his greatest miracles, and it was an even bigger miracle than we think, and it all started with a child.

Here’s what we do know about the story. There are 5000 men, which means either there are 5000 people and they call them men, or there are 5000 men plus women and children that they don’t count. Either is a little troublesome, so let’s just say there are a whole lot of people, and they are hungry. They aren’t hungry for the bread and fish of Jesus’ teaching, even though that’s what Jesus wants to give them; they’re hungry for some actual bread and fish and have come to see miracles. And they aren’t going to pay attention to Jesus’ teachings if they are hungry, or hangry, which is going to happen soon, so the whole day is about to be ruined.

Philip is starting to panic and asks, “Where are we going to get the money to feed all these people?”

What’s not in the Scripture is that a lot of these people already had food. Imagine you’re going to an outdoor concert, and you know you’re going to be there for hours, and there’s no concessions stand. You would probably bring snacks. Or if you’re traveling a few hours by car, you probably have something in the car to eat or drink. Or if you’re going on a hike, you definitely have something with you because it could mean your life. Here’s a fun fact: movie theaters make more money on concessions than they do on movie tickets. So if you eat in a theatre, you’re not going to the movies and getting snacks; you’re going out to get snacks and seeing a movie. Anyway, back to the Scripture.

Out of at least 5000 people there, one of them comes up to the disciples and offers what he has. It doesn’t actually say that he offers it, but we talked about this at Bible study and the alternative is that Andrew said something like, “hey, we can grab some food from this kid,” but this doesn’t sound like something he would do. Another person at Bible study said, “Well, maybe his mother made him do it,” which is possible but the mother’s not in the Scripture either, so let’s go back to our original interpretation, which is that there was a boy who wanted to help, and he stepped up.

Andrew says, “That’s not enough.” But Jesus says, “Bring the food here.” In some versions he breaks it and in all versions he blesses it, and they distribute it, and everyone has enough, and in the end they even have leftovers. So how did this happen? One answer is to say that the loaves and fishes multiplied, which is a perfectly plausible explanation when it comes to Jesus. But there’s another plausible explanation: that it’s a miracle of sharing.

Everyone’s eyes would have been on Jesus, so they would have been tuned in to what was happening. They would have seen the boy come forward. The boy probably wasn’t going to eat five loaves and two fish on his own, although if he was a teenager, anything is possible. But he offered all he had to Jesus, like the woman who put her only coin in the offering plate. And whether they were inspired or obligated or shamed, many people might have then started sharing what they had as well. Many years later, this would also become the theme of the story “Stone Soup.”

I saw something like this happen once, when I was coming home from a Christian music festival with a carload of kids. We were stuck in traffic, so stuck that all of the drivers had turned off their engines. It was a hot summer day, which meant the AC was off, so the kids asked if they could get out of the car, and I said okay. They brought their Funchos and Ring Dings and gummy worms and bags of whatever. A few cars away, another group of kids got out of a car, and they brought their Monster drinks and cookies and Combos and so on, and they started sharing, and then other kids got out of other cars, and some of them didn’t have any food, but it didn’t matter, everybody got fed. And I thought this was a good way to get rid of some of our extra food, but when the traffic started moving again we had more food than we started with.

Now you could say, “Well obviously Jesus multiplied the Combos and Ding Dongs,” but you could also say that kids being generous inspired other kids to be generous, which is a greater miracle. And what if Jesus, who spotlighted the generosity of a single boy, inspired 5000 people or more to share what they had? Wouldn’t that be a greater miracle as well?

So here’s the thing. (Speaking directly to today’s baptism family.). Raise your child to be this kind of boy: the kind of boy who sees a need and wants to fill it. The kind of boy who sees hunger and wants to share. The kind of boy who is generous with his own blessings. The kind of boy who does what he can, even when it doesn’t seem like it will make a difference. Because yes, 5 loaves and 2 fish isn’t enough to feed 5000. But that doesn’t stop him. And giving some shoes, or some Cheerios, or a few dollars to the church for mission projects isn’t enough to end poverty in our area. But we do it because there’s a need, and because we’ve already been overly blessed, and because it does make a difference to the recipient.

And here’s the kicker: there is enough food in the world to feed everybody. There is enough money in the world to provide adequate housing to everybody. There are enough resources in the world to eradicate poverty. Or to put it another way, there are enough loaves and fishes in the world that if we all started sharing our loaves and fishes, we would not only have more than enough, we’d have leftovers.

If this story is about sharing, it transforms from a physical miracle to a parable. It’s the epitome of the prophecy, “A little child shall lead them.” It all starts with one boy. We know about all the problems of the world, and we concentrate on the enormity of the needs, but we forget how much a difference a single person and a single act can make. If this is a miracle of sharing, it’s telling us not to give up; if 5000 people can be inspired to share what they have, maybe the whole world can as well. Don’t give up hope in humanity; and while we’re holding onto our hope, let’s be part of that hope as well, doing what we can, offering what we have, and being part of something bigger than ourselves. Amen.

