"Beyond the Limit"
A Sunday Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Thomas C. Leinbach
August 3, 2008 - Harwich, Massachusetts

Preaching Text: "And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full." (Matthew 14:20)

There's this old joke about a man who, in seeking to console a despondent friend going through a tough time, says: "You know, God never gives us more than we can handle."

"Yes, I know," the friend replies without skipping a beat, "I just wish God didn't have such a high opinion of me!"

Outwardly we laugh, but deep down we probably know only too well how the friend feels. We, too, know those radically unsettling, lonely moments when life becomes more than we can handle somehow, when just putting one foot in front of the other seems about the best we can manage. In such times, the joke's punch line may strike us as just a bit too real to be funny.

This morning we read about one such moment, as Jesus gets word from a traveling companion that his beloved cousin, John (the Baptist), has been executed by the cruel despot, Herod, in Jerusalem, just some 75 miles or so to the south.

One can only imagine how Jesus must have felt. Here, in Galilee, he has been going about the countryside preaching, teaching and healing. In the form of parables, he has been telling his hearers about the kingdom of heaven, about its truth, beauty and promise, how it is open to anyone eager to receive it. Jesus here offers his hearers their deepest desire: God's perfect love, God's perfect peace, God's perfect joy.

Then comes the jarring news of John's death, yet another instance of the degradation to which this world too often descends, and precisely the kind of thing Jesus'

life and ministry has sought to counter.

This of course must have hit Jesus like a violent blow to the head. For not only must he face the loss of a beloved cousin and friend, but he knows that in short order Herod will come looking for him, too.

In his shock and grief, he slips away from the burgeoning crowds that day and night cling ever so closely, and sets off to be by himself. This day has been especially long and punishing, and with his energy now waning, he finds himself plunged suddenly into the haunting specter of human violence and pursued by the relentless insistence of abject loss.

So he departs by boat, across the Sea of Galilee, leaving behind the crowds, with their seemingly endless demands and endless needs, to be alone for just a moment, for a moment of peace, for a moment to gather his thoughts, for a moment to shed a tear and search prayerfully for the holy and tender consolations he knows only God can provide.

In varying ways, we, too, know those moments when life seems to come all but crashing down. And we know the desire to flee from the pain, to be alone with our sorrow, to be alone with our confusion and grief.

Yet no sooner has Jesus reached the far shore, alone, and away from that place across the sea teaming with loss and pain, no sooner has he reached this far shore, than it all finds him again, like a persistent shadow beneath the searing midday sun.

Once again Jesus is confronted by the crowds who have followed him to the far shore, bringing with them their same needs and their same desperate hopes. Bone-tired and wishing only to be alone, Jesus somehow manages to respond.

After a time, Jesus' disciples approach him with yet another problem. It is getting late, and the large crowd is in need of food and there is nothing in this far, deserted place for them to eat, just five loaves of bread and two fishes Yet with those five loaves and two fishes, Jesus ends up feeding everyone, with twelve baskets of food to spare.

In spite of his own need, Jesus responds to the needs of those around him. And he doesn't just give them enough to take the edge off their hunger. Instead he feeds them abundantly, extravagantly, such that each has more than he or she needs.

William Willimon tells the story of a woman with three children of her own who chooses to adopt the foster child that had been in her custody. When asked about the limits to love she had to offer, she replied, "When it comes to love, I haven't yet found limits. From my experience, love feeds on love; it grows by being given away. The more love you give, the more love you seem to have."

This reminds me of something Linda once said to our older granddaughter just before the birth of her little sister. Feeling somewhat conflicted about the possibility of having a lot of attention drawn away from her, because up till then she had been an only child, Linda assured her by saying, "You know, Autumn, having another sister in the family doesn't take love away from you, it creates even more love!" Frankly, I never would have thought of putting it that way. Yet how true such words are.

Particularly when life strikes at us hard, when loss and disappointment confound us, it is helpful to remember this very basic, but often elusive truth: that the nature of God's love is that it is both exorbitant and inexhaustible. Love is actually a renewable force, even in those dark times when it may seem otherwise. Thus, when life reaches its limit, what we do with our lives should be extravagant, moving us beyond our limits. In the end, and this is key, we need to focus more on God's limitless gifts than on our own momentary needs and limitations.

In times of need, in times of loss, in times of despair, we too often think we have little or nothing to offer. By re-engaging the world's pain, loss and need, in responding to the insistent human cry for help, Jesus demonstrates for us just how God's love works, how it takes what seems small and multiplies it and makes abundant provision. With what little we have, no matter how small or insignificant, we have the power to touch the lives of others in surprising and astonishing ways.

My father likes to tell the true story of a retired man who volunteered to visit patients in the hospital. Each day he would walk from room to room saying hello to everybody. Except, that is, this one man, whom he one day decided to avoid.

The patient, you see, was a difficult man who gave the hospital staff a hard time and who always responded to his visitor's friendly hellos with unacknowledged, muted silence. Day after day, week after week, he would say hello to this one patient, all to no avail. Until one day, he simply gave up, deciding that the man wanted nothing to do with him.

But the very next day, as he was walking by this same patient's bed after visiting his roommate, the man suddenly lifted his head and spoke. "Why didn't you say hello to me yesterday?" he asked, with obvious pain in his voice. The man was dumbfounded. He had had no idea how much his little hello had meant to this lonely man and how it quite obviously had touched his heart.

Jesus chose, in his moment of pain and loss, to respond to the needs of those around him, just as he calls us to do as well. Like Henri Nouwen's "wounded healer," whose personal experience of pain and loss equips him to better understand and thus meet the pain of this world, this is our task in difficult moments. In this is yet another example of the many paradoxes of God's vast and inscrutable love.

As the adoptive mother so clearly puts it: when it comes to love, there are no limits. For love feeds on love; it grows by being given away. The more love you give, the more love you have.

Amen.