You are never bothering me.  Don’t think that in interrupting something I am doing or seem to be doing that you are bothering me.  Even if you are (and I know that time and place are important and sometimes vital for every conversation – we all need to be wise and discerning about the right time and right place).  Perhaps I should put it like this – Don’t be overly concerned about interrupting me.

I remember starting out in leadership here at Blythwood Road Baptist Church.  I became a deacon here in 2005.  I remember calling one of my fellow deacons once and saying to them, “Sorry for bothering you.”  Do you know what they told me? “You’re never bothering me.”  I never forgot this, and I took it to heart for myself.  It’s wonderful what we learn by one another’s example isn’t it?

You are never bothering me.  Jesus called the 12 to come away and rest awhile.  To withdraw privately to a city called Bethsaida which is on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. In the middle of these private plans came an interruption.  Don’t worry about an interruption, whether you’re the interruptor or the interupptee.  Please!   I implore you!  Henri Nouwen (speaking of people we can learn from) wrote this about meeting a professor at Notre Dame:

“While visiting the University of Notre Dame, where I had been a teacher for a few years, I met an older experienced professor who had spent most of his life there. And while we strolled over the beautiful campus, he said with a certain melancholy in his voice, “You know, my whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work.”

This is most Christlike.  In the preceding chapter, Jesus is on his way to Jairus’ house.  Jairus is a leader in the local synagogue.  Jesus is on his way to help Jairus’ daughter.  It is a matter of life and death.  Jairus’ daughter is dying.  The crowds are surrounding and pressing in on Jesus as he goes.  A woman suffering from hemorrhages for 12 years, who had spent all she had on physicians, touched the fringe of his clothes.  Immediately she is healed.  Jesus stops.  On his way to raise a dead child to life.  Jesus stops.  My interruptions were my work.  “Daughter, your faith has made you well,” are the words with which Jesus leaves the woman.

You’re never bothering me.  This is the first thing.

Here is the second thing.  Jesus invites/calls/enlists us in the work of the reign of God.  “You give them something to eat,”  I remember being struck by these words the first time (the first of many), and I pray that we may be struck by them this morning.  They’re a big deal.  Many of us have read of this miracle and heard many sermons on this miracle and rightly so.  It’s told by all four Gospel writers.  It’s thought to have happened near a village called Tabgha, at which a church was constructed.  In this church, there is a mosaic (and you know how I feel about mosaics).  If this mosaic looks familiar, it’s because a smaller version of it is kept on our communion table here at church.  I picked this up in Jordan shortly after seeing the original at Tabgha.  I also bought a change dish, which I used when change was more of a thing.  Now it’s for guitar picks and cufflinks mainly.  We need ways to keep the Lord in front of us, and this is one of the ways I keep the Lord in front of me and remember Jesus’ words here – “You give them something to eat.”

We’re talking about eating over these six weeks, during which we are considering “Sharing a Table,” encountering the hospitality of God, and sharing the hospitality of God.  We said last week that when we’re sitting with these stories from Luke’s Gospel, we should always keep in mind Jesus’ words about what his mission was. Here they are:

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me.  He has called me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.  To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4:18-19)  Jesus goes about his mission – proclaiming, healing, forgiving, raising, calling.  “Follow me” is the call. This call is before each and every one of us every day.  We want to take this seriously.  We don’t know how much time we have.  We ask God to help us number our days, as the Psalmist put it.  To make the most of the time that we are gifted.  Not long ago, I was talking to a couple of the youngest members of our church family about playing guitar.  I said, “I’ve been playing guitar for 40 years, can you believe it?”  One of them replied, “So you have about another 30 years to go?”  Out of the mouths of children.  We want to take our following seriously and come to an ever greater understanding in our hearts that we are called to be sent, that we gather to be scattered and blessed, that we are blessed to be a blessing.

That God has a role for us to play in God’s great renewal/restoration project.  That renewal and restoration may start in our hearts, but it doesn’t end there.  You give them something to eat!  We’re called to be sent.  We’re blessed to be a blessing, and every interaction we have is an opportunity to bless.  To notice.  To pay attention.  To show mercy.  To show compassion.  To slow down.  To be patient. 

