Thankoffering Service, November 21, 2004
FIRST LESSON Deuteronomy 26:1-11
PSALMODY Psalm 100
SECOND LESSON Philippians 4:4-9
GOSPEL John 6:25-35
Let us pray: May
the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you oh
Lord our God, our Rock and our Salvation.
To understand
today’s Gospel lesson we need to put it into context. Earlier in this chapter, John tells us his
version of the feeding of the five thousand – the only miracle besides the
resurrection that is found in all four Gospels.
Jesus was in Galilee healing the sick and preaching the
Practical Philip
argued that they did not have enough money to buy food for so many, and even if
they had eight months wages they would not find enough food to buy at that late
hour. Andrew pointed out a little boy
with a small lunch – two fish and five small loaves of barley bread. Andrew did not know what Jesus was going to
do, but he had faith enough to trust that Jesus could do something.
Jesus blessed the
food and the disciples passed it out to the crowd. Five thousand people ate a satisfying
meal. Afterwards the disciples collected
the leftover bread and it was enough to fill twelve baskets. The people were well aware of what Jesus did
– they were amazed by the miracle and thought that He might be the Messiah for
whom they were waiting. They wanted to
make Him king by force, to sit on the throne of David and make
Jesus knew what
they were thinking and slipped away from the crowd to the mountain to
pray. Though He was more than willing to
meet their physical needs by feeding the hungry and healing the sick, this was
not the purpose of His incarnation.
Jesus came to earth from heaven to bring God to the forefront of their
lives and to focus their faith on that which truly matters. They believed in Moses and they believed in
the Law, but they had grown far from God.
They were more concerned with the things of this world and in earning
their own righteousness.
The crowd went
searching for Jesus. When they found Him
in
The crowd answered
this lesson with a question, “What must we do to do the works God
requires?” Notice that crowd is focused
their own gifts and abilities, on their own works. They did not hear that this food that endures
to eternal life is a gift from the Son of Man.
They want to know what they have to do, how they will earn this
gift. They were expecting Jesus to tell
them to obey the commandments, to keep the Sabbath and do good works. To their mindset, that was the way to receive
the blessings of God. Things are not so
different for us today.
But Jesus
answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has
sent." The work of God is to
believe in Jesus. This sounds very
simple, but it is difficult from our human point of view. We believe in things we can see, feel, hear
and touch. We believe in actions and in
outcomes. We believe that there are
things we have to do. We believe in
things that have been proven or that we have experienced. We believe when our physical needs have been
met. We are not so quick to believe
promises or words.
The Jews believed in
Moses and the Law, because through the experiences of their forefathers they
saw Moses and the Law as their deliverer.
They recognized that they were most prosperous during those times when
their king was faithful and the people were obedient to God’s Word. By the time Jesus was born, God had been
silent for four hundred years. The
people were longing for the fulfillment of all His promises. They were ready to see the Messiah and they
were sure the only way it would happen was if they were good enough. They thought their pious life and righteous
works would restore their nation and their relationship with God.
If they were going
to change their point of view, they needed proof. They asked Jesus, “What miraculous sign then
will you give that we may see it and believe you?” They weren’t ready to believe in Jesus, but
if He could prove Himself with some miracle like the manna in the desert that
Moses gave, they might believe what He had to say. Jesus answered their request, “I tell you the
truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my
Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” They wanted full bellies, but they needed to
believe in Jesus.
It is well and
good that we put our time, talents and resources into the upkeep of the church,
both the building and the people. We run
astray when we focus on satisfying our physical needs, making our work the
priority. Jesus said, “The work of God
is to believe in the one He sent.” First
we believe, everything else proceeds from our
faith. We must be careful to keep
ourselves from self-centered praise by keeping God in the forefront of
everything we do.
As we look back
over the past year, we can be very proud of all the wonderful things we have
accomplished. We built this beautiful
new sanctuary with the blood, sweat and tears of many people in this
congregation. We have expanded our
ministries. We have delved more deeply
into prayer and the study of God’s word.
We have welcomed dozens of new people and we have raised our financial
giving. We began a new Women of the ELCA
group here at Triumphant
I certainly did
not expect WELCA to take off so well and so fast. As a matter of fact, I did not want to do the
work to make it happen. When the door
opened to the possibility, I realized that it wasn’t my work that would
accomplish the task anyway. God prepared
the way so that we could do it together.
It is not our work that made it happen.
Rather it was our faith in God that saw the possibilities.
The Triennial
theme for the Women of the ELCA is “Listen, God is calling.” We are called to believe and then to go out
into the world to live in that faith.
There is work to do. There are buildings to be built, hungry people to
be fed and many other needs to be met.
