The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost-The Rev. Melanie Lemburg

 9^th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 12B

July 25, 2021

 

        Our family of four get along pretty well in most areas.  But there is one topic on which we are grievously divided.  When we argue, we usually argue about this particular topic, and stark battle lines have been drawn between for and against.  The topic of contention is… leftovers. 

        Some of us are often grateful for leftovers because it means that is one less meal that we have to cook.  Those in the pro-leftover camp have been known to eat entire pyrex dishes of leftovers, meal after meal after meal, until they have been completely consumed and the eaters are well and thoroughly sick of them, but by golly, they will get eaten.  Others of us will not deign to let any leftovers pass their lips.  They scorn the lowly leftover and take great offense if it is suggested that they should eat them.  One member of the anti-leftover party likes to refer to the lowly leftover as “old food,” which does not win them any points with those in the pro-leftover party. The anti-leftover faction is perfectly happy to let the leftover proponents struggle through their consumption of them, as long as they do not suggest they, too, should join in the consumption.

        I’ve been thinking about the contrast between leftovers and new food or “first fruits” as they are depicted in our readings, and about our feelings surrounding those, and about how that may impact our relationship with God.

        Our gospel and our Old Testament readings give us depictions of two miraculous feeding stories.  One of the main differences I see is that the Old Testament reading gives particular attention to first fruits, and the Gospel reading gives particular attention to leftovers.  

        In the Old Testament reading, an unnamed man comes to the prophet Elisha bringing an offering of first fruits.  First fruits are the first and best of a person’s harvest, and people throughout the years have been encouraged to give the first and the best of what we have to God (and in this case, the prophets who are the servants of God).  You may have heard preachers speak about “first fruits” during annual giving season, when we are encouraged to look at all of our resources and to give to God through the church off the top as opposed to giving out of what we have left.  In the Old Testament story, the servant questions Elisha on how so many people can be fed by so little; Elisha replies, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’”  And then what happens?  They have plenty to eat, so much so that they actually have leftovers!

        The gospel story mirrors this and other feeding stories from the Old Testament.  Jesus and his disciples have gone to a deserted place where the crowds have followed them.  Jesus urges his disciples to feed the crowd, and they are initially flummoxed because there is very little food to be found.  When a boy offers his five barley loaves and two fish, Jesus “took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.  When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’” So they gathered them up, and then what happened?  They filled up 12 baskets with….leftovers.  And it strikes me that Jesus is very insistent about how they deal with the leftovers: “gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.”

        Why does Jesus care so much about the leftovers, especially when we’ve been taught over and over again, that it is the first fruits that are the best?  What might be gained by thinking about how Jesus cares not only about the best of each of us, but also that he cares about the leftover pieces of our lives as well?  How might if change us if instead of thinking about the leftover and broken pieces of our lives as something to be discarded or a sign of scarcity to see those broken pieces as Jesus sees them, as worthy of being gathered up, tended to, and cherished?  How might it change us to reflect on the fact that rather than being a sign of scarcity, the left over broken pieces of our lives, of this last year….are not signs of scarcity but signs of abundance? 

        Your invitation this week is to reflect on what you’d consider to the broken parts and pieces of your life, the leftovers that you are sick of eating.  Name those before Jesus.  It can be old broken parts; broken parts from this past year and a half of trauma that we have all lived out separately together. Now imagine Jesus gathering up those old, broken parts, those leftover bits of your life that you don’t really want and you don’t really know what to do with.  Imagine he gathers them to himself with care.  What do you want to ask Jesus to do with those leftover, broken pieces of your life?  In what way might Jesus be inviting you to see those leftover, broken pieces of your life through eyes of abundance instead of eyes of scarcity?