Sunday Stretch: Vol. 91

Start off your week with a grounded take on Bible, prayer, the world, and your life ...

Hi Readers,

This week’s Gospel reading (which you’ll read below) tells the story of how Jesus turned a few loaves of bread and some fish into enough food for thousands of people who came to listen to him on a hillside in Galilee.

We’ll talk more about that below. But I wanted to mention that in John’s Gospel telling of this story (John 6:1-21), the food begins with the disciples noticing that a boy there had this food. So many times, those whom the world deems weak or unimportant are those with whom God’s story begins, especially children.

I’m reminded of how children so often can lead us in faith when I think about last weekend, when we picked up my youngest son, Josh, from a few days at Camp Wapo (ELCA) in Wisconsin.

I’d heard that he was able to go through my new church, Lake Nokomis Lutheran in Minneapolis. His age group spent just two nights and three days at the camp, and he decided to ask a friend from school to join. Well, shortly after all that, Josh got terribly sick with pneumonia, ended up in the hospital for a few days, and all the chaos of summer followed. Until then Josh’s friend’s mom sent me a text: asking if we were still planning to go. The boys both wanted to try it, so we signed them up!

But - it wasn’t really that simple. Both the other boy’s mom and I have had all sort of differing and sometimes-difficult experiences in the Church, and I grew up going to a Baptist Bible Camp that - while I loved it at the time - taught me a lot of lessons that I’d reject now as an adult. It was steeped in “decision-based” theology, and they often tried to make sure I knew I wasn’t really “saved” even though I’d been baptized as an infant. There were subtle messages about sexuality and less-subtle judgments about girls’ dress code.

At the time, I just remembered singing “Light the Fire” around the campfire at night and swimming across the lake as part of an improvised triathlon. (I remember they had boats in the lake to help swimmers! It was pretty intense!) We also played a night game called “Persecution,” where Christians tried to escape Roman soldiers.

What was fun and games as a kid has turned into theology, culture, and traditions that have been complicit in clergy sexual abuse and the growth of Christian Nationalism. I’m rightly suspicious of exposing my kids to ideas like that, or to unexamined ideas about Christianity that lean toward triumphalist or exclusionary.

Still, I loved camp. This one promised in its introductory letter that it didn’t have different norms for boys and girls, and it was progressive in its theology. I’d been there as a pastor to address a group of Confirmation students. I knew a few other pastors who’d worked there or whose kids did. So we dropped them off on Friday, and I prayed for the best.

Over the weekend, I saw smiling photos of my son and even saw him raising his arms to sing in worship. When we picked them up on Sunday, we sat in for chapel, and I heard my son sing some of the same songs I had once sung around a similar campfire in Northern Minnesota almost 30 years ago. I watched a skit about God’s forgiveness, and I couldn’t help but think of the work of

Kaya Oakes

in her new book on the limits of forgiveness, and how church leaders had abused teaching of forgiveness to convince abuse victims to absolve their abusers of responsibility - of how pastors had accepted confessions and offered forgiveness without accountability, repentance, or restitution for victims.

Luckily I was wearing sunglasses, because yes, I was crying when his cabin sat in front and sang: “Light the fire in my heart again.”

The hard part about parenting and about adulthood in general is that nothing can ever be all good or all bad. I guess that’s humanity, and life. And the Church?

My son said he really missed us. That he wasn’t sure about going back next year, even though his friend wanted to go again. But then later that night he sang, at the top of his lungs:

Don’t you know he’s a radical God?

Masculine pronouns and all, it was good. I’m glad he went. I’m glad there’s still teenagers and adults willing to devote their summer to teaching kids about God’s love and grace. God’s at work in it all, and in us.

Let’s get to the texts!

2 Kings 4:42-44

2Kings 4:42   A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing food from the first fruits to the man of God: twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” ⁴³ But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” So he repeated, “Give it to the people and let them eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’” ⁴⁴ He set it before them, they ate, and had some left, according to the word of the LORD.

Isn’t it neat to see how many of the New Testament texts have their precursors, or foreshadowing, within the Hebrew Bible? I think too often Western Christianity, probably as a consequence of antisemitism, has too often ignored or minimized Jesus’ Judaism, and therefore read the New Testament without the guidance of the Hebrew Bible. Here we see the Prophet Elisha (who Jesus says later appears with him at the Mount of Transfiguration) initiate a feeding miracle similar to the Feeding of the 5,000 we will read about in the Gospel text.

Questions to Ponder

Where is Baal-shalishah? Can you find it on a map and learn about it?

What are the “first fruits” referenced in verse 42? Can you find where this is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible?

Where in the New Testament is Elisha mentioned?

Ephesians 3:14-21

Eph. 3:14   For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,^{a  15} from whom every family^a in heaven and on earth takes its name. ¹⁶ I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, ¹⁷ and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. ¹⁸ I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Eph. 3:20   Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

As I read this text, I think about how powerful it is to be prayed for by someone else. In the midst of the news stories last week about President Biden stepping down from the race to be the Democratic nominee for President, and about Vice President Kamala Harris beginning to contemplate her own run for presidency, I read a story about Harris making a phone call to her Pastor, Rev. Amos C. Brown, and how he and his wife, Jane, prayed for Harris over the phone. It reminded me of times when people have said to me, hey, can I pray for you? Sometimes this can feel uncomfortable or awkward at first. But for me, it’s always moving. It’s more than simple words of goodwill. It’s intercession.

Who is the writer of Ephesians praying for in this text? Why is he praying for them?

Why do you think it’s significant that the writer of this text is bowing his knees before God to pray for them?

Have you known a love that surpasses all knowledge? Tell me about it!

John 6:1-21

John 6:1   After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.^{a  2} A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. ³ Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. ⁴ Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. ⁵ When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. ⁷ Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages^a would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” ⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ⁹ “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” ¹⁰ Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they^a sat down, about five thousand in all. ¹¹ Then 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. ¹² When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” ¹³ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. ¹⁴ 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.”

John 6:15   When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Jesus Walks on the Water

John 6:16   When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, ¹⁷ got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. ¹⁸ The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. ¹⁹ When they had rowed about three or four miles,^a they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. ²⁰ But he said to them, “It is I;^a do not be afraid.” ²¹ Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.

I don’t envy preachers who are about to enter into the Bread of the World discourse of lengthy and detailed Gospel texts from the Gospel of John, right in the middle of the dog days of