This is not just God’s work, it is ours.  In Luke 9, we see the beginning of God sending God’s people.  Jesus sends the 12 disciples: “Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”  Called to be sent.  In chapter 10, the program will widen, and 70 will be sent.  When the gift of the Holy Spirit comes to all in Acts 1, all will be sent.  The 12 disciples are instructed by Jesus in Chapter 9 to take nothing with them: no bag, no walking stick, no bread, no money, and no extra clothes.  They are to stay where they are welcomed and not stay where they are not welcomed.  We read in v6 “They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.”

Two things I want us to take from this mission of the twelve that comes right before our story.  The first is that speaking the good news and showing the good news are to be hallmarks of the church’s life and our lives.  Telling the good news.  In Christ, there is life, and that life is the light of all people.  In Christ, there is hope and peace and joy and love that transcends any circumstance.  Showing the good news.  Acts of service.  Acts of mercy.  Acts of trust and sharing.  Acts of trust in God and others and acts of sharing God’s unfathomable goodness.  Telling and showing life in the reign of Jesus.  The second is that the call to God’s service, which is a call on the life of each and every follower of Christ, is first a call to dependence on God.  We are never fully “prepared” for service.  We never reach a point where we say, “I have trained adequately, I have prayed adequately, I have praised adequately, I have filled in the blank adequately.”  We are prepared for service only as we depend on God.  What would it mean for us to believe this and live it?  What would this mean for me?  How would I go about calling on the name of God each day?  Waking up and praying, “Thank you, God, for the gift of another day.  Here I am, your servant; let it be with me according to your word.”  Praying each and every day, “Christ Jesus, teach me the art of following you.  Holy Spirit, give me the wisdom to know how to hold on to you as you hold me up.”  What would it mean for our desire to worship and praise together?  What would it mean for our desire to gather around tables where God is present and where God extends a welcome to all? 

Even in what we perceive to be interruptions.  Maybe especially then.  They withdraw privately to a city called Bethsaida.  “When the crowds find out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.” (9:11)   Jesus is speaking, healing. He’s going to be feeding, and he’s going to enlist his followers in this work.  “He has filled the hungry with good things,” sang his mother.  Figuratively and literally!

I wouldn’t be too hard on the disciples here.  Put ourselves in their place.  Slow to comprehend.  Slow to act. I don’t think it was necessarily a lack of care for people that caused them to ask Jesus to send the crowds away.  It was I believe more a recognition that the need that they saw all around them was more than they could meet.  The need that they saw around them was beyond their resources.  This is not necessarily a bad place to be if it means that coming to the end of our resources gives us the recognition that we need to depend on God’s resources.  “You give them something to eat,” says Jesus.  It’s not all going to be up to God.  We have a role to play.

 “They said, ‘We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.’”  Which is impossible what with Jesus having just sent them out with no money, no bag, no tunic, no walking stick.  They don’t even have something they could sell to try and raise money for fish sandwiches.  The disciples have a role to play.  Listen and do.  It’s a pattern that will recur in Luke.  Jesus tells them to arrange everyone in groups of 50 and have them sit.  Five thousand men plus women and children.  Imagine the scene.   “And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.”   Jesus uses us even in our lack of understanding, even in our lack of trust, there’s hope for us.  Jesus throws a party and turns his closest followers into table servants (though there are no tables here).  Everyone is welcome.  The good news spreads.  Someone has said, “Jesus can take a little bit of food and stretch it to satisfy a whole multitude. Even so, the gospel grows like a mustard seed, spread by open hearts and welcome tables.”  Open hearts and welcome tables (the table here being the grass like a gospel picnic).  There is plenty to share.  There is grace to share.  There is grace for all. Of course, we hear the echoes of the meal around which we gathered last week.  Taking the five loaves and two fish, Jesus looks up to heaven, and blesses, and breaks them, and gives them to the disciples to set before the crowd.  In taking the food and looking up, Jesus recognizes the source of the gift.  God.  In blessing and breaking, Jesus is the mediator of the gift.  In giving to the disciples, Jesus commissions them (and those who will follow) as his authorized representatives/kingdom ambassadors/living letters of Christ whose task it is to make the goodness of God known as all eat and all are filled.

Even in the middle of interruptions.  Especially then, maybe.  You’re never bothering me.  May all the meals we share together form us in the way of Jesus’ abundant provision and wide welcome.  May this be true for us all.  Amen.