When the poet David Whyte wrote those words in the opening lines of his poem, "Loaves and Fishes," he said that he wanted to run out of his house, screaming maniacally through the streets -- this is not the age of information! But the concept is so weird, so radical, because this is the age of information. The amount of information that is poured into our minds and into our lives is amazing. Entire industries are springing up around that one activity; just passing out information. It is the Industrial Revolution of our age, if you will. Our new industry is information. You can find out anything about anything in about five seconds, through Google. We have news 24 hours a day, and not only news, but often when you're watching the news, the newscasters are inviting you to go to their webpage so that you can have two streams of data coming at you at once! All of this information!
But is it really making us wiser? Is it making us more whole? Is it bringing us more alive? Is it really feeding us, all of this data, or is this information the new junk food of the 21st century? Empty calories; we eat, and eat, and eat, but it doesn't make us any stronger or any better. “This is not the age of information!”
Here's the poem -- David Whyte's "Loaves and Fishes."
This is not the age of information.
This is not the age of information.
Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.
This is the time of loaves and fishes.
People are hungry,
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.
One good word is bread for a thousand. People are hungry, and not just those who didn't have enough to feed their bellies before they went to bed last night; the surprising, the shocking thing is those of us who ate a good dinner last night, and had a hearty breakfast this morning, or are looking forward to brunch after church. Even we, who have enough food to fill our bellies several times a day, we’re hungry. We are hungry to live lives of meaning, lives of purpose. We are hungry to be a part of a community in which we are known. We are hungry to love, and to be loved.
Jesus was surrounded by a stadium full of people, 5,000 men, perhaps 10,000 people total if the women and children were included, and they were hungry. Jesus says to his disciples, "Where are we going to get food to feed all of these people?" Imagine being a part of that crowd; being hungry, and coming to be fed, and standing on tiptoe, wondering what the disciples will say. What will the Church say?
Jesus is saying, look at all these hungry people! What are you going to do? Imagine -- feel inside yourself the anticipation, and then the disappointment, when the disciples reply, "We can't feed these people! We can't do it!"
People are hungry, hungry to live lives of meaning and purpose and value, and there was a time when they turned to the Church. There was a time when people, like in this story, were waiting for the Church to feed them. But, I think that time is long past. How many people in Sacramento, who don't attend a church, are expecting a church to do anything that really matters in their lives?
I read about a community years ago, in Chicago, that actually picketed their local church in order to get them to be the church. What I love about that story is that the people expected the church to be the church. Do the people in our community outside these walls expect anything from Trinity Cathedral? People are hungry!
I have been overwhelmed these last four months of the generosity of spirit of the people here at Trinity Cathedral. When I was planning to move here, I figured that the people would be, well, okay, but I didn't know that it would be this remarkable. I had no idea of the spiritual resources in this community, and it has been overwhelming. It seems that every day in the last four months I have been bowled over by yet another extraordinary thing that people are doing. Just to do worship on a Sunday morning, hundreds of people labor in love, joyfully, and give of themselves in order to make worship happen. From the ushers, to the Altar Guild, to the acolytes, to the Flower Committee, to the vergers, to the fact that the bread that we break at the Eucharist is all home-baked! The flowers at the altar are arranged with love here in the church -- they aren't "ordered in" like this. It's just breathtaking.
And that's just for worship. Take a look at pastoral care -- if you get sick, someone gets assigned to you to visit you every week, Communion gets delivered to your home, shawls get knitted, people pray for you around the clock; it's the most breathtaking thing in the world. Since I've been here, I've been fed, again and again and again. My first impression of Trinity Cathedral is a superabundance of food. At this Cathedral, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes is happening every day, and it's not just the Hospitality Committee, which is fabulous, by the way, but it is the whole smorgasbord of ministries, a banquet that goes on and on.
Every day I am sated by the love in all of the ministries at Trinity Cathedral. It's overwhelming. I feel like it's this mountain of possibilities, this superabundance. But what I've been beginning to realize is that there aren't a whole lot of people outside of Trinity Cathedral that know about this. There aren't many outside of the Cathedral who are fed by this. If you are brave enough to walk in the door, we will overwhelm you. A pie will get delivered to your house, you can go to the Newcomers class and Randie Strike will have you over for dinner 20 times; it's just overwhelming.
People are hungry. We're surrounded by hungry people, and if they walk in the door, we are happy to feed them. Jesus turns to his disciples and says, "Give them something to eat." And we have the 'something'!
When the story of the loaves and the fishes comes up, for some reason I always remember a story that I read years ago, and I'm not certain of its origin. It's a story about a businessman -- we'll call him Tom. The story takes place around Christmas time. Tom is leaving his office, and going to his car, and he has a very nice sports car. Circling the sports car is a young boy whom the author of this story calls a street urchin. As Tom walks up, this young boy looks at the car, and looks at Tom, and looks back at the car. Tom puts his key in the driver's side door, and the young boy says, "Mister, is this your car?" Tom replies, "Yes, it's my car." With wide eyes the young boy says, "Wow! What a cool car!"
Tom smiles and says, "Well, not only is it a cool car, but what's really cool is, my brother gave me this car for Christmas." The young boy looked at Tom and said, "Wow. I wish..." Now, Tom knew how this young boy was going to finish this sentence; it was pretty obvious that the sentence would be "I wish I had a brother like that." But that's not what the boy said.
What the young boy said was, "I wish I could be a brother like that." Tom quickly figured out that this was a special person in front of him, and he invited this boy to go for a ride. They both get in the car and start driving around, and the boy says, "Mister, can you turn here? And turn down that street next? And just stop, stop right here!" So Tom ended up stopping in front of this apartment building. The young boy hops out of the sports car, runs into the building, and Tom waits. A few minutes later, the young boy comes out of the apartment, carrying his younger brother, who can't walk. He carries his brother out to the car, and says, "Look! This is the car I was telling you about -- when I'm older I'm going to buy you a car just like this!" So Tom invites both boys into the car. They drive around the city that evening and look at all the Christmas lights on the houses.
What I love about that story is that it's not about the car. It's about the love that one brother had for another. The feeding in that story does not require ownership of the car, or the ability to buy the car; the young boy doesn't actually have to buy the car for his brother. It's the fact that he gives his love to his brother, the fact that he pours out his life for his brother -- that is how his brother is fed.
Jesus is surrounded by thousands of people who are all hungry. He says to his disciples, "Huh. I wonder where we're going to buy food for all of these people?" Now, this is a trick question, because the food that Jesus is going to use doesn't cost a dime. Jesus then shows us how to feed thousands of people. He takes his life, offers it, blesses it, breaks it, turns to his neighbor, and says, "This is my body, broken for you. This is my love, poured out for you." Jesus invites us to do that same thing; to take our lives, our broken and impoverished lives, to bless them, then to turn to our neighbor and say, "This is my body, broken for you. This is my love, poured out for you." That is what we do with one another, every day at Trinity Cathedral.
Imagine what would happen if that love flowed outside these walls, and if the sharing of that love became contagious, and it happened again, and again, and again. Imagine the thousands and thousands that could be fed. People are hungry, and one good word, that one good word, is bread for a thousand! Let's feed them. Amen.