"Prayer for Ferguson"

We gathered as a congregation on Wednesday, August 20 to pray for peace and justice in Ferguson. This is the pastoral prayer that I offered at that prayer service.

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God of justice, God of peace, we your children humbly come before you on behalf of a broken and beautiful world, seeking grace, seeking courage, seeking transformation. Things are not right in the United States of America, O God. Of course, they have never been quite right in this place. We are a nation founded through oppression. We are a people who have inherited the sins of racism, classism, sexism, and violence from our ancestors. And we are a people who gather here today to say, “Enough. We have had enough.”

Show us what to do, O God. Who and how to be. Teach us your ways. Help us to listen. Help us to act. Help us to break free from the evils of oppression so that we can truly – and finally – be free.

It has been 11 days, O Holy Parent, since the child of Leslie McSpadden and Michael Brown, Sr. - your child - was shot by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. God, we join with Michael Brown’s parents in grieving the loss no parent should have to face. We know that you, too, know the anguish of losing a child. We weep for the life that was cut short. We speak out against the assassination of this young man’s character as irrelevant charges are levied against him in the media. And we stand firm and demand a full and impartial investigation. O, God, let justice be done.

We remember also that this is no isolated incident. We remember your other children who have been victims of police and vigilante violence. We remember Jordan Davis, Tarika Wilson, Amadou Diallo, Rekia Boyd, Sean Bell, Yvette Smith, Trayvon Martin, and so many more. We trust, O Knowing One, that you know all of the names, even when we do not. Help us to remember that names matter. Help us to learn and teach these names.

Of course, violence does not happen in a vacuum. We pray, also, for Officer Darren Wilson. We know in our hearts that no officer wakes up and hopes to go to work and shoot another human being. We pray for Wilson’s safety and that he receives a fair investigation and trial. We pray that he is receiving the mental and spiritual support he needs at this time. And we give thanks for the law enforcement officials who are working to change the system. Be with all who have pledged to protect and serve and help them to do the job they have promised to do.

As night grows near, we pray for that peace and justice may soon be found on the streets of Ferguson. We stand with Dr. King in recognizing that peace without justice is hollow – a nothing kind of promise. God of Justice, breathe your spirit upon the local, state, and federal officials in Ferguson and help them to know this is true. Help them to open their ears, eyes, and heart. Help them to see the people in Ferguson as you do – as beloved co-creators in bringing about your Realm, as people who deserve to be heard, as people who have a right to be angry.

Finally, O God in Community, we give you thanks for the privilege of joining together in prayer. We give thanks that you are with us on the journey ahead. We give thanks that you are always working for a better day, that you have a vision of what we can become, and that you tirelessly and relentlessly urge us to be bearers of your good news to a hurting world. Give us strength, O God of Power. Give us grace, O God of Mercy. Give us tenacity and determination, for we know this is a marathon and not a sprint. We ask all these things through Jesus Christ, who himself was a victim of violence. Amen.

“Listen and Learn”

Sermon Text: Matthew 15: 21-28

August 17, 2014

First Congregational UCC – Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

I’m pretty sure that in the seminary class where they tell you want you should and shouldn’t do after just two and a half months in a new call, they covered something about not preaching messy, cranky sermons about controversial topics. I feel fairly certain we preachers are supposed to save a sermon like the one I’m about to preach for later.....later.

Of course, I’m not sure when later would be. Because I’ve been going to church my whole life and I can count on one hand, actually HALF of one hand, the number of times I’ve heard white preachers preach about race. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen racism named in a worship service for what it is: a systemic evil that infiltrates and harms all of us – white, black, brown and every shade in between.

We have a name for this kind of evil in the Church. We call it sin.

It seems there’s almost never an appropriate time for nice, buttoned up, well-meaning, mostly-white folks to talk about race. Especially not in church.

It seems like later never comes. Dr. King told us 51 years ago that we couldn’t wait for justice any longer. But the photos out of Ferguson, Missouri this week surely would have made Dr. King rant and weep and wail. Children holding up signs that say, “Don’t shoot.” Police decked out in riot gear, looking like they’re in the middle of a war zone. Journalists being jailed – without being read their rights, without any charges given.

