July 19, 2015

 Susan Adams

Ordinary Sunday 16     Mark 6:30-48 

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When I was newly ordained there was a story that was often told. Some of you will remember it I am sure. it goes like this:

A newly ordained woman was appointed to a parish where there were a male vicar and male associate priest.

The vicar and his associate were used to spending time together about once a fortnight to chat over parish matters and to do a bit of team building. It had been their practice to spend this time together pleasantly in a little boat belonging to the vicar and to do a bit of fishing while they talked. When the time came round for the next team outing the two me thought they had better invite the new curate to go with them. the arrangement was they would sort the fishing gear and the boat and she would bring a spot of lunch for them all. So the curate heads off to the supermarket for the lunch stuff and the men to the marina to get the boat ready. They waited a bit, and were getting a bit impatient to be underway so decided to row a little way out and sort the lines. Meanwhile the curate, who had been held up in the supermarket by a parishioner who wanted to chat, arrived at the wharf. The men caught sight of her out of the corner of their eyes and while keeping their heads down conferred as to whether they could possibly pretend they had not seen her and carry on with the fishing expedition, or if they should 'suck it up' as they say and go back and pick her up. They decided this would be the best option for future relationships and looked up ready to wave to her to signal their intentions to return to the wharf for her. But being independent, and not wanting to delay the men any longer, she had set out to each them already. When they saw her coming toward them they looked at each other and said "My God, she can't even swim!".

This old story reminds me very poignantly how often we miss the truly amazing because we expect to see or experience something else.

The writer of Mark's gospel, writing about 30-35 years after Jesus death at the time of increasing pressure and persecution of the small Christian community by Rome, is concerned to set out Jesus' actions so as to convince hearers that this person, Jesus, was an amazing person, was divine, and that his teaching was certainly worth following – one only had to look at what he did! The gospel writer was in the business of raising expectations amongst a new generation of people who heard about Jesus, as well as maintaining commitment amongst those who had met him.

Today's gospel reading is full of urgency, and unashamedly holding Jesus up as someone capable of changing the course of events. We hear that the disciples as well as Jesus have been so busy teaching and preaching and ministering in various ways around the countryside that they have not got together for a while to share what they have been up to, and in fact have been so busy that have not even had time to eat! Jesus was hoping for a bit of quiet time with them.

But this was not to happen, the crowd (the story tells us) followed, stayed past dinner time, and got hungry. Then, it goes on to say, Jesus was filled with compassion when he realised they were hungry, and in response to their very basic need for food, found a way of ensuring they were fed.

Then later, still in need of a bit of quiet, sent his disciples off home, in the boat, ahead of him – but a wind blew up we are told, and they had difficulty navigating the waters.

What I find interesting is that the story points to how basic human needs are met: spiritual needs; physical needs; and emotional needs.

                  The need to find quiet time in the midst of much busyness is recognised and met;

                  the need for food when hungry is met;

                   the need for the emotional support of friendship when the going is rough is met.

Apart from Jesus making time for himself when there is so much urgent work to be doing (though in today's western world it might seem like a miracle in itself) the other two situations are often presented as 'miracles' – situations in which Jesus changes the natural course of events and physical substance of matter by a supernatural action; by shifting the cosmic order of things, and in so doing multiplying bread and walking on water.

At the time of writing this may well have been intentional, it certainly would have achieved the goal of raising expectations around Jesus. We have got so used to hearing these miracle stories, and others similar, that we too have often been caught with unreasonably raised expectations when we think of miracles. Often, as we have matured in our faith, we have found ourselves puzzled by such stories and felt either the need to rubbish them or to defend them. Neither action is, however, necessary, only to remember it how stories about miracles worked at the time they were written down and what they were pointing toward.

• I think there is nothing in the stories we have heard this morning that should surprise us: Jesus, seeing that the people were hungry, were lacking food, (a basic necessity), instructed the people to share what they had and they did;

• he saw his friends were struggling to navigate the waters and he moved alongside them to give support.

Today this feeding the hungry surely would be a miracle a shift in the natural order of things! Today we would rather throw food away than give it away – we do it through dumping and expiration dates. Today, food not just a basic resource to satisfy hunger and keep people alive, it is a basic resource for monetary growth and profit. We cannot imagine just giving it to people – they have to buy it – how can we make a profit if they don't? We can hardly imagine just sharing it out, our contemporary world does not work like that; our global food-supply chains are part of a complex capitalist economic system of supply and demand shaped to ensure profit margins.

Consider Greece for a moment, and what has been happening in the Euro-Zone. And, I note that John and I have just come home from time in Crete and were privileged to experience the situation there first hand. We were surprised that almost every day we were there, in a little village of 700 people, we received a gift of food. Eggs, honey, cheese, pastries, oil – all from the little farms people had, some no bigger than a city section here in NZ. We experienced people with little sharing what they had. A piece of the puzzle seems to be that Greece is working on a set of values and expectations that are different from the big players in the zone. Listening to President Tsipras speak about democracy as Greece interprets the concept, and about debt and development and basic rights for people, and you hear a story different from one that positions capitalist investment profit and growth as supreme values.

It seems to me that the miracle in all the anger and confusion that surrounds this situation is that Greece, with its small under-developed economy (by the standards of western-capitalism) dared to challenge the big super-economies of Germany, the Netherlands and others (even us here in NZ) to a rethink about economics and community. Greece challenged the members of the Euro-Zone, especially the bankers and economists to remember what economics is all about: the gathering and distribution of the resources of the earth so the people can live. And further, it urged them to remember that in communities of friends and neighbours, with mutual concern for each other, there is health and strength. There is nothing to be gained if one member of the community is driven out – shamed and belittled.

I guess it depends on what you expect to see whether or not you see a miracle in any of the chaos around the Greek catastrophe.

We have become so used to expecting to see the work of Jesus with all the fanfare and bells and whistles of the 'miraculous' – with the intervention of the supernatural in some way – that we overlook the everyday miracles that we are invited to participate in without any fanfare.

As in today's gospel, miracle stories still point toward things that are important for us in out time:

the importance of finding quiet time in the midst of busyness

the urgency of meeting peoples basic needs

the life-giving gift of supportive friendships

It seems to me that we might feel very encouraged in our faith and ministry if we take a little time out from the ordinary busyness of our lives and consider what we expect the work of Jesus to look like today: do we expect ourselves to be engaged in activities that will lead to the hungry being fed; do we offer friendship and the life-giving and respectful support that goes with it?

What do you expect of your faith commitment?

I want to say that miracles are in the ordinary compassionate actions between humans individuals and between human communities that bring life and hope and which restore people and nations to places of dignity and full, responsible, participation and that we should expect to be engaged in miracles every day.