Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is “Then They Came for Me” by Martin Niemoeller

First they came for the communists,
and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me.
And there was no one left to speak for me.

SECOND LESSON

The first lesson is from the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 6 verses 30 through 44

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. Jesus said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.

When it grew late, his disciples came to Jesus and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” But Jesus answered them, “You give them something to eat.” They said to Jesus, “Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?” And Jesus said to them, “How many loaves have you? Go and see.” When they had found out, they said, “Five, and two fish.” Then Jesus ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand.

This Week's Sermon

Date: July 12, 2009

Title: What Does It Take to Make a Loaf of Bread?

Message Delivered By: Rev. Joe Mc Murray

There was a wise old Mother Superior from a country convent in Tipperary who, after a very long life, at last was dying. All of the sisters, young and old, gathered from all across the world to be with her in her last hours. Some came by bus or car, some by train or plane. Others traveled by boat, hoping they would be there in time to bid their final farewell to their spiritual leader.

As the sisters gathered, they would come to her room in shifts of three or four, so as not to overwhelm her with a huge crowd all at once. Each group that entered her room gathered quietly around, doing all they could to try to help her feel more comfortable.

Mother Superior was barely conscious, but the doctors warned that nourishment was vital in keeping her alive. The sisters took turns trying to give her a cup of warm milk to drink, but she refused it. One of the sisters, Sr. Margaretta, took the glass back to the kitchen, frustrated because she knew Mother Superior would die soon if she did not get something in her stomach to nourish her.

Remembering a bottle of Irish whiskey the sisters had received as a gift the year before at Christmas, and remembering that when she was sick as a child, her parents had given her a little toddy to help her rest more comfortably, she opened the whisky and poured a generous amount into the milk.

She warmed the milk on the stove again, and stirred it carefully, fearful that if anyone knew what she had done, she would be severely reprimanded. Still, she was doing this only because she loved Mother Superior and wanted to prolong her life for as long as possible and to keep her comfortable for the short time she had left.

Sr. Margaretta took the glass back to Mother Superior's bedside, took a spoonful of the liquid and held it under Mother Superior’s nose. She then touched it to her lips, and everyone was surprised when she slowly sipped the liquid. Encouraged, she held another spoonful and touched Mother Superior’s lips, and this time, she opened her mouth side and took the entire spoonful!

Sr. Margaretta then held the glass to Mother Superior’s lips, and she took a big gulp. Then she strained to raiser her arm, and pushing Sr. Margaretta’s hand higher, she drank a little, then a little more, and before they knew it, she had downed the entire glass of milk to the last drop.

The sisters were overjoyed that Mother Superior had finally taken some nourishment. And they became even more joyous as Mother Superior seemed to be adjusting her whole body, trying to rise to a sitting position.

Over the next few days, it was nothing short of a miracle that Mother Superior was more alert, even conversant than she had been in weeks. Taking advantage of her ability to communicate, they hoped she would impart with them her deepest hopes for the future of the order.

"Mother," the sisters asked earnestly, "please give us your wisdom before you die." The Mother Superior slowly raised her head, and with a pious look on her face, she whispered, "My sisters, we must continue to live our lives humbly; we must resist attachment to material things; we must share what we have with the poor. These are the vows we took when we pledged our hearts to Jesus Christ.”

“But sisters,” she said with her familiar commanding presence, “whatever you do, don't ever sell that cow!"
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Will you pray with me? God, continue to guide us that we may adequately fulfill our calling. Show us the way to advancing our ministries in ways that are truly helpful to those who are in need. Help us to reserve our judgment of the trials of others, concentrating instead on the goodness in others. Help us to help them, that they may one day remember our help and reach out to help others in like manner. Make us perfect examples of your unconditional love. May my words and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen.
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Bread is probably still the most common nourishing staple of the worldwide diet, as it has been for centuries. Bread comes in many forms, depending on the culture or the part of the world. Breads come in loaves, some large, some small; it comes pressed like crepes, tortillas or flatbreads; it comes in the shape of shells or pies, or in round shapes like muffins or biscuits. Sometimes bread appears in cake-like shapes like corn bread or banana bread. Whenever we go out to eat dinner and the bread they serve is homemade or at least very, very fresh, I always say, “I could make a meal out of it!”

The fact is, many were the times my family made a meal out of bread—not out of necessity, but because the bread was so good.