The news out of Ferguson has fairly consumed my soul this week. Just 350 miles from here last Saturday, an unarmed 18 year old man named Michael Brown was shot multiple times and then left, dead, in the street for several hours. For days and days afterwards we watched helplessly as heavily armed police confronted people attempting to exercise their right to assemble and grieve and protest. The desperation has been palpable and I have stayed up late keeping vigil – watching the live videos and tweets and cries for justice. This week has been about so much more than Brown’s death. It has been the cry of a people who have been silenced for too long. A group of people begging to be heard, respected, treated like human beings. Will we listen? Can we learn?

If now is not the time to talk about this desperation, when would the more appropriate time be?

There certainly isn’t enough time today for me to go into all of the background information out there about the problems with the criminal justice systems in our country. If you want a good overview you should read The New Jim Crow by Stanford law professor Michelle Alexander. That book should be required reading for everyone in this country.

It will take some time until we have better information about exactly what happened last Saturday afternoon when Michael Brown was killed. And so there are some that say, “It’s too early to come to conclusions. Why do you assume the police were in the wrong?” The problem, of course, is this is that this is not an isolated incident. If you take the time to follow alternate news sources, you can find reports of people of color in this country being beaten, cursed, hurt, killed by police almost daily. In the past two months alone, at least four unarmed black men have been killed by police in the United States. If anything good can come from Brown’s death, is that’s some of these stories are now making into the mainstream media. Some of these voices are finally being heard. Will we listen? Can we learn?

If those of us who are white can listen and learn one thing from our black brothers and sisters this week, I think it should be this: race still matters. Though I still often hear white people say we should all try to be colorblind, I know of not one single person of color who would tell you that colorblindness is a worthy goal.

Race, though a made up concept, is in the DNA of this country. This country was founded with racist values at its core. That’s not a pretty truth, but it is the truth. We have carried this sin with us since before the founding of this nation. If we do not actively work to understand and dismantle the sin of racism, we can be assured it will continue. It’s not enough to change our individual beliefs and actions. It’s not enough to teach our children better – though, of course, those things are important. We must work to actively dismantle the systems that oppress.

One way we begin is by listening.

We must listen to the voices that belong to people of color telling us how important it is to understand and talk about race. I once told a friend of mine who is black that white people often think it’s better not to talk to their kids about race, for fear of making them notice the existence of different races. She cracked up. She couldn’t believe it.

Because if you’re a black kid in this country, you’d better believe you know lots about race by the time you’re 2 or 3. Your parents and elders teach you the tips and tricks about how to survive and keep safe.

Black children are told, “Keep your voice down. You don’t want people to think you’re wild.” Black kids are taught, “Keep your hands out of your pockets in stores or people may think you’re stealing.” Black kids aren’t told, “If you ever need help, find a police officer and they will help you.” They aren’t. Instead, they are told, “If you ever get pulled over by the police (and you will), you make sure and roll down your window and put both of your hands on the side of the car like this to show that you are cooperating and you have no weapons.”

Every black male friend I have can tell you a story about being pulled over for driving while black. Every mother of a black child that I know has told me that she worries about what might happen if the wrong police officer runs into her child at the wrong time.

One of the not-often-recognized truths about racism is that it hurts all of us. The police, like the rest of us, are caught up in systems that are unjust and teach us to fear. White people are taught from an early age to fear people of color. It subtle and not-so-subtle ways, that is what we’re taught. It’s a lie that we need to stop teaching our children.

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Friends, I can’t handle many more photos of black mothers and fathers at press conferences clutching photos of their children. Their dead children. “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

In the face of this great grief and despair, there is a part of me that wants to just allow all of us who mourn to weep and wail without comfort. But there is another part of me, too, the part of me that looks to our scripture – to our shared stories – for hope.

It seems providential that the lectionary text this week is the story of Jesus and the Caananite woman. In this story, Jesus comes into contact with a desperate, grieving mother. She is not of Jesus’s people. There is no reason to think that he will help her at all. But he seems to be her last chance, so she boldly approaches him, “Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.”

She comes to him on behalf of her daughter. She fears for her child. One of the first images I saw out of Ferguson this week was Mike Brown’s father holding up a quickly-made cardboard sign: “Ferguson police just executed my unarmed son!!!”

Jesus ignores the woman. He refuses to even honor her humanity by listening. And his disciples encourage him to keep ignoring her, saying, “Send her away. She’s loud.” In other words, “She’s not one of us. Her problems are not our problems. And we don’t like the way she’s asking.”

Ferguson is a long way from here isn’t it? Those photos of that town…they don’t look much like Manhattan, do they? And maybe we think, “Well, if they would just calm down and use the proper channels they would be more successful. Why do they keep complaining so loudly?”

