Scripture/Sermon of the Day

13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

I. I was trying to find the name of this game that people play at conferences or seminars or retreats where one of the goals of the participants is to communicate better. Do you know what the game is called when you make a big circle of people — and the first person has a message or a phrase, and they whisper it to the person next to them and each person delivers the message until it goes around the circle — and the last person has to say what the message was. Usually, by the time it gets to the end of the circle — the message has changed so much — it’s not even close to the original.

II. Do you know what that game is called? It’s called the telephone game. There’s an important insight that this game offers which every person — especially people who go to church — should pay attention to. And that is, simple communication between people is difficult. We talk to each other every day and probably think we understand what someone is saying, and that they understand us. But communication from one person to another is not easy.

III. Do you see where I’m going with this? Two young people were baptized this morning, Harrison and Ryan. And I asked Harrison’s parents, and Ryan, to make a commitment to learn about Jesus and follow him. And they said yes. But here’s where the telephone game comes in, where we see how a simple message, passed from person to person can become completely changed and come out saying something so different from what was initially communicated.

IMAGINE a circle millions —billions — of people long, stretching back thousands of years — to a place where the people don’t look like us and don’t speak our language — and who even then didn’t agree about who Jesus was.

There’s a picture of Jesus with the shepherd’s robe and long hair and beard. And he’s standing on a piece of land with the word TEXAS written on it. In front of him are three big, mean-looking men who look like U.S. Border Patrol. One of them waves a club. In front of them is a roll of razor wire stretching across the picture, then there’s a river, with a little boy’s body floating face down — he’s dead — and a mother holding her baby, her mouth open like she’s screaming for help, her free hand raised in the air, and next to her another child in the water gasping for air. Caught in the razor wire is young woman, and next to her one of the patrolmen is pushing a child back into the wire and she’s caught in it, bleeding. AND JESUS IS BEHIND THE MARSHALLS pointing with one hand and holding the other hand up signaling the people crossing the river to stop! HE shouts directions to the marshalls: “Push the children back in the water! Let them drown! Leave that pregnant woman in the razor wire! Don’t give them any water! The meek shall inherit my wrath!”

V. WHAT??? This sounds outrageous, but millions of Christians think this is who Jesus is. These Christians have voted politicians into office who carry out these policies — put children in cages, build walls that keep desperate people from the healthcare, the food and the water — and the safety and refuge they need to stay alive. Shocking as that cartoon is, there really are millions of Christians who think Jesus is more interested in American sovereignty than in helping desperate people.

VI. I think it takes an act of God to help us know and understand who Jesus is. This morning our short gospel passage revealed some of the real Jesus. There are thousands of people around him, hungry, and he feeds every one of them. The disciples don’t want to do that.

There are probably people in that crowd like those U.S. Marshalls in the cartoon with their billy clubs, big and mean. There are people like the children in the river gasping for air and drowning. People like the pregnant woman caught in the razor wire. People like the politicians who permit those acts of terror against weak and vulnerable. Jesus’ disciples were there. There were people there who believed in God and people who didn’t.