More Than We Thought

Text: Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:1-21

Robert Pirsig in his classic book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance coins the term “gumption trap.” This is where you find yourself when you have seemingly exhausted all the ways to accomplish what you wanted to, and none have worked. You try the same thing over and over. Your thoughts are in a cul-de-sac. Your imagination is dead and but your frustration is lively. You have run out of gumption. He speaks about this when describing how to replace the bearings in his motorcycle engine. But the same thing applies to global problems, like economies in trouble, populations paralyzed by fear, widespread hunger and wealth inequity; local problems like companies (or churches) on the decline; personal problems relationships on the skids. Hard problems.

It applies to feeding a huge crowd of people when there is nowhere near enough food.

The feeding miracle that we heard about in the Gospel reading today is as much as miracle of imagination as it is a magical multiplication of fish and bread. The amazing part is as much the resolve of Jesus and the willingness of his disciples to join in as it is the resulting feast and the leftovers. This story is the only miracle that appears in all four Gospels. In none of the stories does the crowd see this as proof of the divinity of Jesus. In fact, only in John does the crowd react at all. For the disciples, Jesus has done something amazing and unexpected, but the eaters, it seems, are not impressed one way or the other. They started out hungry, and they ended up satisfied. Which seems to be the point. As often with Jesus, when there is suffering, Jesus is moved to relieve it. Even when to do so seems impossible.

The apostle Paul (or more likely someone writing under his name) addresses the church in Ephesus, which Paul founded. In the almost exact middle of the letter, he prays the prayer we heard today. These verses are a hinge in the letter. On one side, the beginning of the letter, it talks about who the Ephesians—and all followers of Jesus, us—who they are. And on the other side, the end of the letter, it talks about—in light of who the followers are—about what they should do. It is a hinge between being and doing, between character and ethics.

Paul prays, as it says redundantly in the original, that we may be filled with fullness and powered by power. The two ideas are related. It is Christ in us that lets us do the things that we must do. It is Christ dwelling in our hearts that enables us to do more than we would have otherwise imagined.

This is not about sentiment. Paul is not praying that we be filled with warm fuzzies about Jesus. The heart of which he speaks was not considered to be the seat of emotion, as it is now, but the center of thought, of rational thinking. Paul wants Jesus to be in the middle of our thinking machines, that we might think like Jesus.

This is the who-we-are part. As followers of Christ, as the Ephesians claimed to be, Jesus is fundamental to us. The one in which we are rooted and grounded. The roots from which we get our spiritual nourishment and the ground—meaning base, not dirt—on which we stand, which gives us our support, from which we push off.

Christ abides in us, as John would put it. As a result, we are capable of being moved as Jesus was moved, be fearless as Jesus was fearless, help those who suffer as Jesus helped. The result of Christ in us is that we have the power to do this. May you be strengthened in your inner being through the Spirit, Paul writes. This is the what-we-must-do part. Or maybe as Lutheran we want to say this is the what-we-can-do part. Our ethics, our response to the needs of others, emerges from this strength of Christ in us, and Christ’s voice.

In fact, it works backwards, too. Without Christ in us—when we stop thinking like Jesus—we easily fall into a gumption trap. Things seem too hard, too long, too far away. But through the power at work within us—within us—Paul says, God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine.

But here’s the rub. This power is not a spell or potion or shield. The power is to think like Jesus. And what we know of the way that Jesus thinks is that he cares a lot about caring for others, about healing them, and about teaching them ways in which they can be free from fear and other obsessions.

It is amazing what Jesus does. Not so much that he fed 5000 people—though that is pretty amazing—but that all those people would find in Jesus so much hope and peace, and the conviction that he could nourish their being, that they would follow him around the countryside and up into the mountains even at the risk of going hungry. And not so much that Jesus would walk on water—though, again, pretty amazing—but that his disciples would go with him and trust him in the face of obvious danger.

The disciples gradually learn to think like Jesus, and the crowds want to. Jesus offers abundant life, a way of living that brings to us and to the world more than we can fathom.

God names us, Paul writes. Who we are—our character and characteristics—comes from God. God calls us. I cannot imagine that we will be able as Jesus did to walk on water or feed 5,000 people from a couple of fish and a few loaves of bread. Such things are unlikely to fix what ails the world anyway. But we are able—with the voice of Christ within us—to not be trapped into inaction out of despair. To feed the hungry that we can, to comfort those that we can who are frightened. Strengthened in our inner being, to respond to God’s call and to be as partners in the work of God’s kingdom.