Jesus keeps ignoring her, but she won’t have it. She gets up in his face, falls in front of him on her knees and says, “Lord, HELP ME.” She is not going away.

Those who initially gathered around the body of Michael Brown last Saturday kept vigil. They stayed through the afternoon sun while his body lay in the street. They stayed all afternoon and all evening. They would not leave. They would not go away.

But Jesus is stubborn. For whatever reason – maybe he didn’t sleep well the night before, maybe he’s just overwhelmed with his own worries, maybe he had been taught from an early age to think of Cannanites as animals – whatever the reason, it’s a pretty horrible response. It pains me every time I read it.

He says, essentially, “I’m not here for people like you. You’re out of my jurisdiction.” He doesn’t even apologize. Just states it like that. And he calls her a dog. An animal. Less than human.

And this woman – God bless this woman and her nerves of steel – she tries ONE. MORE. TIME.

“Jesus,” she says, “Even people like me matter. Can I just have the leftovers from your table? Just a little help?”

And Jesus finally relents and helps her. Her daughter is healed.

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How can a story of Jesus behaving badly possibly offer us hope?

Well, I think there is hope to be found in this: Jesus was willing – eventually – to listen. To learn. To change. When pushed and pushed, he decided to err on the side of kindness. He was willing to rethink who he was and what he was called to do in the world. He was wiling to go out on a limb and discover that maybe his work in this hurting world was much broader than he had initially imagined. He was willing to claim another person’s pain as his own. He had compassion….even for someone who was not from his group.

We can learn from this Jesus, can’t we? What would happen if those of us who were white stopped saying, “But….but….” every time a person of color told us what it’s like to live in their skin? What if we listened to the cries for justice, for help, for healing all around us? What if we sought ways to use our voices to amplify the voices of those who are so often silenced?

Jesus was initially unwilling to hear. But when he finally took time to listen – really listen – he realized he had to act. He remembered that he was called to care for all – not just those who looked like him. He realized it was his job to work tirelessly to heal those who were deeply wounded all the time – not just when it was convenient.

And this woman – this woman! She taught Jesus. She saved her child. And she reaches out to us today. She is still trying to teach us.

Will we listen? Can we learn?

"Take Heart"

Sermon Text: Genesis37:1-4, 12-28 and Matthew 14:22-33

August 10, 2014

First Congregational UCC – Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

These past few weeks, I have enjoyed having conversations with our newest members about our church’s covenant statements. According to the constitution of First Congregational UCC, we require our members to accept our covenantal statements. The first is the Church Covenant, which we’ll say together a little later in the service. The second is our Open and Affirming Statement. One of the things I love about our worship together is that we regularly say these statements together on Sunday mornings. They remind us who we are called to be as a church community. And on days like today, when we join together to welcome new members in our congregation, it is especially appropriate to spend some time reflecting on what it means to be church together. What are our commitments to each other? What are the responsibilities and privileges of being a part of this congregation?

Our bylaws tell us that when we become members of First Congregational, we are agreeing to give our support by our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service. It looks a bit different for each of us, of course, and when I meet with people who are considering membership, we talk about what it might look like for them. On these Covenant Celebration Sundays, when we welcome new members, it’s also an appropriate time for all of us who are members already to recommit ourselves to our responsibilities of supporting First Congregational with our prayers, presence, gifts, and service. And for those of you who aren’t members yet, but think you might like to be, there is no need to wait for a formal invitation. I would love to be in conversation with you anytime about what it means to be a member here.

Throughout the summer, I’ve been blessed by the opportunity to sit down with 50 of you for one-on-one or one-on-two conversations. And I still have a few more yet to go before the end of August. What a gift to be able to sit together with no real agenda except learning about who you are and what is important to you. I have heard stories of childhoods, Christmases, vacations, family dinners, car accidents, deaths and funerals, childbirths, divorces, educations, struggles at work, hobbies. I’ve looked at pictures and videos. I’ve heard stories of your ancestors. I’ve heard stories of your dreams for the future. I’ve listened in the spaces between the words and shared with you a bit about who I am, too. It’s been an amazing summer. I highly recommend it, this spiritual practice of simply listening. We don’t do it enough in our world.