Closing Song: Rend Collective, “Build Your Kingdom Here”

Benediction
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
Amen.

When we’re caught up in the weekend, we sometimes forget that Sunday is the first day of the week. But when we remember that Sunday starts the week, we also remember how wonderful it is to start each week with a blessing. We hope you’ll join us for Sunday worship at 10 a.m., including our third baptism of the year, and stay around for Coffee Hour afterward. Also on Sunday, the youth group will be enjoying a Progressive Lunch beginning at 11:30; on Tuesday we will be having a St. Patty’s Potato Party at 6 p.m. (see Calendar page for details) and on Wednesday at noon we will be hosting a Lenten Service and lunch. It’s going to be a great week!

Call to Worship
In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and trust shall be your strength.

Unison Prayer
O Lord our God, 
Teach us to live in your Spirit.
Help us to walk in your footsteps.
Lead us in pillars of fire and cloud.  Amen.

Words of Assurance: Psalm 107:35, adapted
God changes deserts into pools of water and dry land into flowing springs.

The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father,
who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil;
for thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory forever.
Amen.

Opening Song: Lauren Daigle, “Rescue”

Scripture: Isaiah 35:1-4, NIV abb.
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come.

Sunday Sermon

At the beginning of Lent, Jesus went into the desert. He didn’t bring a cellphone, a laptop, an iPad, an Apple Watch, a Playstation, a book or a magazine. He didn’t bring luggage, a change of clothes, a toiletry bag, his wallet, keys or ID. He didn’t bring a car, a bicycle, a skateboard, a tent, a blanket or a pillow; no hunting equipment, no fishing gear, not even a snack. Jesus did not pack like we would pack; and yet somehow, he survived one day longer than anyone on “Survivor,” and without help of any kind, except from God. Even more miraculously, he came out stronger than he entered.

In the Christian church, Lent always begins in winter and ends in spring. It can be as early as March 22 and as late as April 25. So it matches up well with the idea of emerging from winter, from the wilderness, from a desert place. We are supposed to start in a place of need and end in a place of abundance, using this time, as Jesus did, to get closer to God. We’re about a third of the way through – we should be at halftime, but the Catholics for made Lent six days longer so we could suffer more, and we still have four weeks to go.

But this week we have a special gift. Let’s call it a preview: four days of mid-spring weather, beginning today, with a forecast of 60 degrees tomorrow. It’s a promise that spring is coming, that the snow will melt, that things will get better. And we need it; it’s been a long, cold, snowy winter, and the news cycle has done little to cheer us up. People want to get outdoors again; but even more, they want to hope again.

So let’s review the type of world Jesus left behind when he went into the desert. There was an evil king who did whatever he wanted, and the king’s advisors existed only to please him. If someone stoke against the king, that person was arrested or killed. There was a great divide between the rich and the poor, and the poor had no rights or recourse to the law, because the justice system was corrupt. Women and children had no rights, and those who were poor were said to deserve their poverty. Prejudice was rampant; foreigners and immigrants were especially suspect. Misinformation was presented as fact. People had so much to deal with in their lives, from unemployment to disease to war, that they were filled with anxiety. They welcomed any type of distraction, so they drowned themselves in entertainment if they could and always wanted to talk about “the latest thing.”

So when the Spirit led Jesus into the desert, the Spirit wasn’t only leading Jesus toward something, but leading Jesus away from something else. We think of this desert as a vast and lonely place, which it was, but we also look at it as a terrible place, because it’s not someplace we’d like to go, except maybe for a short visit and definitely with a guide and with our cellphones charged. But here are two things we don’t understand: number one, we’re already in the desert; and number two, we’re in the wrong desert.

So what desert are we in? We are in the desert of despair, the desert of distraction, the desert of doubt. Jesus was in the desert of solitude, the desert of silence, the desert of spareness. Jesus left behind the desert we’re in to go to a different desert. Stripped of all distractions, he was left alone with his thoughts, with nature and with God. Mark tells the whole story in two sentences: “he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.” In Mark’s version, Satan is there the whole time, not just at the end; but so are the angels.

It is impossible for me to write this sermon without mentioning Karim, who spoke to us last week. Karim was in a desert of his own for nine months. We thought of this as a nightmare: three seasons spent entirely indoors, with no freedom, no privacy, and no hope. But last week, we met a different person that we expected: a person who seemed to have grown stronger from the experience, who found his purpose, who grew where he was planted, who relied on God and was rewarded with blessings internal and external.

