Living into the abundance of God
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, July 25, 2021
Ephesians 3:14-21 • John 6:1-21
Last Sunday, Stephen gave us a powerful sermon about Sabbath rest: about everyone’s need of it, and the gospel mandate to reform our economy so that all may indeed have it. He delighted us by talking about his basset hound, Fudge, describing the many ways that Fudge exemplifies the good evangelist and disciples in all aspects of his daily life.
While today’s readings took me away from the idea of the Sabbath, they did keep me with my eye on economics and – our dog Poppy. Poppy joined our family the day before the pandemic shut us all down. Having had two twenty year old cats, and two elderly dogs die over the previous two years, we were without beloved friends, and the thought of being trapped at home without furry distraction was not appealing. Hence Poppy, who came bounding into our lives with great enthusiasm. A number of you will have met her on Zoom calls, as she does believe she’s a lap dog even if the 60 odd pounds of muscle might indicate otherwise.
Poppy exemplifies the commandment to love. She loves everybody on first sight, her wagging tail almost lifting her bottom and feet off the grounds. She makes no exceptions, friends, strangers, and no doubt burglars too...
Perhaps it’s a result of having a challenging period in her young life, when there really wasn’t enough, she does continue to be challenged in believing that there really will be enough food to satisfy her needs. While training over the last year and a half has gone well in most areas, she endlessly asks for, hopes for snacks throughout the day. Trusting that there is enough is a challenge for her.
And that is what our scriptures are circling around today: the extraordinarily, unbelievable enough-ness of God’s gifts to us: ‘The God of true abundance’ in our opening collect; being filled with the fullness of God in the reading from Ephesians; and the feeding of the five thousand in our reading from John’s Gospel.
Poppy may have trouble wrapping her doggy brain around the idea of abundance, and letting go of her fear that there might not be enough: but she’s hardly alone. As Stephen reminded us last week: millions in this country alone are working two or three jobs, trying to stretch the paychecks to cover all the needs of their families. And while the concepts of both Sabbath time and abundance may have powerful spiritual components, the physical realities and how they relate to the spiritual cannot be denied.
The wealth inequity in this country has been increasing since the 1970s. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In an article in the Guardian a few months ago, Bernie Sanders wrote:
Meanwhile, the people on top have never had it so good. The top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 92%, and the 50 wealthiest Americans own more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 165 million people. While millions of Americans have lost their jobs and incomes during the pandemic, over the past year 650 billionaires have seen their wealth increase by $1.3tn.
And there are of course serious consequences to this inequity: too many have too little. As the Rev. William Barber said during a political forum with Joe Biden in 2019:
Poverty spans every race, creed, color and sexual orientation... All of those numbers combined makes up 43.5 percent of this nation — not 30, not 23, but almost half of this nation — and any nation that ignores half of its people, half of the people, is in a moral and economic crisis that is constitutionally inconsistent, economically insane and morally indefensible.
Living within such an economically distorted system is not only crippling for the millions who struggle, but cripples the souls of everyone else too: indeed the very soul of this country.
We know this inequity is wrong, and yet what to do? Can there be any hope for a change in our economic policies? I make no claim to be an economist: priest, yes, musician, yet, economist no. So, I did as we all do, and went Googling. The bottom line from such economists as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Robert Reich is that this inequity is the result of decisions that those who had sufficient power and self-interest to make. And that indeed, the rules of the U.S. economy can be rewritten to benefit everyone, rich and poor alike. Undoubtedly an immense undertaking that is going to make those 1% - ers very unhappy, but by no means impossible.
I absolutely believe in the abundance of God: I give thanks for it many times each day. I also absolutely believe that there really is enough for each one of us. And I believe that, with enough prayer and political will: wrongs will be righted; that unjust and immoral, one might say sinful, financial practices will be corrected; and that increasingly we will be able to imagine, even see, a better way of managing our affairs.
If Jesus, channeling the power and love of God, could feed the five thousand, think how much all of us might accomplish if we could only imagine the possibility of everyone living into God’s abundance.
Let us end this sermon by praying this morning’s collect together one more time:
God of true abundance,
In whom nothing is lost and all are fed:
liberate us from meager rations
of scarce and grudging love
for which we must compete;
show us another kingdom
which stills our all-consuming fear
and fills us with new hope;
through Jesus Christ, the peace of creation. Amen