My grandmother, my Mom’s mother whom we called “Sitto” (which is Arabic for ‘grandmother’) used to bake bread for our family every week. She lived with us from before the time I was born, so she functioned as another parent living with the family.

Making bread is an art. It is the act of assembling particular ingredients in just the right amounts, and at just the right consistency, and mixing them with water and oil, so that the bread comes out perfectly.

So what does it take to make a loaf of bread?

For the sake of argument, I’ve taken the ingredients of a particular bread with which I am most familiar – Syrian bread or pita bread. The ingredients of pita bread consist of flour, water, yeast, sugar, salt and a little oil.

When Sitto made Syrian bread, it came out looking very much like the pita bread we serve at communion. I used to watch her every week during the summer. I was always fascinated by the fact that she rarely measured anything, but it always came out perfectly. She would start early to avoid the heat as much as possible.

And the process always began very simply – some warm water in a bowl to mix with the yeast and to let it set. To this mixture, she added salt and sugar, and would dissolve that in the warm water as well.

Then she began to add the flour, a little at a time. Bread dough is very gooey and sticky, at first, until it’s well-mixed. At that point, when it separated from her hands, she kneaded the dough – working it very thoroughly with her hands.

She added more flour as needed so that the dough was not too wet; or she added more water so that the flour was not too dry.
Once the dough was smooth, she took it out of the bowl and put it in a different bowl that was oiled. She covered the bowl with a cloth or towel, and put it in a warm place. Then the dough began to rise. Once it had doubled in size, in about 2 hours, she punched down the dough to get the trapped air out of it, and transferred it to a floured surface.

She divided it into small pieces, and placed those off to the side, again covering them until they rose again for about 30 minutes and preheated the oven to about 500 degrees.

Then she kneaded each piece a little more, rolled it flat with a rolling pin until it was about 1/8th of an inch thick, and baked each loaf for about 6-8 minutes. The bread would puff up like a football, and she would take it and place it in the broiler for about a minute to brown the top. When it came out, the air and gone out of it.

And then we would say grace and have our meal, which consisted of the bread, butter, olives, cheese and milk. And I would make a meal out of it every time.

Bread was not only a staple in the history of humankind. Without bread, early civilizations may never have survived. Without manna, the Israelites would have left slavery in Egypt only to perish from starvation in the desert. ‘Bread’ has become synonymous with nourishment, sustenance and a necessary ingredient for survival itself.

In today’s scripture, the disciples, upon returning after Jesus had sent them out, talked of their exploits and experiences in curing and healing the sick and ministering to the people. But as the crowds followed them, and it got late, they became concerned that the people had not eaten. Instead of taking their suggestion and sending the people away, Jesus admonished them, saying, “You give them something to eat!”

Whether Jesus felt responsible for the crowd who were riveted to what he’d been saying, or whether he was speaking metaphorically that the disciples, too, had it within their power to ‘feed’ the spiritually hungry, we don’t know. What we do know is that somehow, they managed to feed everyone present and have baskets of food left over.

Scriptural purists will argue that the miracle of the loaves and fishes lay in the fact that Jesus blessed the small amount of food and it miraculously multiplied itself abundantly. It may well have happened exactly that way.

I have another take on what the miracle might have been. The miracle might have been that Jesus addressed the crowd and said, “There are 500 of you and all of us are hungry. I have but five loaves and two fish, and am willing to share them with all of you. What do you have? What can you share of your meager provisions that we might accumulate together so that everyone might eat? What gifts do you bring? Is it possible that so many could be fed from so little? It is possible if we give what we have, if we’re willing to share even the smallest amount of food.

And the people brought forth their meager provisions, and when everyone had done so, and everyone had eaten, there was food left over.

We are not a wealthy church. We may live in a fairly wealthy community, but the church, quite frankly, is going through some difficult financial times. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re in a bit of a hole. We’re in a hole, not because we’re overspending—our spending is right on track. It’s because our fundraising in the first half of the year wasn’t what it needed to be.

And we’re going to make that up in the second half of the year by doing more fundraising than perhaps we’d like. There are a lot of reasons this happened—no one is really to blame. Your Board of Directors and the Fundraising Committee are working very hard and are committed to ensuring that we will balance our income and our spending by the end of the year.

But there’s a bigger point I’m trying to make. Our food programs are doing well. Our main food programs have money in the bank to keep them going, at least for a little while. And we’re hoping that certain grant monies will come through that will increase those funds so that we can continue to do everything in our power to fulfill our mission to feed hungry people—people who have turned to us for help.