That’s why we have chosen to give our Thankoffering to the sanctuary
expansion fund, RACAP and the Women of the ELCA Scholarship Fund. However, we must remember that the work of
God is to believe in Jesus, and our task as the Church is not to meet the
physical needs of the world, but to bring the kingdom of heaven near to them so
that they might also believe.
The problem with
putting our own works above faith in God is that when we do this we begin to
worry. We are afraid that we won’t do
enough. We wonder if we did something
wrong. We fear the consequences of
mistakes. We are anxious and strive so
hard we become burnt out and fail. We
lose the peace and joy of Christ because we are so concerned about the
outcome. Sometimes our work fails. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes we can’t see the miraculous things
God is doing through our life. Sometimes
the success is in the journey. Yet, even
when things do not go as we hope, God is near.
He doesn’t ask us to do great things; He only asks us to believe.
Can you imagine
living even one day on only five kernels of corn? Those early settlers went through terrible
difficulties. Supplies did not arrive as
promised. Desperate ship captains asked
the settlers to share their meager goods.
Other captains took advantage of their need and charged them too much
for too little. They had no possessions
to trade with the natives for basic necessities. They had no cows for milk, butter or
cheese. They faced bad weather and
disease. They took in strangers. They did not understand the new world crops
and worked their fields poorly. They did
not have the proper tools to hunt and fish.
The wild fruits and berries were available such a short period of time.
As I researched
the five kernels of corn story, I thought to myself, “no wonder they went
hungry.” They were poor stewards of what
they had, foolish with their finances. They
gorged themselves for three days at the first thanksgiving, having overestimated
their harvest. When they took stock of
their supplies for winter, they realized that they did not have enough. They became weak with hunger and exhaustion by
building a fort instead of attending to their fields. Yet, they were living on faith. They believed the success of their new
community was going to be due to providence – God’s divine guidance and
care. When a drought threatened to kill
their last attempt at a harvest – if this one failed, their community would die
– they knew their only hope was in God’s intervention. They set aside a day to pray and for nine
hours they humbled themselves before God.
The next day it began to rain and they finally had a successful
harvest.
They shared
everything as a community, took care of one another. When there was food, they divided it between
all the settlers, but there were times when their ration was only four or five
kernels of corn. It would be much better
if we could say God miraculously and abundantly met their needs like Jesus did
with the five thousand. We want to see
the miracles and rejoice in the success of the community. Yet, when you consider the conditions under
which they had to live those first few years, the fact that the community
survived is a miracle. They
suffered. They made mistakes. Some of them died. However, they put God first and trusted Him
to see them through. They sacrificed for
the sake of others trusting that God would help them overcome. And He did.
I wonder if they
ever worried whether they would make it to tomorrow. I imagine they did. Philip worried. He knew there was no way they could feed five
thousand people. Andrew believed. He pointed out the boy with the ridiculously
small lunch and Jesus did the rest. He
did not worry that the suggestion was impossible. He gave it to God. That’s what Paul tells us to do in today’s
Epistle lesson. He calls us to rejoice
always – not something that is easy to do.
However, when we put God first, knowing that He is near, our worries and
fears are replaced by thanksgiving and praise.
Paul writes, “And
the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard you hearts and
your minds in Christ Jesus.” That peace
of God is not something that can be earned or discovered through our work. It comes from faith – trusting that God is
near. This is how those pilgrims lived, despite their heartache and
troubles. They knew God would guide and
guard their community. This is how
Andrew lived, even when the circumstances were beyond his control. This is how we are called to live –
remembering the great things God has already done and living in thanksgiving
and praise.
In a few moments
we will be approaching the altar with our gifts. There is an empty basket where you can put
your Thankoffering. The Old Testament
lesson is an example of how to give our first fruits to God. We should not just approach and drop our
money in the bucket. The people were
instructed to remember all that God had done for them and offer a sacrifice of
praise. Then they could offer their gift
with these words, “He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land
flowing with milk and honey; and now I bring the first fruits of the soil and
land that you, O LORD, have given me.”
He has brought us
to this place, and given us this land.
It might not be flowing with milk and honey, but it is flowing with
incredible blessings. We might not see
miraculous manifestations of His grace, but we know that He is doing great
things in our congregation. As we bring
forth our first fruits, as we share our thankofferings with our God, please
take some time at the altar to praise Him for the great things He has done. You are welcome to kneel if you are so moved,
or share your joy and praise with one of your brothers or sisters in Christ. Some of the ladies will be available around
the altar area to listen if you wish to participate.
Most of all,
remember that no matter what we do in this world, the work of God is to believe
in Jesus. Everything else comes out of
that faith. Thanks be
to God.