Proper 13 (July 31-August 6)
Texts: Matthew 14:13-21;
Genesis 32:22-31
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/g-hdMjOdzFU?feature=share&t=546
PowerPoint Slides with Sermon
THE MIRACLE OF MULTIPLYING GRACIOUSNESS IN US
I wrote this script as a background for preaching but then extemporized the sermon from the outline in the PowerPoint slides.
Let me begin by acknowledging that it may be uncomfortable for us to talk about, or even use the word, politics. But it’s part of my conviction that God in Jesus is launching the coming of God’s reign into this world, and so there’s a politics which goes along with that and which we can begin to learn from Jesus. And it can make a difference in our world.
This morning I’m going to extend that and try to talk about economics. Not in the sense of bandying back and forth different economic theories. Not to have that full conversation. But to at least lift up to you that economics is something essential about being human which we might want to talk about here in this place. As followers of Jesus, we might need to be open to whether there’s an economics which comes from God as part of learning more faithful ways of being human.
Among the more memorable experiences of continuing education for me was one I stumbled upon my first summer here in Racine, twenty-nine years ago now. It was sponsored by a regional group of Christian educators whose goal it was to promote capitalism. One of the key ways they did this was to offer seminars for pastors to learn basic economics. For a very minimal fee, they brought us up to Lakeland College in Sheboygan, and for three days put us up in rather comfortable dorms, fed us extremely well, and taught us basic capitalist economics.
But what was most memorable about this experience was that I ended up becoming a thorn in the side for the kind folks who put this on. Be assured, I certainly didn’t go with that intention. I honestly wanted to learn more about economics. And I did learn a lot. But the first lecturer was going over the most basic definitions and assumptions . . . similar to what you would find in introductory college texts on economics. You begin with a definition of economics; next, a definition of human wants. Then, a definition of economic resources as the goods produced to satisfy human wants. Finally, a fundamental assumption that leads to a principle of capitalist economics:
Economic resources are scarce. . . . so a central aim of capitalist economics is to provide a system for the fair distribution of scarce resources.1
It’s that part about economic resources being scarce that caught my ears. I raised my hand and asked, ‘How do you know that resources are scarce? What about Jesus when he fed multitudes with five loves and two fish — what seemed like scarce resources. What if Jesus was trying to get human beings to trust in a God of abundance, instead of assuming a God of scarcity?’ The instructor was quite flustered. He absolutely could not fathom a beginning point of abundance rather than scarcity. He would simply say, ‘Isn’t scarcity obvious? I don’t know what else to say. Capitalism doesn’t work as a system unless we accept this basic assumption of scarcity.’ Well, this assumption just didn’t in tune with Jesus’ teachings to me, so I was raising my hand for each successive instructor asking them how what they were presenting would change if we assumed abundance rather than scarcity. I think they were glad to see me go by the end of the three days.
That experience has compelled me to keep learning about economics. I read a lot about macro-economics, the big-picture stuff about how different forms of economics operate to give us what we want, a fair system that takes seriously our founding principle that all people are created equal. There are many aspects besides equality to look for, in judging between economic approaches, but it has become important to me as a follower of Jesus to engage in such big-picture questions about our economics. Because if Jesus launched the coming of God’s reign into the world, he also came to teach us about God’s politics and economics. What kind of economic principles and assumptions lead to the flourishing of God’s children and God’s creation? I’ve come to believe that one of those principles Jesus came to show us was how to think more in terms of abundance instead of scarcity, and that one of those places was in the feeding of the multitudes with, ostensibly, five loaves and two fish.
I’ve come to have a different understanding of this miracle, based somewhat on personal experience. I was fortunate to travel in the Holy Land in the year 2000, and one of the biggest take-aways for me was experiencing the geography of the Sea of Galilee, near which this miracle occurred. I knew about the Dead Sea shoreline being the lowest point of dry land on earth, but I hadn’t realized that the Sea of Galilee is simply upriver from the Dead Sea, connected by the Jordan River. [Referring to slides.] So the Sea of Galilee has a similarly low altitude.
We began our trip to Galilee on the Mediterranean coast with a gradual incline and then turned inland. When we crested a ridge and came to overlook the Sea of Galilee — surprise! — it was 1500 feet below us! As the bus went down into the trough, the temperature went up — at least ten degrees. And that’s when the tour guide started to say to us over and over again, “Never the leave the bus without something to eat and drink. Because it is a harsh climate out there, and you might find yourself in distress. You gotta have some food and water.” Well, if a tour bus guide is telling us this, then people who actually lived there in the first century: do we really believe that a crowd of over 5000 people were there that day, an no one had food with them that day? More than five loaves and two fish? Or was the problem scarcity thinking? ‘I’m going to hold onto what I have, because there’s not enough for everyone, after all.’ Do you see what I mean. As someone between the services said, ‘Scarcity thinking creates fear.’
