Psalm 17:1-7:

Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit. From you let my vindication come; let your eyes see the right. If you try my heart, if you visit me by night, if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress. As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.

I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God; incline your ear to me; hear my words. Wondrously show your steadfast love, O savior of those who seek refuge from their adversaries at your right hand.

Matthew 14:13-21

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”  Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”  They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”  And he said, “Bring them here to me.”  Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.  And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children

The Heavenly Banquet

Love people and feed them

There’s a story about a man who went to a spiritual teacher and he said, “How can I attain enlightenment?”

And the teacher said, “Love people and feed them, and remember God.”

I think that pretty much sums up the spiritual path.

We are a unique church

It’s good to be with you this morning. And it is good to be in church this morning. Specifically, it is good to be in this church this morning. First Congregational Church of Searsport.

You know, that is our legal name. First Congregational Church of Searsport. Sometimes we refer to our church as Searsport First Congregational, and that is fine, too. But my point is that we are a unique church. We are this church. An independent church. Yes, we are a part of the worldwide body of Christ. But as a Congregational Church, we are independent. We set our own agenda. We set our own course, as we feel inspired and called by God.

Today is the first Sunday in August. This morning we shared communion together. You know, I have been here at this church with you for five years now, and we have experienced many things together. I have learned a great deal. And I’m still learning. I have learned about you as a congregation. And I feel that I know you, I know what your interests are, I know what your spiritual interests are, and your family and social interests, I know what kinds of food you like, and what kinds of music you like. I have learned a lot about you. And our worship services are designed with all these things in mind because this church is your church, and so, our worship service, our music, our prayers, our coffee hour, all of it as a whole expresses who you are as a people, as a congregation, a group of Christians living here at this specific time and place.

The Kingdom of Heaven

For the past three weeks we have been talking about the Kingdom of Heaven as described in the parables in Matthew Chapter 13. Now, in chapter 14, we have two banquets. The first one is Herod’s banquet, a horrible and evil event during which John the Baptist is executed. This is followed immediately by the Feeding of the Five Thousand, an example of Jesus creating the Kingdom of Heaven. So we see the difference between a worldly banquet and a heavenly banquet. The first is motivated by hatred and revenge, whereas the second is motivated by compassion.

Compassionate response to a problem

So, the Kingdom of Heaven begins with compassion.  “He saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.” (v.14) And the Kingdom of Heaven involves a response to a problem. The disciples notice that it’s getting late and the people are getting hungry. And they say, “We will have to send them away so they can find food to eat.” But Jesus says, “No, don’t send them away. You feed them.” And they looked around and found what they had. They used what they had. So there is something very practical about this. It was brilliant, really.

You know, here in our church you have done the same thing. You started out with a problem saying, “How do we do this? How can we do this?” And somehow, you find a way. For example, look at these stained-glass windows. When you first started talking about restoring the windows, you had no idea how you would do it. You didn’t know how to restore stained glass, you had no idea who could do the work, and you had no idea where the money would come from. But you made it happen.

Do you see the parallel? The disciples said, “We only have five loaves and two fish.” They started with that amount, but it grew and grew, until they had enough to feed everyone. Now, you may be saying, “Yes, but that was a miracle.” Well, so was the capital campaign for the windows. That was definitely a miracle. It’s the same thing.

The same kind of miracle happened in building the new addition, the Hamilton wing. There was a need expressed. The group got together and out of compassion, decided to do something about it. And you did.

You can do this

The disciples saw a need. And Jesus encouraged them to solve the problem themselves. “You can do this,” he said. And there was a miracle. That is how things happen. That is how projects get developed. That is how things get built. No one begins a project knowing exactly how the entire thing is going to happen. Even architects can tell you. There are changes. We don’t know exactly how the whole thing is going to roll. But there is a beginning, and then momentum builds, and the result is created.

So this story is a marvelous example of the Kingdom of Heaven, of what is possible in the Kingdom of Heaven. When a group of Christians gets together and works together to solve a problem, out of love and compassion, things happen. I have seen this many times.

Two years ago, I went to the trustees and said, “I think we need a new website, a really good website, a professionally designed website. And they agreed with me. We all agreed together, and the money was allocated for a website. And now, we have it.

The same with the music program. We have been developing the music program steadily, and this coming week, Steve and Dionne will be interviewed by a TV news crew, talking about the Concert Series. The word is getting out. This is what we do here. And I want us to continue to let people know about our church because this is a good church. I want you to believe in yourselves. This is a good church, and we are good people. And we want to help.  We are helping people, we are doing good work in this community, we have great people and great programs and a dynamic schedule of activities, and we have a great deal to offer people right here in Searsport. And people will come to us. If you build it, they will come. I know that is true.

 Out of compassion, the same compassionate heart that Jesus showed to the people who came to him on the shore of Galilee, we create the Kingdom of Heaven.

We can help others

Let us continue to do so, inspired, with love in our hearts, with compassion in our hearts, we can really do something to help others. There is a whole world of suffering right out here. We can really do something to help others. And that is the good news.

Amen? Amen.