And in the midst of these conversations, the topic of what it means to “be church” has come up again and again. You have told me stories about what church has meant to you. The people who brought you meals after a cancer diagnosis. The people who sat with you in Sunday School classes and listened to your questions. The churches that have welcomed you and your children and been an extended family to you and them. The churches that have held you in love during an awful diagnosis, a struggle with death, the loss, the funeral, the grief after the loss of a loved one. The churches that have allowed you to dream dreams about the future….a future for you, your family, your church, your town, your world. Church has meant so much to so many of you. It has done my soul good to hear these stories.

Because as your pastor, one of my important tasks is to continually ask myself, “what does it mean to be church in this time and place?” And it’s not just my job, of course. It’s also your job.

Earlier this week, I heard these words come out of my mouth during one of these conversations, “I think one of the most important tasks of the Church in our time is to remind people they are safe.”

We were talking about all the fear that is out there in the world today. People carrying guns into Target because, what? They’re scared of the other customers, I guess? People so scared of those who are different than them that they will yell hateful things at a bus of children coming from another country seeking refuge. People who are afraid same-sex marriage will lead to the demise of our society so they spend their time persecuting those who celebrate love in all its forms. People who are so very afraid of women having control over their own bodies that they stand outside women’s clinics and scream horrendous things at the women going in to see their doctors.

Of course, now it sounds like I’m pointing fingers, right? But that’s not fair. Because, of course, I get scared, too. As a parent of young children, I worry about my kids, of course. I try to give them a long leash because I don’t want them to grow up afraid. But then it seems I also have to worry about what other people might think of me if I give them too much freedom. For we live in a time and place where parents are arrested for letting their kids play at the park or walk to school alone.

And we are entering into a dangerous time of the year in our lovely college town, too. I’ve already been thinking about whether or not I need to take a break from bike commuting for a few weeks as the students get used to driving in town. And my heart aches for all the parents out there sending their children off to college, wondering if their child will make it safely through that first month of school when students die of alcohol poisoning at are sexually assaulted at alarming rates.

You can’t read the news without finding all kinds of things that cause fear….air strikes in Iraq, Ebola in West Africa, horrible news continuing out of Israel and Palestine. It seems there will always be plenty of things to fear and we live in a world where many people make lots of money off of capitalizing on our fears.

Of course, fear is nothing new. Our stories from the First and Second Testaments this morning are all about fear. Joseph’s brothers are afraid Jacob doesn’t have enough love to go around, so they hate Joseph. Joseph is left by his big brothers at the bottom of a pit to die, and then brought up from the pit…not to be rescued, but because they decide it would be nice to make a buck and finally be rid of him. So they sell him to a group of travelers and he is taken away from family and home.

And then we have the disciples, out on the boat the morning after a storm. They see a hazy figure coming across the sea. It appears to be walking on the water – but, no, that can’t be. It must be a ghost! And they cried out in fear. But Jesus said, “Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.”

Take heart. Be of good cheer. Have courage. These are healing words. Jesus uses this same phrase throughout the gospels when he approaches people who are a mess. People who are scared, hurt, dying, dead. These are words he uses when he heals.

As a person who has dealt with anxiety throughout my life, these words used to annoy me. I always heard people talking about how the phrase “do not be afraid” was in the Bible over 100 times, but it never made me feel better. It just made me feel guilty for feeling afraid. Any of you who have every had serious anxiety or tried to help someone with anxiety know that telling an anxious person, “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” rarely works. It’s just not that easy.

And yet, like Peter. I find myself, in those moments of anxiety, crying out, “Lord, save me!” When I feel like I am drowning in fear, I need something larger than myself to call me back to order. I need someone to remind me to re-center myself – to get away from that jumble of fear in the pit of my stomach and come back to the heart of things.

Take heart. Have courage. You know that courage comes from the Latin for heart, right?

In a world of fear, how do we come back to the heart of things? Where do we find our courage and strength?

Jesus uses these words to heal those who are scared and hurt. I believe the Church is called to be a source of healing in the world. We are called to speak to a world of legitimate fears and fear-mongering and help people find a way to live in the midst of that fear.

During my conversation earlier this week, after I said those words, “I think the Church is to be about the work of reminding people they are safe,” I realized I had to take it back. Because we aren’t safe. Not really. There are any number of things out there in the world that can and may hurt us or the people we love. We like to fool ourselves into a sense of safety, but being human means we are vulnerable.

So maybe the job of the Church is to remind people that they aren’t safe….but that they can still take heart, have courage, be of good cheer in the midst of this very unsafe business of being humans.

