What a wonderful day and marvelous story! We are welcoming new babies and new members and basking within the story of the abundance of loaves and fishes. Plenty. Not only enough to go around but enough to share with extras left over.

The story is called the feeding of the five thousand and many are quick to point to the miracle. And wondrous it was: out of so little there was abundance. Jesus and his disciples were getting away from the crowds and went off in a boat to find some quiet. But the crowds followed and they were hungry: hungry to be in Jesus’ presence... to hear his words, to be in the crowd, to possibly receive his touch or blessing. So Jesus continued to teach, to feed their hungry hearts. When darkness started to creep in, the disciples sensed a problem: we’ve got a huge crowd out in the middle of nowhere and Domino’s won’t deliver. So, they suggested that Jesus send them on their way to scatter through the villages and find dinner. But Jesus said to his disciples, “You give them something to eat.” They looked at each other--a bit incredulous--and then came up five loaves and two fish. So, Mark tells us, Jesus took what they had, shared it... and there was plenty to go around. Miraculous! But the bible doesn’t tell us how. Did the bread magically grow and multiply (falling out of heaven) or did the crowd, seeing Jesus’ generosity with so little, respond in like manner, sharing what they had? Either way is rather amazing. Yet, given the fact that Jesus is the same who told the Devil to flee when tempted to turn stone into bread, I am inclined to think that the miracle was in the multiplicity of sharing.

I’ve never been quite the same after receiving the gift of bread and coffee from Mademoiselle Celet on that hillside in Haiti. She shared what little she had and her gift continues to be multiplied.

It is amazing what assumptions we make... and then embrace as absolute truth. Too little or enough? Too little love, kindness or justice... or plenty to go around, with extra to share? Parker Palmer writes: “In this story (of the feeding of the 5,000), as throughout his active life, Jesus wanted to help people penetrate the illusion of scarcity and act out of the reality of abundance.” (The Active Life, p. 124)

So much of life is viewed on the curve; namely some excel, some fail, many muddle along. We clamor and claw and fight for a piece of the pie. Many just assume that there is never enough... time, money, love, life. In contrast, Palmer writes, “A primary task for every healer is to help people understand that love is not distributed on the curve but is abundant in the very nature of things.” (Ibid., p. 126) There’s plenty. And, the marvelous fundamental truth about such things as love and kindness and justice is that the more there is, the more there is to come. It is not used up, but grows exponentially.

This is a tough lesson for many to learn. Children take time to learn that the love shown for that new child does not mean that they are loved any less. Even some activists needed to learn that rights of blacks and rights of women and rights of gays would not be in competition, but to be supportive of the human rights of all. There is plenty... and it only grows.

So much of how we live out our day-to-day lives starts with the assumption of scarcity or abundance. Jesus lived and preached that at the heart of things is the abundance of the mercy of God and the gifts of creation.

Our lesson from Acts reminds us that the very beginnings of the church were marked with generosity and care. They took care of each other and they flourished. And it is the same today. Generous individuals and generous churches are the ones that flourish. John Burroughs reminded the Session of this with his opening devotion at our last meeting. He shared a simple yet powerful phrase, a mantra of sort: “Blessed to be a blessing.” That is who we are: blessed to be a blessing.
     How am I? Blessed to be a blessing.
     How are you? Blessed to be a blessing.
     How are we? Blessed to be a blessing.
     How are they... the children who come to the font or the children’s message, the quiet ones who stay in the back of the church... the members off the bus from Ginger Cove or Bay Wood... the adolescent bouncing between childhood and adulthood? Blessed to be a blessing. That is what we are about... as we baptize babies, welcome new members, sing praises, present our prayers and offering. Blessed to be a blessing.

Like you possibly, the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. has sharpened a bit of my historical memory, or for the younger in our midst, brought a piece of history to life. He was just 39 years old! Remarkable in terms of his insight, maturity and global influence. The right man at the right time... yet, opposed by so many. Not just racists, but those who disagreed with tactics. Why oppose the Viet Nam war, Dr. King? Why get tied up with the garbage strike? Don’t these issues water down the cause of civil rights? Yet, King had such a broad view of human dignity and such an encompassing view of the Kingdom of God that he made the connections.

King was killed in Memphis 40 years ago. Today, you can stand next to the balcony where he was gunned down and peer into the motel room as it was in 1968; a civil rights museum has been built around it. A few years back Alison and I took a bit of a civil rights pilgrimage, traveling from the Dexter Ave. Baptist Church and the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Parents and grandparents, take note: it is well worth the trek. In 1968 two sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, had been crushed in a mechanical malfunction. You see, at that time, black employees were only allowed to seek shelter from the rain in the back of their garbage trucks. The demonstration in Memphis rallied around the phrase “I am a man.” Not garbage, not expendable: “I am a man.”

Taylor Branch, the civil rights historian and Baltimore Presbyterian, wrote in last Sunday’s New York Times that we need to remember the broad and generous context of King’s life and words. Branch writes: “We must reclaim the full range of blessings from this movement. For Dr. King, race was in most things, but defined nothing alone. His appeal was rooted in the larger context of nonviolence.” “Our nation,” Branch continues, “is a great cathedral of votes” from congress to school boards to local charities. “Visibly and invisibly, everything runs on votes. And every vote is nothing but a piece of nonviolence.” (New York Times, April 6, Week in Review, p. 15)

It is King’s boldly generous spirit that engages me today. Every person is a person of rights and dignity, not one left out. No woman, no man, no garbage collector in Memphis or peasant in Viet Nam was left out. No one is left out, for we are children of God, the abundant One, who gives life, freely and generously. It is the extravagant abundance of God that gives life. It is generosity of heart and hand that sustains life. It is blessing that blesses that forms the ground of faith, the soul of the church and your life. You are blessed to be a blessing.