Rev. Linda B. Hirst"

July 30, 2000

Scripture  John 6:1-14

 My mother tells a story about the time she was helping my niece, her granddaughter, Hannah to ride a bike.  They started down the cul-de-sac, everything was going fine, they began up the hill, Hannah was doing beautifully.  Then, as they started down the hill, my mother said to Hannah, "Now don’t forget to use the brakes."  And Hannah replied O.k. and as she sped down the hill my mom heard her yell.  "O.K.....what are brakes?"  We all got a chuckle out of Hannah's response because it was so wonderfully innocent.  And as I thought about it later, it took on this profound quality.  I think children, in their innocence, can teach us a great many things.  "What are brakes," she asked.  "She might as well have asked, ì What are the things that slow me down, that keep me safe and protected? What are those things that bring me to a dead stop.  What are my limits? î

 Over the years, we adults learn what are acceptable limits in polite society.  We gradually grow to understand the rules and regulations and we have many who help us us define and understand those limits:  parents, family members, our schools,  the law.  Through experience, failures and successes we learn what our limits are, both personally and professionally.  My  mother, who's incredibly talented,  tried to teach me to sew at an early age - it didn’t take.  I became frustrated, didn’t like it and haven’t sewed since.  My father, who's an artist,  tried to teach me to paint - my brother laughed at one of my paintings, I broke the canvas over his head and I haven’t painted since. Through personal experience, I have learned what my limits are in these areas.

 But children, children don’t know their limits yet - or at least they don’t have as clear an idea of exactly what they are.  The sky
 is the limit as far as they're concerned.  They want ice-cream for breakfast and ponies for Christmas and can't understand why they don’t get them!  And they say things like, Why can't we stay up until midnight every night of vacation?  Why can't I climb out on the roof and jump off - I'll be careful."

 After vacationing in Florida when I was young, I remember coming home and wanting a dolphin as a pet and no amount of explanation on my parent's part could convince me that we couldn't have one.  We could keep him in the bathtub - it was big enough and I would take care of it.  We could keep it in our baby pool - all my friends had agreed to help take care of it.   Of course I never did get that dolphin and eventually I was the foolishness of it all,  but for a short while there, it seemed like it was within my reach.

 Every once in a while, however, kids will test our limits of reality, of understanding,  with a really good question, like:   Why
are there hungry people in the world?  If there's enough food, why can't all hungry people be fed?

 I took my sons with me to work at a soup kitchen once when they were about six and seven and they  helped me serve and they chatted with all the guests.  When we got back into the car to go home, however, that's when the questions hit:  Why were the people were eating at the shelter? Why didn't they have homes? Why didn't they have money? Why donut we just give them money and jobs and houses and food?   Needless to say, I was stumped.  I think I said something like:  I don't know.  It’s complicated.  I don’t know.     All they knew, though,  was that people were hungry and needed food and as far as they could tell they were was enough food to feed them.  So why can't all the hungry people be fed?   Kids dream big - they don’t have a sense that the impossible is...well, impossible.

 Maybe that's why Jesus had such a soft spot for them; why he loved them so and liked to be surrounded by them.  Why he said thin
gs like: "Let the little children come to me; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs."  When he would tell them about God and heaven, they were probably right there, saying, "Un huh. Sure!  The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed?  I get it!"

  There is a child in today's gospel story.   And it is only in this account, in John's story, do we find a child.  The story begins with a large crowd following Jesus because they see him performing miracles - healing the sick.  Jesus looks out among the crowd, It’s about supper time and he says to Philip, "Where are we going to get all the bread to feed these people?"  He does this to test Philip's faith because he already knows what he will do.   And Philip, like any rational, realistic adult answers, It’s impossible!  We'd need half a year's wages and even then, there wouldn't be enough." Philip acknowledges the limits of the request put before him and he, in effect, steps on the brakes.

 Then the child is introduced into the story.  A child carrying five barley loaves and two fish comes along and offers them up to the disciples.  A child who has no sense of what the limits are - yet - digs down into his pockets, so to speak, takes what he has and offers it to the grown-ups to use.  It wasn’t a test of faith on his part, but a natural response.  "Here, I have this.  We can eat this!"  And you know the rest of the story.

 Now, I believe each of us has an adult side and a child side.  We live with both this  adult and this child in each of us and they exist in a sort of creative tension:  The adult
]in us lives with the knowledge of the rules of the world and knows what can and can't be done - realistically.  This is the one setting the limits to keep us safe.  And the child in us is the dreamer of impossible dreams.  We know we can't or shouldn't do something,  but maybe, just maybe it would work if we gave it a try!  The child in us thinks about quitting our job and moving to Belize to make a living by selling sea shells to tourists, but the adult knows it won't happen because someone has to pay the bills and save for retirement and college.   So there they exist together, the adult and child in each of us, jockeying for position to see who gets to come out next.