I actually think it’s a good thing to remember that we aren’t safe. It helps us remember to pay attention, enjoy life, savor the moment, not take things for granted. It helps us remember to share, live out generosity, help others. We remember that we are all dependent on each other and the Earth. We remember that nothing is forever. That’s not a bad thing.

But in the midst of this awareness of our vulnerability, we have to find a way to ensure it doesn’t turn into an existential crisis. We have to find ways to re-center, find the heart of things, live into the unknown and still get up day after day to live our lives.

Jesus comes to the disciples and says, “Take heart. Do not be afraid.” When Peter notices the strong wind, gets flustered, and starts to slip, he cries out, “Lord, save me!” and Jesus immediately reaches out to him and catches him.

God is like that, don’t you think? Not in a “I can solve all of you problems kind of way,” but in a, “I’ll go the distance with you” kind of way.

God whispers words of comfort to us. God reminds us to breathe deep, find the heart of things. God shows us, again and again, that death never has the final say. We like to talk about Jesus’s resurrection a lot, but the whole Bible is chock full of stories of resurrection, not just the one about Jesus. Just look at Joseph’s story. Notice how today’s passage begins, “Jacob settled in the land he had lived in as an alien, the land of Caanan.” A man who had once been a stranger, looked down upon, found his way to new life and belonging. He settled. That’s a small story of resurrection.

And Joseph – gosh, his story is all about death and resurrection. A child born a woman who had waited and waited for a child. Sold to Midianites by his brothers, he finds himself a slave in Egypt. Falsely accused of a crime, he finds himself in jail. And there, in that jail cell, he begins to dream dreams. Take heart, Joseph, do not be afraid. The story is not over yet.

His dreams take him right up and out of that jail cell. He is eventually resurrected to new life and finds himself in a position to help the people of Egypt avoid famine. He ascends to the top of the civil government and eventually is given the opportunity to help the brothers that had once sold him into slavery. When he is reunited with his father after more than 20 years, the son falls into his father’s arms, weeping tears of joy, and the father says, “I can die now, having seen for myself that you are still alive.” A relationship that had been cut off – killed – is resurrected.

Death and resurrection. Fear and peace. All of these things are at the core of what it means to be human.

Our Still-comforting God comes to us in stories and in the person of Jesus to say, “Take heart. Be not afraid.” Not because everything is okay. Not because the world is safe.

But because we each have to find a way to get through the day as a vulnerable human being, and Jesus knew exactly what that was like. In the midst of our deepest fears – real or imagined – Christ reaches out to us across the water, “Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid.”

"All Filled"

Sermon Text: Matthew 14: 13-21

August 3, 2014

First Congregational UCC – Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

I know I told you last week that we were done with parables for a while. Don’t worry. We are. But today I want to tell you a story. It’s a made up story….but it is my hope that some truths can be found in it.

The Realm of God is like a congregation that gathered for worship in their new building for the first time on a Sunday morning in June. No, that sounds too hopeful. This group wasn’t hopeful. And it’s hardly fair to call them a congregation at all.

They were the remnant of a congregation. On that Sunday morning in June there were just 12 of them gathered for worship. All of them were over 70. All of them have lived their entire lives in this tiny border town in Texas. All of them remembered the glory days. The days when their downtown church had been filled to overflowing. Christmas pageants when the children were young. Work days on Saturdays when they were able-bodied. Congregational meetings where people got fired up over important issues facing the church…and then made up over cups of coffee and punch in the fellowship hall. A big choir that filled the whole chancel, decked out in the nicest robes, even in the heat of summer.

But all of that was gone now. The town had changed. The kids had grown and moved on. Friends and loved ones had died. But these 12 faithful few remained. As the numbers dwindled, they did what they could to hang on to the building. They did what they could to hang on to their pastor, but, in the end, they could hang on to neither.

And so here they were, on a hot Sunday in June, striking out, tentatively, with the hope of being church once again.

A few months earlier, just after Easter, they had finally moved out of their building. They sold the building and put the money in the bank, unsure about what they would do with it. Their pastor had moved on and they weren’t planning on calling a new one. For a few months, no one was really sure if the church would continue at all. Most of the people who had been left were tired. Exhausted from trying to stay afloat. Many of them started attending the other church in their town.

But slowly, the phone calls began. These 12 began to whisper to each other, “I miss the church. I wonder….could there be a way to do something new?” And so here they were, gathering outside a simple storefront downtown. None of them had been to this part of town in a while, but one of the women in the group had heard of this store that was for lease and had jumped on it. They really had no idea what they would do, but they gathered early on a Sunday morning, 8:00 a.m. and they allowed themselves to dream.

