TAKE – BLESS – BREAK - GIVE

This Sunday’s gospel lesson, John 6:1-21 contains two of the most referenced of Jesus’ miracles – the feeding of the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish and Jesus’s walking on water. This Sunday also celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Women’s Ordination in the Episcopal Church.

Once again Jesus wanted to get away to a lonely place and so he got into a boat to sail across the Sea of Galilee to a remote point. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the amazing healing that he was doing for the sick. As Jesus went up the mountain and sat down with his disciples around him, he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus looked on the massive crowd with compassion; he recognized that they were people who needed spiritual feeding for their spiritual hungers.

Long into the day, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they all sat down, about five thousand in total. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them and the fish to those who were seated; giving 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 from the fragments of the five barley loaves, which were left, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

This story captures the very essence of Jesus as the wondrous Son of God. It captures the very essence of God, in God’s abundant and extravagant generosity and grace, with twelve baskets full of bread left over. At the heart of the story, the little boy brought his meager gifts to Jesus, his five loaves and two fish, and look what mighty miracles God did with them. God wants to do the same with us; that we bring, our meager and ordinary talents and gifts, and the simplicity of who we are to God and look what mighty miracles God can do with our little lives. 

Jesus’ actions: take – bless – break – give – are the very actions of our Holy Eucharist which was the core of my call to ordination. This Sunday July 28,2024 at the Philadelphia Cathedral there will be a celebration of 50 years of the Ordination of Women in the Episcopal Church. God called me to serve as a priest in our church and as MaryJo–mid-life-female-wife-mother-teacher, I followed that call and knew that God would lead and direct me in new and unexpected ways. Sometimes the call was answered, not because of, but despite my birth as a female.

I have never felt more “at home” than while standing at the altar prayerfully consecrating the bread and wine “to feed on Him in your hearts by faith, with thanksgiving.” What an awesome gift it is to share the sacred meal!

As a child I saw lots of women in the church serving in important and foundational ways such as teaching Sunday School, cooking and serving for church suppers, attending weekly services, serving on altar guilds, but not being permitted to serve as acolytes, or stand at the lectern to read a lesson let alone be conducting a service. As an adolescent or young wife and mother I would have never anticipated or even considered ordained ministry to be in my future but what a great blessing ordination has been in my life!

Having had the opportunity to minister beside several male priests, I have experienced the completeness of both genders ministering side by side. Each clergy person offers the gifts which have been granted them by God. My thirty-two years of service have been rich and full. In each institution and function that I’ve served I have realized that Christ is at the center of each relationship.

God is a God of miracles. God can provide for our needs. God can help us accomplish our dreams. God can take our little and turn it into much. This means, as followers of Jesus Christ, we need to dream great dreams - because God is a God who rewards great dreams. What is your dream? 

Trust God. God is a God of miracles. God can take a very little and make it into much if God commands it, Then God can accomplish it.

May God’s blessings be yours,

MaryJo

Gratefully, The Rev. MaryJo Melberger