bring it to me

Preached at St Ann's Nashville July 31, 2011

Genesis 32:22-31
Psalm 17: 1-7, 16
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21

God give us the courage to bring you what we have so that you can bless it and break it and share it with the world
Amen

The last time Jacob was alone in the desert he encountered the holy and witnessed the kingdom of God breaking through to earth. He had a dream of a ladder with Angels ascending and descending. That time he was running for his life, a stolen a blessing tucked in his back pocket. He had gone to his old blind father disguised as his brother and lied about who he was to get his fathers blessing, then ran away. That time he saw messengers of love constantly on the move.

This time he is on his way back, understandably nervous about how the brother he lied to and cheated and ran from will react to his homecoming. He splits up his family and sends them across a river to keep them safe.

And spends the night alone.

This time his encounter with the holy is not as sweet. Not as pretty. This time his encounter with the nature of God is more intense. This time a man wrestles with him until daybreak. This is not a God simply to be believed in, but grappled with, this is not an intellectual proposition or dusty set set of doctrines to be debated, but an all consuming struggle. This is a face of God that can be held onto, that can be clung to, that can fight back. And somehow he holds on. Its what he has always done. His very name means grasper. He held his brother's heel on their way into the world and has been grabbing ever since. He even manages to hold onto this man or angel or God all night long. Even after his hip is knocked out of joint. He holds on. He holds on and he asks for a blessing. And then the angel asks his name.

Why?

I mean surely this big wrestling angel knows who he has been struggling with all night, right? Does this angel go out every night into the desert and pick fights with lonely men?
Will he need to fill out paper work when he gets back to heaven?
Or is he giving Jacob a chance to repair the lie that severed him from his family and himself?

We are rewinding and rewriting the first story

See, when his father, Issac, was giving Jacob the blessing he knew something was up. “are you really my son Easu?” he asked. And Jacob lied right to his blind fathers face and said “I am”
So when the angel asks Jacob who he is it is a loaded question.
But this time he answers, “Jacob”
he can admit who he is. A grasper, a supplanter, a striver, an underminer, devious and desperate.

This time He is admitting to God and to himself who he is.
And in that wonderful moment the angel says says “not anymore”
"You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel. Which means God has kicked your butt and you held on. Really, it means God strives. It means you are now defined by your relationship with God and no longer by the worst parts of yourself.

Then showing just how much he hasn't changed Jacob asks “so, whats your name?”
and the Angel says “why is it that you ask my name?”
Have I ever lied about who I am?
Have I ever been deceitful?

“You wouldn't get it” he is saying to Jacob (and to Israel) “there is nothing I could tell you in this moment that would make who I am any clearer to you. Know this: I have wrestled you, I have held onto you, I have surprised you, I have injured you, I have known you, I have renamed you and now I will bless you. That is who I am.”

We are no better than Jacob. We struggle with God and we want to know the details. We want God to be simple and self revelatory.
We want to understand God enough to get around the difficult requests.

You tell me who you are and then I can safely decide what our relationship will be.

Who Jesus is, who God is IN Jesus, becomes one of the overarching questions not only for the Gospel writers but also the gospel readers. For us.

This morning Jesus is reeling from the news that John the Baptist has been killed. He tries to get away but the crowds follow him. And he has compassion on them, and heals their sick. He serves them. He is moved by mercy. And spends the whole day with them, as he is mourning the loss of his friend, his cousin in faith, his baptizer.

In the evening the disciples come and tell him that the people he has been loving in the deserted place are hungry. This is the first we hear of the disciples in this story. did they just get there. Or have they been working alongside Jesus all day? Are they trying to take care of Jesus? Are they worried about Jesus and want to get hm some of the rest they probably are wanting for themselves?

They say the crowd should be sent away to get something to eat. You think he didn't know the hunger of these people that he interrupted his grief for, that he was healing, the people who broke his heart in their woundedness? do we really think he somehow missed their hunger?

Jesus says “don't send them away. you give them something to eat.” The disciples try to explain to him how little they have. Maybe enough for themselves, but barely, and Jesus wants them to try and feed all these people with their own dinner?

Yep.

Bring it to me he says. What ever little bit you were saving for yourself, bring it to me. Whatever you thought was barely adequate to get you through the day, bring it to me.
And they do.
Which I think may be the real miracle in this story.

Then he orders the crowd to sit down and he looks up to heaven blesses and breaks the bread and has his disciples feed the people. Now this should sound really familiar to any of you who have ever been to church before.
This is the Eucharist.
This is the miracle.

You see a miracle is not experienced standing on the sidelines with a disdainful attitude, and a clipboard. A miracle is experienced in the body from the point of view of the person being fed. From the point of view of the person doing the feeding. We are not changed or transformed or healed if we sit out here and try to figure out if “a miracle really happened” what will change us is if we let ourselves be fed, if we let Gods grace and generosity feed hungers in us that it will take miracles to satisfy. What will change us is if we take what little that we have and let Jesus bless it and see how far it will go.

This is the Eucharist and we preform this miracle ourselves week after week, we take the nothing that we have share it with each other and have basketfuls to take out into the world.

If you are bothered by all the starving places of the world, don't tell Jesus you have run out of love to offer, don’t tell Jesus you have run out of patience and compassion, don’t tell him you have nothing to give!
Jesus never worries about how little we bring to the table,
I'm sorry Jesus but I cannot forgive this person, I cannot face that person, Its just not ME, I cannot open myself up to this pain, I have nothing to offer here. That's ok, says Jesus , seemingly missing our well thought out arguments, bring it to me.

And we will feed them anyway.

We say: I am not that sort of person,
And he says: that's ok you are someone new.
We say: I don't have enough,
He says: bring it to me
he says to us: “I don’t care what gifts you think you do or don’t have, that is so deeply irrelevant to what I am up to.”
We say: all I have is this one little life, small and selfish, and hard.
He says:
that's ok I can bless you, and break you, and share you.

In the middle of those long hard wrestling nights, it takes everything we've got to hold onto some piece of God. When we experience unspeakable loss, when loneliness crushes the air from our lungs, when traumatic regret threatens to pull us under, hold on. Don't let go. We are not promised protection. These nights leave scars. These nights leave us limping. And the losses do not disappear when the sun rises.

But,

if we can just hold on, after wrestling all night, in the morning the angel will ask
who Are you?
Are you someone who will join in with this foolish work that will take everything you have and will take everything you do not have?

God isn't overly concerned with who we think we are or what we think we have to offer. We are simply being invited to share in the in-breaking of heaven on earth.
We are invited to bring whatever we have to the table, and let it be blessed and broken, and fed to the world. And there will be basketfuls left over.

Amen