But what’s Jesus response? He’s been modeling having compassion to his disciples up to that point. Yet they come to Jesus in the evening saying, “Send them home and let them feed themselves.” So we have a situation of Jesus trying to teach his disciples compassion, including us today, and it’s now going to involve thinking in terms of abundance rather than scarcity. He takes the five loaves and two fish and blesses them as if they’re enough for everyone. So as I think about the miracle that happened that day, it’s this: people’s hearts were changed. Jesus’ compassion and abundance thinking changed their hearts. More and more of them began to get stuff out and share it.
I propose this alternate view of the miracle not because I don’t think Jesus can physically multiply five loaves and two fish to feed a multitude. Rather, ask: which version is truly the greater miracle? For Jesus to use his messianic power in that time and that place to feed a multitude, that’s a one-off thing, right? Only when he’s there. Or is the more important miracle the way in which he can change our hearts to generously share what we have and find there’s actually an abundance, not a scarcity? Now, this miracle is repeatable to the extent that Jesus, now present with us in a different way, can continue to give us generous hearts.
It also occurred to me that Jesus multiply loaves and fish to feed people is quite similar to the first temptation, where Satan tries to tempt Jesus into using his messianic power to turn stones into bread. Satan says, ‘Jesus you’re hungry. Turn that stone into bread so that you can eat.’ ‘Jesus abuse your power so that it benefits yourself.’ Even if he uses his power in a one-off way to benefit others, does it help in the long run? Or has he again fought off that kind of temptation in order to work the miracle of a longer lasting change. The change of human hearts from the fear of scarcity to the joy of abundance so that we generously share with one another.
We’re going to pray it again together in just a moment, namely, the offering prayer which Sundays and Seasons2 has given us to pray this summer. We will pray together, “multiply your graciousness in us, that the world may be fed with your love.” That’s what I believe happened on that hillside 2000 years ago. Jesus multiplied the graciousness in them, so that they might find there is enough.
Again, there’s the bigger picture where we human beings have evolved toward scarcity thinking, and Jesus is trying to lead us to something new. We can re-evolve into someone new, a new creation, as St Paul calls it, when Christ comes to live in us.
Let’s go over some quick examples of the evolution into scarcity thinking [extemporizing from slides 7-8 of the PowerPoint Slides with the Sermon]
• Mimetic desire: we catch our desires from each other
• So we end up rivals for the same objects of desire – which creates the perception of scarcity: two people wanting the same object (example of children fighting over toys)
• With adults we can see it as “keeping up with the Jones’”
• Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Samuelson: “Compared with developing nations or previous centuries, modern industrial societies seem very wealthy indeed. But higher production levels seem to bring in their train ever-higher consumption standards. . . . People feel that they want and ‘need’ indoor plumbing, central heating, refrigerators, education, movies, radios, television, books, autos, travel, sports and concerts, privacy and living space, chic clothes, clean air and water, safe factories, and so forth.”
• In other words, we are in a circle of consumption: higher levels of production lead not to a realization of abundance but instead to increased needs for more out of a sense of scarcity – compared to our neighbor who’s ahead of us. I would suggest this is has been the downside of capitalist economics. In a reality of abundance, the scarcity thinking continues such that we keep wanting more.
• What if we learned to think in terms of abundance? Could that make a difference in how we respond to poverty?
To conclude: how does Jesus come to save us from all this downside of capitalist economics. There’s an upside, too, of course. It does expand production in order to give us this reality of an abundance, even if we continue to perceiving scarcity. The question, then, is: what if we could change that tendency to scarcity thinking? Isn’t this a crucial matter in seeking to become better human beings following in the way of our Lord Jesus Christ? On that day, Jesus was doing his thing of showing us how to live with compassion — the desire to give of yourself in love, and to share.
And we rehearse this big-time, every single week, when we gather this Meal. Remembering that on the night before he died, he said, ‘Here is my body broken for you. Here is my blood poured out for you.” Can he say this assuming scarcity? No! He’s assuming — counting on, trusting, believing, having faith — that God’s abundant power of life is enough, so that he can even give his own body and pour out his blood for us. This is what he’s trying to teach you and me. every time we gather and are fed with this food, that it might ‘multiply the graciousness in us, that the world might be fed with God’s love.’ Amen
Paul J. Nuechterlein
Lutheran Church of the Resurrection,
Racine, WI, August 6, 2023
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/g-hdMjOdzFU?feature=share&t=546
PowerPoint Slides with Sermon
Notes
1. Economics USA, by Edwin Mansfield and Nariman Behravesh, New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1986, p. 10.
2. Sundays and Seasons are the denominational worship resources of the ELCA, made available through an annual resource book or an online subscription.