If you’re like me, you have been saying to yourself, “I would like some of that in my own life: some of that clarity, some of that gratitude, some of that faith.” There is a way to do it, and Lent is the right time to do it: we have to get to the right desert.

We’re used to thinking of a desert as a place where things are not, instead of a place where things are. Jesus learned that the desert is a place where things are: a bounty, rather than a void; a positive place, rather than a negative one. But what one can’t find in the desert are unnecessary things. Life is stripped down to its basic elements. Those who live there are efficient; they learn how to survive and even to thrive. Jesus certainly noticed the wolves, jackrabbits, lizards, hawks, beetles and bees, because later he would preach, “Don’t worry about what you will eat or what you will wear; God feeds the birds and clothes the flowers. Don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will have enough worries of its own.” He taught his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” knowing that each day God would provide, but that God’s blessings were renewed each morning. He probably spent each day by a stream, remembering the 23rd Psalm: for him, a stream of life-giving water.

The closest experience I had to Jesus’ time in the desert was the eight days I spent in Kenya, deep in the wilderness, visiting a friend in the Peace Corps. There were dangerous animals just outside the village, and no fences. We had to boil everything we drank. There was malaria there, and cholera, and tuberculosis. Everyone was poor. I didn’t eat much there, because there wasn’t much to eat: vegetables and the occasional banana, although one villager said that he was honored by my visit and offered to kill a skinny dog. I told him I wasn’t that hungry, and it was true. In fact, I realized that I needed a lot less than I thought I did. It only took me eight days to go native; my electric razor stopped working, and I started sleeping when the sun went down and rising when it came up. What I did need, apart from God, were the people there who took me in and who showed me how a community could be happy by relying on each other: by sharing the little food they had, watching over the sick, by tying plastic bags together until they had enough to make a soccer ball. I learned that everything I own is a luxury. To this day, I try to lead an uncluttered life.

The desert seems to be a scary place, until we redefine it. The desert we’re in is a desert of fear and uncertainty. The desert Jesus entered was one of prayer and provision. The desert we’re in is one where every spare minute is filled with worldly things; the desert Jesus entered offered abundant time with God. The desert we’re in saps our energy and our hope. The desert Jesus entered increased his strength and resolve. Which then is the real desert?

In her book, The Beginning Comes After the End, Rebecca Solnit makes the case that everything we’re going through is not evidence that the world is getting worse on its way to eventual destruction; instead, it’s the last gasp of the old world trying to hold on, fighting like a cornered animal. She reminds me that in our lifetimes (or at least in mine), things have drastically improved for women, for people of color, and for the poor; that less of the world is at war and that fewer are dying of disease. In America, violent crime has drastically decreased. And yet, we are more anxious and afraid and uncertain than ever before.

We could blame the usual suspects: cellphones and social media. But each of these is only a tool. The real culprit is where we put our attention. If we focus on what is bad, and especially what is bad in the short term, we lose our way. We start to think that everything is getting worse and that things have never been as bad as they are. But we’re wrong, and almost every metric shows it.

One of the things I know, but don’t understand, is how the baby squirrels I see on my lawn survived the winter. They were born when it was cold and there was already snow on the ground; and then more snow fell, and it was below freezing for weeks. And then it got worse, and a foot and a half of snow fell on the other snow. Where did they get food? Did their parents store nuts in the trees? I can tell you this: I’m sure those squirrels thought life was hard and it was only getting worse. But how will they feel today and tomorrow when it hits 60 degrees and all those buried nuts are available again? Here’s the point: it doesn’t matter what the squirrels think, because spring was always going to happen. The same principle holds true for our faith.

Isaiah writes, “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.” Our faith is one of forward progress. Our faith is one of victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, of spring after a seemingly unending winter. Our faith teaches us that if we’re swallowed by a whale, it’s not the end; if we’re surrounded by an enemy army, it’s not the end; if the sea surges and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, it’s not the end; if we have a painful disease, it’s not the end; if the world is at war, it’s not the end; if our Savior is killed, it’s not the end, because God has a plan for us, and there is always hope and a future. But only when we leave the desert we’re in – a desert of politics and economics and doomscrolling and social comparison – and go into the desert where God lives – a desert of prayer and reflection and spiritual abundance and life-giving water – will we be blessed. Only then will the scales from our eyes and the truth be revealed, that God has been with us this whole time, and that life is not a matter of what we see, but what we perceive. As Jesus says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

And so, to echo the words of the prophet,
“Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
say to those with fearful hearts,
“Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come.”

Let us recalibrate our hearts and minds, and make a straight path in the desert of our lives as we prepare the way of the Lord. Amen.

Closing Song: Casting Crowns, “Desert Road”

Benediction
As we go forth,
may we remember the hope of our faith
and the certainty of God’s promises:
things will get better in time.
Amen.