“You give them something to eat.”

Mark 6:31-44

Sunday, November 18, 2018 - 20th Anniversary of Second Helping

First Congregational United Church of Christ of Manhattan, KS

Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

If you were to open your bible and take a peek back at the beginning of the 6th chapter of Mark, you’d see it’s been a long and tiring week for the disciples. Early in the week, they watched their teacher, Jesus, ridiculed by folks in his hometown. People there scoffed at this man they had known as a young boy, “Who does he think he is?”

Jesus then sent the disciples out, two by two, to minister and teach in nearby villages. They were busy healing, teaching, visiting the sick, caring for anyone who had a need...which was, as it turns out, lots and lots of people. It was grueling, exhausting work. And it was done on a shoestring budget. They took nothing with them….no bread, no bags, no money in their belts. They were totally dependent on the hospitality of strangers as they traveled.

Over all of this hung the choking cloud of terror, as the disciples looked over their shoulders, remembering how Herod had brutally executed Jesus’s cousin, John, as a party trick. John had garnered too much attention….had threatened the powers that be. And his reward was a certain death. Surely the disciples knew that with each miracle, each healing, each parable, each act of power….surely they knew they were being watched. And surely they wondered where this was all heading and whose head would be on the chopping block next.  

Seeing his friends were exhausted, Jesus offered a soothing balm in a simple sentence. “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest for a while.”

It’s time for a break. Catch your breath. Put your feet up. Sabbath.

But...this time sabbath wasn’t quite meant to be. Because a great crowd of people followed them...eager for more teaching, more healing, more, more, more. And Jesus had compassion on them and taught them late into the day. As the sun began to set, one of the disciples whispered in his ear, “Hey, it’s getting late. We need to send these people home so they can eat dinner.”

And Jesus, I imagine him smiling just a bit with his eyes as he turns to the disciples...Jesus utters a hard word. Something I am certain they were not excited to hear. “You give them something to eat.”

“You give them something to eat.”

You do it. They’re hungry? Feed them. You’ve got this. What’s that, you say? We’re out here in the boonies without so much as a Walmart or QuickTrip? What’s that, you say? You’re tired and it’s been a long time? What’s that, you say? This is impossible?

Jesus doesn’t budge. ”You give them something to eat.”

These are scary words. Powerful words. And…if we’re being honest, not at all surprising, coming from Jesus. Jesus was never in the business of consolidating power or wow-ing everyone with his unique skills and gifts. Jesus was never content to be the only one performing miracles. Jesus never wanted to be the only one tapped into God’s power.

Jesus was always giving power away. Always inviting people into ministry alongside him. Always pushing his followers to see that they, too, could grow closer to God, perform miraculous acts, bring God’s Realm of Justice and Peace a bit closer. The Jesus movement was never about lifting up one person or even a small group...it was always about reminding every single person present that they were made in God’s image, called to do awesome acts.

The Jesus movement has always been about calling each and every follower into a life of ministry.

Whether we like it or not.

Twenty plus years ago, Jesus spoke those same words to people in our community. “You give them something to eat.” YOU do it.

Yes, I know you’re a part of a smaller congregation and this feels like a big task. Yes, I know there are more questions than answers. Yes, I know you’re tired. Yes, I know there are lot of bureaucratic hoops to be jumped through. But, yes, YOU. You give your neighbors something to eat.

I remember when I was first in conversation with the search committee of this congregation, back in the fall of 2013. One of the first things I noticed about First Congregational was that it had a long-standing feeding program. I was shocked to discover that a church with only 70 or so people in worship each Sunday was also feeding 30-40 people every Sunday night. I wanted to know more about this congregation and this ministry.

When I came here for my initial interview weekend, the search committee sent me to Second Helping incognito. I sat down at a table and made small talk with the other guests. I ate a warm meal. I learned more about the Manhattan community from listening to our neighbors gathered around the tables. And I learned a lot by watching the volunteers as they worked. I noticed that there were smiles all around. It felt like a big family gathering. People knew each other’s names. Volunteers knew whether someone preferred Ranch or Italian dressing. People took the time to tell jokes, check in with each other about life, and everyone had more than enough to eat.

It was then that I realized Second Helping is not just about addressing physical hunger. It is also about creating and honoring relationships. It’s about the good feeling you get at the end of the day when the night settles in and your belly is full and you can remember the laughs you shared around a table with other humans. It’s about doing life together, remembering we are not alone, and waking up each day with the expectation that we will see Jesus in the face of our neighbors.

It was also clear to me that first night that Second Helping is a labor of love. And that this is a congregation where people take seriously the work of following Jesus. This is not a church where people are content to show up, sit in pews, sing a few nice songs and go home….immediately forgetting everything they just experienced.

This is a congregation where people are trying to live the lesson encapsulated in the panel from“The Family Circus” comic that hangs on the bulletin board in our kitchen. The family is leaving church and the little girl is telling her siblings, “Grandma says this is where our religion begins - when we come out of church.”

Following Jesus is this delicate, mysterious, marvelous balance of being fed and feeding our neighbors. We gather around our holy texts, sacred music, spiritual practices so that we can learn, grow, deepen our faith. We come to worship and find ourselves challenged, nourished, encouraged, fed….and in our gratitude for God’s goodness, we look at the world around us with new eyes and see opportunities to gather at tables, feed each other, see Christ in our neighbor, and advocate for a more just world.

