September 7

Of all the readings I covered today, the piece of Scripture that most jumped out at me was the passage from the Gospel of Luke (Luke 9:1-17) that contained what is known as the story of the feeding of the 5,000. The issue that presented itself to me was the issue of the disciples’ assumption that they lacked the resources necessary to carry out the task to which they were called (feeding the massive crowd). This morning I had the opportunity to talk to a couple members of council and share some of my learnings from my sabbatical. In the midst of the conversation, I shared that the most exciting part of my return was my conviction that we already had all of the resources we needed to move vibrantly into the future. I think it surprised them a bit. You see we in the institutional churches get so use to operating from a place of assumed deficit and slide into what I label the “if only” mode (i.e. if only we had more money, if only we had more members/volunteers, if only…). In other words, we take the place of the disciples in today’s reading who responded to Jesus’ request to feed the crowd by saying, “[But] we have only five loaves of bread and two fish…” (Translation: if only we had more bread and fish…). It takes constant awareness of where one is coming from to combat this way of thinking. Of course this dynamic doesn’t just happen in our collective lives. It dominates our personal lives as well (i.e. if only my partner would be more understanding, if only I got that raise/promotion, if only my kids would appreciate what I was doing for them, if only…). The challenge for me today is to remind myself to come from a place of sufficiency: trusting that through God, I have access to all of the resources I need to face the challenges before me/us. Til next time…