Have you ever gone to a buffet and put too much food on your plate? “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.” It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? Every time I do it, I think, I will NEVER do it again, right, don’t you? But I do. Then I think about the time I went to Nicaragua and I saw children without shoes begging for coins at the airport. And I visited huge families living in homes with dirt floors and only two rooms. And then I remember some of the homes I have visited in this country taking baskets of food at various times, trying to give people some help, when they are out of work, and don’t have enough money to buy food for their children, and diapers, and toilet paper because food stamps don’t cover all that stuff. And I think about those meals when I stuff myself. And it really does not make sense.
And then I remember this story, where Jesus worked a miracle (John 6:1-13’s story of the fishes and the loaves story for those who are following along at home or on the road) . It’s possible that Jesus actually caused food to appear where there was no food before. We’re talking about Jesus after all. I believe he can work miracles. Some people think the real miracle in this story, worked more like this: once the little boy shared his lunch, then other people probably began to share the food they had packed away too. There were probably lots of thoughtful moms -- and maybe a few dads (but mostly mothers and grandmothers in that culture) who before they left the house, packed food, because they did not have a McDonalds or a Starbucks on every corner.
And so as the day wore on and it time to eat, and they realized not everyone had brought food, Jesus had everyone sit down. Then they all began to share their food. And you know how sometimes we have so much food at a pot-luck, that at the end it seems like we have more food left over that we started with at the beginning? Well that’s what happened that day on the hillside. The people opened their hearts, and their lunch bags. Everyone ate, and they were filled, and they had food left over. Because they were GENEROUS, everyone was fed. No one went hungry, and there was more than enough.
This is God’s design for our world, my friends. Our Stone Soup story from last week, tells the same tale. If you did not hear the story last week, let me just
catch you up a bit: Three monks are walking in the mountains of China. They ask: “What makes one happy?” They come upon a village where floods and war had made the villagers untrusting of strangers and their neighbors. “These people do not know happiness,” they all agreed. “But today we will show them how to make stone soup.” “They gathered twigs and branches and made a fire. They gathered a small tin pot on top and filled it with water from the village well. A brave little girl who had been watching came to them.” “What are you doing?” she asked? “We are making stone soup and we need three round smooth stones,” they said. She helped them find the stones and they put them in the water to cook. She got a bigger pot from her mom so they could make more soup. People began to poke their heads out of their windows to see what was happening. One of the monks said, “The last time we had soup stones of this size and color, carrots made the broth very sweet.” “Carrots?” said a woman from the back. “I may have a few carrots! But just a few.” And off she ran. She returned with as many carrots as she could carry and dropped them into the pot.
We left off the story last week with the CARROTS. Well, of course, you can imagine what happened next, can’t you? One by one, those villagers, the ones who had not spoken to one another for years, the ones who had been hidden away in their homes, frightened and lonely, well, they began to warm up to each other, as they thought about what they had to share to make the soup better. One said he thought his onions would make the soup taste good, so he went home and got them. Another was licking his lips at the thought of some mushrooms. Some others went home and came back with mushrooms, noodles, pea pods, and cabbages. And then, as the story goes: “Something magical began to happen among the villagers. As each person opened their heart to give, the next person gave even more. And as this happened, the soup grew richer and smelled more delicious.” (Stone Soup by Jon J. Muth, Scholastic Press, New York, 2003). The sharing went on and on: bean curd, taro root, mung beans and baby corn.
“The monks stirred and the pot bubbled. How good it smelled! How good it would taste! How giving the villagers had become! “At last, the soup was ready. The villagers gathered together. They brought rice and steamed buns. They brought lychee nuts and sweet cakes. They brought tea to drink, and they lit lanterns. Everyone sat down to eat. They had not been together for a feast like this for as long as anyone could remember. “At the banquet, they told stories, sand songs, and celebrated long into the night. They unlocked their doors and took the monks into their homes and gave them very comfortable places to sleep.”
The next day when the monks left the monks thanked the villagers for having them as their guests. The villagers said, “Thank you, with the gifts you have given, we will always have plenty. You have shown us that sharing makes us all richer.” Sharing makes us all richer. The Monks set out to discover what makes people happy. All it took was “stone soup.”
The most profound truths in life are often so simple. . . not easy, but simple. We all have more, when we share. That’s the economics lesson I believe God wants us to learn. We call it God’s economy: the economy of abundance. When we all share – we all have more. There is always enough – and not just enough, there is more than enough, there is plenty.
When Jesus was preaching to the masses on the hillside by the Sea of Galilee, his disciples got scared, because they got hungry. It was a basic human need. And immediately they got sucked into a worldview of scarcity. This is a worldview that is familiar to many of us. It is the idea that we don’t have enough. We need more. It’s the worldview of my eight year old son, who always wants the next new video game, many of us get stuck in this worldview and to some extent we never grow out of it. So we work harder, and get farther in debt so we can have more for ourselves and those we love. But God’s world view is different. God’s world view is just the opposite. In God’s view, there is enough. God created the world, and it is good. There is enough, when we share. And when we don’t take too much for ourselves, like at the buffet bar where we stuff ourselves.
Remember last Christmas when we had that challenge of raising $3000 for the AIDS Resource Center for our Christmas outreach? We wanted to provide really generous food baskets and blankets for people living with AIDS, whose benefits are getting cut back and had trouble paying for medicine? Remember how for some of us, that goal of $3000 seemed huge? Just like the disciples felt when they saw that crowd of people to feed? But then what happened? One person went home to get some carrots ($25) and another some mung beans ($50) and before you know it we had raised $4000! Did any of you suffer at Christmas time because we raised that money? Did you remember being without last Christmas?
Well, you know here at The Village we are a new church, and we have some grants to help us get started, but those grants won’t last forever. Last year of our $150,000 budget, our members gave 1/3 (about $50,000) of the money and this year we need to give about ½ of that ($75,000). Our giving needs to increase roughly from $50,000 to $75,000. Plus we need a little more so we can hire a band leader. Now that might seem overwhelming. But we trust God. And we see in all these stories, that when we put what we all have together, there is plenty.
You are going to get a packet of information in the mail this week, about Stewardship – about how we come together to use our resources to make the Village stronger financially. We are asking everyone to consider making financial commitment to The Village. We are going to ask you to bring your commitment card to worship next Sunday. Some of you have been a part of a church before and you have done this. For some of you this is a new thing. If you have questions, please talk with me or a member of the Lead Team. It does not have to be scary. This can be exciting, as we bring our resources together to make The Village stronger. Pray for our church this week.
Will you pray with me now? God we are grateful for your generosity, for taking care of our needs. In this Country, we have blessings that many in the rest of the world don’t have – clean water, available food, shelter, and clothes. Be with us as we pray about how we have so much, give us hearts that our generous. Calm our fears of need and show us your abundance.
As the story of Stone Soup says, “As each person opened their heart to give, the next person gave even more.” How giving the villagers had become! we will always have plenty. You have shown us that sharing makes us all richer.” Do you have a community where you can feel that reassurance of God’s plenty? If not, you need one. Search, they are out there. If you find yourself near the corner of Central & Monroe Streets in Toledo, drop by. We’re here Sundays at 11AM, coming next year in Maumee, and out in the world the rest of the week.
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