Man, it’s GOOD to follow Jesus, isn’t it? It gives me all the warm, tingly, thankful feelings inside.

Second Helping began in 90s in the way so many ministries begin. A few people in our congregation paid attention to the world around them and started asking questions. They looked at the world as it was and held it up against God’s vision of what could be….noticing the distance between the two and perhaps hearing that pesky voice of Jesus calling to them, they started to wonder what they could do to bring the Realm of God more fully into focus.

One of the great things about this 20th Anniversary Celebration has been hearing stories from so many people during the adult Sunday School class organized by our Boards of Mission and Christian Education. I learned that Second Helping, like so many other compelling stories, began as a resurrection story...new life from loss, birth from death. Jean Hill shared with us that the idea grew out of loss. Shortly after her father died, their family discovered they were going to need some new holiday traditions. As they served food at the community Thanksgiving meal, they wondered, “Where do all these folks eat the other 364 days a year?” That voice started whispering to Jean, Judy, and Virginia, “You give them something to eat.”

Meanwhile, another family in our small congregation was also seeking new holiday traditions. Melissa and R.C. Jones, who have since moved away but came back for a visit last month, had a blended family and all of their children spent Thanksgiving with their other parents. Rather than having a small Thanksgiving meal at home, just the two of them, Melissa and R.C. decided to expand their sense of family by volunteering at the community Thanksgiving meal. Like Jean’s family, the Jones’s also encountered Jesus there and heard him saying clearly, “You give them something to eat.”

One of the themes that came out again and again in these Sunday School classes was growing our sense of community. The answer to that question I had five years ago, “How is a congregation this size feeding people dinner and lunch every week?!?” is pretty simple. Second Helping is a community-wide effort sustained by numerous community partnerships...and it has been, since the very beginning. Our crew of coordinators work closely with volunteers from the Manhattan Mennonite Church, the ESA sorority, K-State, and more to staff the kitchen on Sunday nights. And every week we are blessed immensely by the efforts of the Food Recovery Network at K-State...students who are currently delivering around 500 pounds of food to area churches like ours each week.

In the early days of dreaming, organizers reached out to other local service agencies to learn more about needs in Manhattan and create partnerships. One of the things we learned early on was that, for our original target audience, can openers were a prized-possession. So we bought a bunch of them and attached invitations to them, handing them out to folks who were living in tents at night and hanging out downtown during the day.

Despite all of the intentional outreach to a targeted population, do you know how many people showed up at the very first Second Helping meal?

Zero.            

But still….that voice of Jesus wouldn’t go away. And so the workers kept showing up at the table week after week….and gradually a few new friends showed up, and then more, and one day we looked around and our tables were full. Over time, other churches in the area started setting places at their tables, too. By 2014, when Common Table was formed, there was a hot meal in Manhattan five nights of the week. One of the immediate goals was to work towards having meals seven nights of the week, and that goal has since been reached.

Last week in Sunday School we were joined by others from the Common Table and we had a chance to learn more about meals at the other sites, food insecurity in Manhattan, and future goals….like the long-term vision of having all the meals take place under one roof seven days a week.

As I sat in class last week, I looked at the panel gathered...representatives from so many area churches, K-State, nonprofits, and just “regular ol’ people from Manhattan”...my heart warmed to see the way all of these people have been knit together because they heard a voice saying, “You give them something to eat.”

Jesus comes calling when we are least expecting it. Sometimes we hear his voice and feel a flash of excitement as a new vision starts to coalesce. Other times our stomach drops as we think, “Oh, no, Jesus. Not me. Are you sure?”

Wherever and however we are when the call comes….it keeps coming. Jesus knits together strangers, families, friends and calls us outside of ourselves. “You give them something to eat,” he says. And a small band of ragtag followers gathered in a deserted place gather up what they can find...five loaves, two fishes, a few can openers, a building sitting empty on Sunday nights with a decent kitchen, time, energy, curiosity, open hearts…..we gather up what we can find and then we sit down at tables together - hungry to see what God can do.

And once again we find ourselves surprised by miracles in the desert. We watch as Jesus takes the loaves into his hands, blesses them, breaks them, gives them right back to us.

And as the baskets are passed we find ourselves wondering why we were so surprised to see there were leftovers to spare...after all, this is who our God is. And this is how it has always been. There is room for all at Christ’s table and more than enough to go around….we are both witnesses to and participants in miracles.

Even here. Even now. Thanks be to God.

BLESSING AT END OF WORSHIP

“Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo

A TIME OF BLESSING: SECOND HELPING 20th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
One:    For those who see a need and ask, "How might we serve?"
Many:    We give you thanks, O God.
One:    For those who are willing to walk into an unknown space in hopes of finding kindness there,
Many:    We give you thanks, O God.
One:    For those who labor in the fields, drive trucks, stock shelves, and shop for groceries.
Many:    We give you thanks, O God.
One:    For those who continually invite in other partnerships, always asking, "Who else might serve with us?"
Many:    We give you thanks, O God.
One:    For those who plan meals, schedule volunters, prep salads, bag lunches, wipe tables, and offer a warm greeting,
Many:    We give you thanks, O God.
One:    For the steadfastness of your love, which binds us together with neighbors near and far, which calls us outside of ourselves, which inspires us to take risks in the name of love, and sustains us when we are weary,
Many:    We give you thanks, O God.
One:    Bless this Second Helping ministry, O God. Push us to help create a world where no one is hungry and all have what they need. Bless all who gather at tables together. Amen.