Who stands up for the hungry and homeless? Sometimes it seems like there are many, but in reality, there are very few. This is the age-old question that has baffled humanity since the beginning of time. Though it has been written in nearly every religious law to look out for the disenfranchised, to care for the widow and the orphan, and to place the needs of the poor above your own … not many people find that compelling or appealing.

Now, it’s true that not everyone who is hungry is homeless. Most people who are homeless, however, are probably hungry. But the stigma of homelessness taints our perception of who the hungry are, and perhaps influences our desire to respond.

There are those who will give money to feed the hungry if they live in homes, but not if they are homeless. There are those who may give money to feed families who are hungry living in shelters, but not to individuals who are living on the street.

But by whose standards should we judge? Well, that’s just it. We shouldn’t judge. It’s not our place to judge. We have drawn a line in the sand of hunger and said, “All those who are hungry—all of those who are on that side of the line between not hungry and hungry—are people we want to feed. How they came about their situation, why they are not housed or employed, what is the status of their mental, emotional and physical health, are they impacted by substance abuse—none of these things matter when we consider the issue of hunger.

Why? Because we are the bread, spiritually. And we have the capacity to give bread, literally.

We are the bread. We give the bread.

But what does it take to make a loaf of bread?

It takes a people who can look beyond the meager provisions they have for themselves and still offer what they have to those who have less.

It takes a people who are willing to sacrifice some of their own time and treasure to ensure that all of God’s people are equal and deserving.

It takes a people to put all the ingredients in the bowl—the particular gifts we bring. We must not omit anything or anyone if we want to create the perfect bread. It must be substantive and nourishing and sustaining. Let us not omit the active ingredients—the things we know are essential for the bread to reach perfection and of the consistency it will need for the heat it must endure. We must mix our ingredients carefully. We must be firm, but also include love and tenderness. There is something wondrous in what the dough will become once it is finished, but we must remember all along the way that we cannot skip steps, for the bread needs whatever time it takes to be as perfect as possible.

One of the most active ingredients is the yeast—that which forces the bread rise and grow. The yeast is love, and love will sustain us through the entire process. Then we knead the dough—we work it with our hands, for it is this work that gives shape and texture and purpose to the final outcome.

And then we give our work time to rest—to rise, to expand, to bear fruit so that when the ultimate goal is reached, our efforts can produce something full and powerful and substantive. And after our rest, we work again—we give shape to our work so that like the intense heat of the oven, the heat of our passions bakes the bread of our creation—hope and sustenance to others who will know that even in its making, there was always love in it, and that the human hands God used in creating it can also bring healing and wholeness to all.

And in one loaf of bread, we are united and have a clear purpose—a clear answer to our call.

But why us? Why not leave it for a bigger church? Why not leave it to the ones who’ve already been doing it for awhile? Why don’t we just give some money or food to Pastor Ernie at Glad Tidings and let them take care of the hungry—maybe then they’ll really serve breakfast again instead of just doughnuts, bread and coffee? Or why don’t we lend some of our chefs over to St. Mary’s so that the meals that are cooked there are consistently of a good enough quality for people to want to eat them?

In Martin Niemeller’s "Then They Came for Me," we are haunted by the inaction that permeates his words—inaction which ultimately lead to death because all stood aside and watched as others were destroyed. It wasn’t their concern, so they didn’t get involved. It wasn’t about them, so they didn’t take it on.

But if we wait until it’s only our concern, it will be too late. If we wait until we need to be rescued by someone else, it will be too late.

We keep hearing from our guests each day we serve, “You guys are the best. We are so thankful. You treat us with respect. You offer us the best food. You really go out of your way.”

Why us? I think it’s partly because in some form or another, God has said to this church, “You give them something to eat! You do it! Don’t wait for someone else, you do it!”

I would like to host a church forum on hunger so that each of us has an opportunity to weigh in on what we think about all this, how we feel about it, how we can move forward with our food ministries into the future.

Because it’s really got to be all of us, not just a few of us, who respond to this call to social justice, this call to serve.

I’d love to hear your input, your thoughts, you feelings about this. Pull me aside, send me an email, call me during the week—let me know if you’d be interested in participating in this conversation and I’ll put it together. I think it’s important as we move forward and I want to hear from you.

And in the meantime, may be continue to take up the challenge—the same challenge that Jesus laid before the disciples: “You give them something to eat!”

May we continue to follow in the direction where God is leading. Amen.