Saturday, July 24, 2021

Do Not Be Afraid Proper 12B

 

Do Not Be Afraid

In the Gospel of John, the storyteller shows Jesus going to the three major pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem repeatedly over the course of about three years. Yet, in chapter six, the time of the Passover is near, he is on a mountain top in Galilee, far away from Jerusalem, perhaps hoping to get a break. [John 6:1-21] More likely, however, hiding out, for just before these episodes of feeding and walking on the sea to still the rough waters, he was in Jerusalem for another festival and had healed a man on Shabbat. Which, he points out to those who complain he is breaking Sabbath customs, is the right thing to do. “But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God. [John 5:17-18]

 

As unusual as it was for him to miss a festival as important as Passover to celebrate the escape from slavery in Egypt, he is prudent to stay away. But it must be difficult to hide when some 5,000 people show up at your hideout! He asks Philip, who was one of his first disciples and had told Nathanael he had found the one Moses and the prophets had talked about – the future king of Israel – “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” (It was to test him, says storyteller John, for he knew what he would do.) Philip allows it would take six months wages to get enough bread. Fortunately, a young boy comes to the rescue with five barley loaves and a couple of fish – or goat jerky, depending how one wants to translate the obscure Greek in the text.

 

As nearly everyone knows, Jesus takes and blesses the bread and the fish and has the disciples give all of it away to the crowd, and 5,000 fish sandwiches later, surprise – there are twelve baskets of leftovers. It’s possible other people, inspired by the young man who gave away all he had to take home to his mother that others offered whatever they had – and more. That would be no less of a miracle and a sign, that inspired by the lad and by Jesus, people suddenly become generous and give away all that they have to help one another. This does not happen every day. There are stories that suggest that in the end, Jesus orders the disciples to give the twelve baskets of leftovers to the young man to take home, whereupon he and his mother throw a block party for the entire neighborhood.

 

We are told that these are barley loaves which are much coarser than wheat, and the staple of the poor who could not afford the finer and preferred wheat at the marketplace where, as Amos tells it, the affluent merchants would put their thumb on the scales and over-charge for the good stuff. Surely Jesus and at least some of the folks in the crowd can remember the prophet Elisha giving away a gift one hundred barley loaves to feed a mere 100 people in the midst of a famine in the land. Connecting the loaves with the prophet, some in the crowd want to make Jesus a king right then and there. [2 Kings 4:42-44]

 

Jesus knows the stories of his people. He remembers the days when the people demanded that the boy prophet Samuel petition God to give them a king. “All the other countries have kings,” they whined! “We want one too!” Samuel tells them the obvious: “A king will take your young men and make them soldiers for his wars. He will take your daughters and make them his servants. He will take your fields and your produce. You will wish that you had never asked for a king, but by then it will be too late.” [1 Samuel: 8:11]

 

Jesus remembers this warning. And that what Samuel said all this and more came about in the reign of King Solomon. Solomon had twelve officials over all Israel, who provided food for the king and his household; each one had to make provision for one month in the year…Solomon’s household provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal, ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, fatted fowl, and a partridge in a pear tree! They ate really really well. [1Kings 4:7,22-23] What Solomon represents is the consolidation of wealth, goods, access and power in the hands of a very few at the expense of the entire rest of the nation. There is never enough to feed the Empire. Contrary to some Biblical claims of peace and a United Monarchy under Solomon, there was such social unrest due to the excesses of the House of David, a social and military revolt under Jeroboam led to a fracture of the kingdom into two opposing factions of Samaria to the north and Judah, or Judea, in the south. This, as we have heard, is the result when “bad shepherds” are in charge.

 

Jesus will not ignore the needs of the people of the land with pretensions of a new monarchy, and so retreats once more into the mountains to let things cool down. As always, however, there is no rest for the weary. As the disciples also depart from the crowd, their boat is endangered by a mighty wind. They are scared. Jesus approaches the boat, walking on the water, which terrifies them even further. “It is I; do not be afraid.” And before they can get him into the boat, they arrive at their destination. The crowd who ate the fish sandwiches after Jesus had given thanks set off after him to ask for further clarification about the bread.

 

When the Word becomes flesh to dwell among us there can be no hiding from the needs of the people who find themselves under even greater social and economic deprivation than experienced in the time of Solomon. Under the Empire of Rome, it feels as if we are back in Egypt slaving 24/7. Jesus, the Word, knows all of this and sets his vision to return to the Way of the Lord, refusing to return to the sins of the past which repeatedly tried to employ power and violence to consolidate wealth, goods, power and access in the hands of a few.

 

Jesus is a Good Shepherd. He leads with the forgiveness and love of God, his Father. He urges a return to the commandments of Torah living to love God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength, and to love your neighbor as you are loved by the God who forgives you and loves you no matter what. Jesus leads with Good News, not the desire for yet another kingship which always results in great social and economic division and disparity. We’ve been there and done that he seems to say. Jesus brings words of faith, hope and love for all people, no matter what.

 

When the consolidation of goods, wealth, access and power becomes great, and the waters become rough, Jesus appears from we know not where or how to say, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Jesus knows when we set aside our fears of one another, we learn to see ourselves in one another and live together in the Way of the Lord. “The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully.” [Psalm 145:19]

 

May God, the Word made flesh, and his Holy Spirit, lead us out of all our fears and into his way of forgiveness, faith, hope and love for all persons, no matter what. Amen.

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