 Some people, as you know, are governed solely by the adult in them.  They don’t let the inner child out very often.  It’s too risky;  it's much safer when the  adult is  in charge.
 They’re the ones who, when you say, "I've got this great idea,"  listen to you thoughtfully, then say;  "No. I can't do that. I don’t think that will work. î  And after a while you’re afraid to approach people like this because you know what their response will be.  They’re like those drivers inching down the road at 15 mph tapping the brakes at every turn...and on the straight-a-ways as well.

 There are also those people, it seems, who let the child run about rampant all the time.  And the adult in them is nowhere to be seen.  No obstacle is too great, no hurdle is too big for them!  They’re motto is: "Let's just do it!"  They’re the ones who always have an idea and they just can't wait to share it with you.     After a while, when you see these folks coming, you begin to hide because their enthusiasm, their energy, is exhausting. They’re like the folks you see on bicycles hurtling down a hill at what app
ears to be 100 miles an hour.  And you cringe as you pass by them (or they pass by you) in your car because you just know They’re going to wreck and hurt themselves.

 I worked with a fellow a few years ago whose inner child didn’t get out much. And unfortunately, mine was running amok. And it got to the point where we dreaded sitting down to plan something together, because I knew he would say "No" to all of my ideas and I found this incredibly frustrating.  And he would just plain cringe as I threw out all my ideas and new things we could do, because he felt bombarded.   I was exhausting him.  Eventually we realized what we were doing and I agreed to reign in the child in me a bit and he agreed to let his out a little more so together we could find a balance and not make each other crazy.

It would be nice if, as we go through life, we could approach each opportunity that is before us, each challenge we come against with a nice balance of adult and child.  However, if truth be told, I think the grown-ups come out on top most of the time.  We are taught to suppress the child-like tendencies.  Even Paul tells us that he put away childish things as he grew older (when I was a child he says in his letter to the Corinthians, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;  when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways).  As we grow up we learn to be pragmatic.  We become rational.  We know what can and can't be done.

There’s a great scene in Star Wars - The Return of the Jedi, - we're big Star Wars fans in my house - in this scene Luke Skywalker is being trained by Yoda, the  Jedi master.  Luke is trying to raise his spaceship out of the swamp into which he crashed it and is just can't do it.  Time and time again, the spaceship gets just so far and sinks back into the swamp.   Then Yoda, without lifting a finger, thinks the ship out of the swamp and onto dry land.  Luke runs about the spacecraft, looking at it for, I don’t know, wires? then he finally runs over to his teacher and says ìI don’t believe it!"  To which Yoda responds, "That is why you fail."
   Obviously, this was true in our gospel writer's day as well.  Philip and Andrew, disciples of Christ, devoted followers and witnesses to Christ's many miracles - and there have been many - he healed the son of a royal official in Capernaum, he healed a man who had been ill for 38 years in Jerusalem,  he’s turned water into wine at the wedding feast, they've seen what he can do, yet they STILL acted like the grown-ups they were when asked to do the impossible - feed thousands of people. "We can't," they say. "It's impossible."

 That is why the child is introduced - lifted up as an example for all John's readers - lifted up as an example for us.   Be like the child?  The one who doesn't know what all the rules are yet, who doesn't yet know what all the limits are.  Come forward and take a chance.  Dig deep into your pockets and see what you’re got there.

 Does this mean that we should throw caution to the wind and start hurtling down roads on bicycles without the use of brakes?   I don’t think so.  I don’t believe Jesus is asking us to ignore the laws of society or physics completely.  But, I do think we're being asked to think more like a child, to think more in terms of "why not?" instead of "why?"  To say, when faced with a challenge that by all accounts would be considered impossible, "Maybe with God’s help, I can  do this.  Let me give it some thought."

 I shared with you last week some of my experiences from my mission trip to West Virginia (pictures out front).  How my work crew, of five high school youth led by my friend Lydia and me ended up with the task of working on the foundation of a home and jacking it up to make it more stable and secure.  And I shared with you some of our hesitation about doing this particular job, seeing as we had never done it before.  What I didn’t share with you was our initial reaction:  And that was:  absolute refusal.  We refused to do it.  We said "No.  We can't do this. We don’t know how. It’s not safe.  It’s crazy, It’s impossible."

