You Give Them Something to Eat, a sermon preached on August 6, 2023 based on Matthew 14: 13-21

Imagine with me that the deserted place where Jesus fed thousands of people was a place like Haiti. I traveled there with a mission team 15 years ago. It was the most poverty I’d ever seen. If you’ve been reading about the recent kidnapping of two Americans, then you know that things have only gotten worse there since then. Haiti is the kind of place that needs Jesus to come and perform a miracle like the one we just read about from the Gospel of Matthew, but God didn’t send Jesus to Haiti 15 years ago; God sent this mission team that I was in, and as we were gathering in the airport to fly to Haiti, one lady brought me a second-hand wheelchair and told me to get in. She convinced me to fake an injury so I could ride this wheelchair onto the airplane. That didn’t sound like a good idea, but I did it. I rode this wheelchair into the airport, and I remember wheeling up to the first security checkpoint, wondering if my next stop was going to be Guantanamo Bay. They just wheeled me through, however, and pushed me to my seat. It wasn’t until the next day that I understood why Jane, the mission committee chair, asked me to do this. The day after we landed, we drove out to a small village and up came a man being pushed in a wheelbarrow. When he saw this wheelchair that I’d snuck down to Haiti, he smiled ear to ear, and seeing the look on his face, I would have become a professional wheelchair smuggler right then if I’d been asked to. What I’m trying to say is that the world is broken place, and when the people were hungry and the disciples weren’t sure what to do about it, Jesus said to His disciples, “You give them something to eat.” Jesus was with them as He is with us, so let us be aware that God does miraculous things through normal people. When God told Moses basically the same thing Jesus told the disciples, the power of God was unleashed upon the earth. “I will send you to Pharoah,” God said to Moses. Not feeling up to the task, Moses tried to back out. “How will I free the people? How will I stand up to Pharoah?” God asked Moses, “What’s that in your hand?” “A staff,” Moses said. Then God said, “I’ll use that staff to defeat Pharoah.” To the disciples, Jesus said, “You give them something to eat.” When they tried to back out of it, He asked them, “What do you have?” “Five loaves and two fish.” “Well, I’ll use those five loaves and two fish to feed the crowd.” That’s how it is with God. God takes who we are and what we have in our hands to change the world. Last semester, a seminary professor asked my class, “Look in your hands. What do you have? A cell phone?” Right now, I know some of you have cell phones in your hands. I’m not blind. I’ve seen you looking, but think with me about the power of a phone. First, look this one. My friend Ken Miner, who has saved this church who knows how much money by rewiring light fixtures and replacing old bulbs with LEDs, used to work for the phone company, and he kept a bunch of old phones. Likely, this was the model that Dr. Patton used in this pulpit when phones first came to Marietta, Georgia back in 1898. Dr. Patton had one of the first telephones installed in this pulpit so that those who couldn’t come to church in person (the homebound, the disabled, the sick) could worship from their homes. What about your cell phone? Some of you have used your phones to share this worship service. Today, not using the phone lines, but the internet, this worship service gets sent out into the world, for the Lord will use us and what we have in our hands to do miraculous things if we are willing. Don’t be surprised to hear that. He will use us and what we have, no matter how humble, to do miraculous things. I’ll never forget a phone call I received from Marietta City Schools. “We’ve been distributing food from the Atlanta Food Bank, but school’s about to be out for the summer. Do you want to give the food out in your parking lot?” That happened three years ago. Since then, 250 cars have lined up in our parking lot every Tuesday to receive a meal box of produce and canned goods. We’ve distributed so many meals: hundreds, thousands, millions of meals. “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves,” then fed 5,000 men, not even counting the women and children, and managed to have 12 full baskets left over. That’s the power of God at work in people, people like us, yet we don’t see ourselves as powerful, so Moses was afraid. The disciples were anxious. I get that. Life is a little bit easier if there is nothing that we can do about the suffering of the world. If there is nothing that we can do then we don’t have to step out in faith to answer the call, but I’m telling you, we’re strong enough to change the world when God works through us. Therefore, remember what happened when the disciples answered the call of Jesus, Who said to them, “You give them something to eat.” Remember what happened to Moses when he answered God’s call. Remember that when your children and grandchildren say, “I just can’t do it.” I’m now at the point in parenting children when my kids are better than me at stuff. Cece beats me in basketball every time we play. She’s 12, and I stopped taking it easy on her last year. If she pulls up for a shot too close, I’ll knock the ball out of her hands. If she dribbles in front of me, I’ll steal the ball from her. Last week, she beat me 10-2 in the first game. Then, she beat me by an even wider margin twice after that, and I’m still kind of good. Does she have any idea how good she is? I don’t think any of us does, yet the world changes when we live so God can use us. Anywhere, Lord. Anytime. Cindy Ethridge told me the most wonderful story last week. You may know that she cracked a bone in her jaw. Her husband, Charlie, rode with her straight to the ER. His vision is bad, so a friend of theirs drove. After all day in the ER, she was finally taken to a room with a roommate. Do you know that feeling? You’ve been in the ER all day, and the room they take you to has another bed with another person in it. How are you going to get any rest? Cindy was initially disappointed to have a roommate, but as she got to know this woman, she learned that her roommate was in worse shape than she was. After talking and getting to know each other, Cindy mustered up the courage to ask this woman if she’d like to pray with her. Do you know what that feels like? Before you ask, you doubt yourself. You think to yourself, “This woman doesn’t want me to pray with her.” Who am I to pray with this woman anyway? Surely, those thoughts were going through Cindy’s mind, yet she took this woman by the hand and prayed that she would feel God’s presence. My friends, like it or not, we are agents of a Mighty God. Remember that you have something to give, that God moves when we dare to give them something to eat and when we find a way to be of service. When we dare to serve the Lord, when we dare to answer the call, the world changes, and so do we. In the words of that great Presbyterian minister, Mr. Rogers: There’s something unique about being a member of a family that really needs you in order to function well. One of the deepest longings a person can have is to feel needed and essential. My friends, you are needed and essential. Nothing will give you greater satisfaction in this broken world than using what God has placed in your hands to defeat Pharoah or feed the masses, and there is no more miserable person than the one who thinks only of himself. On a day like today, with our big discipleship expo in Holland Hall, and with all the ministries you might get involved in printed in the most recent church newsletter, the time is right for you to take what is in your hands and to allow God to use it to transform this broken world. Amen.