When they pulled up just before 8:00 that June morning, they were greeted by a pickup truck full of migrant farmworkers parked near the church. John, an old farmer himself, knew exactly what this meant. A group of day laborers sitting around this late in the day could only mean one thing: they had not been picked up for the day. They would have no work today and no way to feed their families that evening.

John and his wife Margaret were moved with compassion. They walked up to the pickup. Margaret’s Spanish was better than John’s. She invited them in to join them in worship. She had no idea what she would do with this group of men, but she figured she could rustle up some ice water and they could at least sit in the air conditioning. It was starting to get hot.

They sat in the delicious air conditioning together on metal folkding chairs. They sang and prayed. The group of 24 managed some conversation through the language barriers. They found hymns that were in Spanish and they sang them together. After the service, the head usher went to gather the money from the offering plate, but instead of putting it into the bank bag he began to count it and divided it carefully into 12 equal portions – one for each of the men from the pickup truck. The old timers from this new church nodded approvingly. Of course that was the right thing to do with the offering today. Several took out their wallets and added to the offering.

They went their separate ways, but people from both groups couldn’t help thinking about the others. They wondered if they would see each other again. Something special had happened that day in that storefront church. They couldn’t exactly put a finger on what it was, but they all knew they wanted to experience it again.

The next Sunday, the old timers of this new church showed up again at 8:00am to worship. This time, they were greeted by a crowd of people waiting outside the church. As they drew closer, they began to recognize faces from the week before. But this time there were women and children, too. One of the men from the group stepped forward to shake hands and said simply, “We came to worship again. And we brought bread and wine to share for Communion.”

They gathered once again inside the delicious air conditioning as the day began to heat up. The children wiggled in the metal folding chairs and the old timers in this new church reached out their arms to hold babies. It had been so long since they had been blessed with the sound of children in worship. The reading for the day was from 14^th chapter of Matthew. They read it in Spanish and English. You know it. The loaves and fishes.

After the reading, there was silence for a few moments and then Margaret stood up to speak. She did her best to say what she needed to say in both Spanish and English, painstakingly speaking for a few sentences, pausing, and then translating to the other language.

Margaret said she had never heard the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 in quite the same way as she heard it today. “I don’t like the title of this story,” she said. “I think they got it wrong. Jesus didn’t feed the 5,000. Not by himself. It should have been ‘The DISCIPLES feed 5,000 with Jesus’s help.’ I have to say, I can kind of relate to how the disciples must have felt. They were trying hard to do the right thing, but they were so tired. So worn out from trying to take care of everyone…Jesus, themselves, the crowds that followed. That’s how I felt when we were trying to keep the old church alive. But then it died….but I just couldn’t let it die. So I came here, not knowing what to expect. And in these past two weeks, I have been thinking about how we are all hungry and we are all sick….just like those people who followed Jesus. We all come to church begging to be healed and fed in some way. We all have needs and we all hope Jesus can fix it all for us.”

She took a deep breath and let out a bit of a sigh, “But I think what I’m learning is that Jesus isn’t coming to fix it all for us. He’s not. But he is showing the way. I hear this story and I don’t pretend to understand exactly how the miracle part happened. But what I do see and understand is Jesus being moved by compassion when he saw the crowds. He saw the need in the other people and because he was hungry and tired and sick to death of all the pain in the world, he understood just what it felt like. He reached inside of himself and found the strength to love the people around him. And even though Jesus surely could have fed all those people himself, he didn’t. He told the disciples, ‘You do it. You feed them.’ And then he showed them how.”

Margaret paused and looked around the room at these people she had known nearly all her life and the people she had just met in the past week. “We are, all of us, like those crowds who came to Jesus needing to be healed and fed. We all have things in our lives that aren’t going well. We all know pain and fear and hurt.” She smiled, “But we are also, all of us, like the disciples who followed Jesus around because they, too, needed to be healed and fed. And if we keep our eyes on Jesus, he will show us the way to take care of each other. He will show us how to take what we have…our loaves and fishes…and make it enough for all of us.”

Margaret took the bread and the cup from the folding table sitting at the front of the room. Like Jesus and so many before her, she gave thanks, she blessed it, she broke it, and she shared it with all those gathered. And they passed the bread and juice around, and the children wiggled, and the metal folding chairs squeaked, and the people gave thanks.

They were, all of them, broken and hungry and tired. And they were, all of them, fed and filled.