 We even tried to switch projects with other work crews.  We begged for the roof - we thought putting on a roof would require less skill and danger than working under a house.  If you fall off a roof, chances are you’d still be  o.k., maybe a few bruises, a broken arm or leg.  But if a house falls on you...you're pretty much done.  But the guy holding onto the roofing project wouldn't budge.

 We went to the staff and said "You've got to give us something us.  This is impossible." But there was nothing else for us to do.  Lydia and I were angry and frustrated.   Together we went to tell the kids in our group what we were going to be doing that week.  We’ve got bad news, we said.  O.k. they replied. We have to jack up a house.  "Cool."  We’ve never done this before and we have no idea how to do it, we told them. "That's o.k.!"  It’s going to be hard working under that house - there might - there will be snakes.  "Cool" they said again.

 Off we went,  to do the impossible..  And for those who weren't here last week - we did do the impossible - we did jack up a house and secure a foundation - with a great deal of help from God.
One more story - a few years ago I was at a Church Council meeting - we were getting ready to plan the church's stewardship campaign for the year - getting ready to  ask for pledges to support the ministry of the church - when the chair of the committee introduced a new concept in Stewardship to the Council.  It is called "faith-based giving".  According to this  "new" concept,  we are called to give to the church not according to what the church needs, but according to how thankful we are to God for the many blessings bestowed upon us.  And - this is the tricky part - we were not to present a budget for the congregation until after all the gif
ts had been received.  We were not even supposed to hint at what an appropriate number would be.  We were to go about this Stewardship campaign completely on faith.  And then, when the gifts came in - we spent what we got.  And that is our budget.   Well,  you can imagine the different reactions to idea.

  Some folks didn’t know what to think; not presenting a budget before the campaign - this was unheard of;  it had never been done this way before.  A couple of other people were intrigued, even excited about the possibility.  "This appeals to the heart," one woman said. "This is unique, it has potential, it has possibilities!" (You could tell her inner-child was up late that night)

 The chair of Trustees sitting next to her waited for her to finish then said, with great restraint,  I thought,  "We need a certain amount of money to pay our bills.  To not ask for it is irresponsible." And the chair of  Missions chimed in,  "If we don’t make our budget, outreach will be cut," he said. ìI don’t want to see that happen."   At the end of the very long discussion our moderator, who is a very  soft-spoken and persuasive man read to us two very short, very simple scripture verses.  "for we walk by faith, not by sight," he read from 2nd Corinthians and then from Mark,  "Jesus  answered them, Have faith in God."  There was silence.  Then a vote.  And a new Stewardship plan was approved.   The room was filled with hope and trepidation. As we were leaving the meeting I overhead someone say, "Well...if this works, it will be a miracle."  And off we went to do the impossible - and we raised what we needed and then some for that year's budget...with God’s help.

 Basing a stewardship campaign on faith,  feeding five thousand people with insufficient resources, jacking up a house . . . .  God is constantly calling us, sometimes even pushing us
down paths we would never think about going down, urging us to do those things that seem impossible.   And as nice as it is to be challenged sometimes, it can also be downright scary and nerve-wracking.    But that's o.k.  I think the disciples were often downright and scared sometimes by what was happening around them and if they can be scared and nervous sometimes, then we can, too.
 
 

 The trick is to not stop there.  To not to be overwhelmed by those feelings.  The trick then, is to take a deep breath and go one step further.

 When we feel God calling us to do something;  maybe it's to take a leading role in our building project, maybe it's to teach Sunday School, or maybe it's to make a life change that will better you or your family - that's when we have to let the child in each of us out - the one who dreams big dreams, who thinks anything ís possible - the one who doesn't know what
brakes are, what the limits are yet.  And we let the child dig deep into our pockets, take a look at what we have there - our talents, our skills, our enthusiasm, our desire - and we offer them to God in faith and we say, "Here.  I have this."   And then we see what happens.   Who knows, we might even do the impossible...with God’s help.

 Tomorrow my family and I leave for North Carolina to visit my parents and my brother and his wife and my niece Hannah.  While we're there, the kids will hop on bicycles - Hannah and my two sons and they will hurtle  themselves down the hill on the cul-de-sac.  Fully aware of what brakes are used for, just not using them at all.

 And as they fly by  me, I will say this prayer, "Dear God, help me to be as bold and daring as these children as I seek to do your will.  Help me to dream dreams and the ability to make them come true.  But also, give me brakes.  Help me to know my limits,  when to use them and when to ignore them.     And when I do fall, because God, we both know I will,  lift me up  and set me on the path again with confidence.  Help me to remember that the impossible is possible with you.  Above all,  be with me every step of the way."   May this prayer be for all of us as members of the body of Christ."    Amen.