Empowered

Like many of us, I’ve been thinking about hurricanes this week.  Because I’ve spent most of my life on the Georgia and South Carolina coast, I’ve been glued to the weather channel and Facebook all week.  The first reports from Savannah and Beaufort tell of fallen trees and damaging flooding in the barrier islands with 8-10 feet of storm surge coming in on high tide.  There will be much to clean up and much to work to do in the coming days and weeks to get life back together there.  For some of my friends, the challenge of returning to normal life may seem just impossible.  

Tests:  Impossible circumstances

I can picture the impossible.  

In the fall of 2005, another destructive and deadly hurricane hit the United States.  The name Katrina still sends shivers down the backs of anyone touched by her powerful winds and waves.  

While most of the attention on Katrina’s impact was focused on New Orleans and the failures of its levies, Katrina’s massive storm surge also impacted the small beach towns of Southern Mississippi.  Marcia and I were living in Beaufort when Katrina hit.  As a small coastal community, we were especially sensitive to the impact the storm had on these small towns.  A few days after the storm, the city of Beaufort sent a convoy of volunteers with chain saws, supplies, and healthy backs to work in the community of Long Beach, MS.  With so much destruction, these volunteers filled the gaps when other disaster response teams were deployed elsewhere.  A bond between our two communities grew out of this week of service.  

After the team returned, the mayor of Long Beach reached out again to Beaufort with a strange request.  Storms like Katrina and Matthew disrupt people’s lives, he said.  As he looked over the lives of his community – he realized how far from normal everyone’s life had become.  They were focused on shelter, food, clean water, insurance and survival.  The mayor asked Beaufort to bring some joy to their community.  The mayor of Beaufort after seeing the work of our church in our community, asked my church to lead the effort – and I was recruited to be the leader.   

We decided to host a fall festival for the entire Long Beach community at the end of October.  At the same time, our church had just produced the bluegrass musical – Smoke on the Mountain – so we decided to bring the show on the road to Long Beach.  

The challenge of putting on these two events in a disaster area proved to be impossible.  That’s what it felt like as we began planning.  We had no idea where we could stay.  We had no idea how we could get supplies there.  We had no idea if we would have electricity.  From the moment that we said yes to hosting this event, to the moment the day arrived – the whole idea felt impossible.

Let me give you an idea of what we were dealing with.  Long Beach experienced a 30 foot storm surge that washed a mile inland from the ocean.  Here are just a few pictures of these disaster.   

Katrina and Matthew created impossible circumstances – impossible circumstances test our faith.  
In our two Biblical stories today – we find the disciples facing impossible circumstances which also test their faith. 

[Scripture Passage  Mark 6:33-56]

In the first scripture story in Mark 6:33, thousands of people have gathered on the green hills just north of the Sea of Galilee.  Hour after hour Jesus has been teaching and healing.  Hour after hour, more and more people have been drawn from towns and villages near and far to experience the Kingdom authority of Jesus.  Men with their prayer shawls and women in their dresses hold their children tight while trying to get closer to hear Jesus.  Eventually, the sun moves closer to the horizon and the disciples grow worried about managing all the people.  With this many people gathered, what will they do when they grow hungry and tired?  Fears of violent outbursts bring them to Jesus.  

When the disciples bring their fears to Jesus and suggest he dismiss the crowd back to their homes, Jesus gives them an impossible task: “Jesus answered them, “You give them something to eat.” Jesus asks the impossible from them.  

The second scripture story in this passage occurs the night after this large gathering on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus sends the disciples by boat back across the Lake.  There’s a strong, gusty, hard wind blowing down from the mountains and the disciples strain against the oars in the boat trying to move.  There’s little success.  It’s an impossible task Jesus has asked them to do.  

When was the last time you faced an impossible circumstance in your life?  A mountain too large to conquer?  A hurricane.  A winter storm.  A fire.  A job loss.  A failing grade.  A debilitating injury.  A load of work, not enough time.  I think about all of the impossible circumstances that show up on our church door steps every Tuesday and Thursday as family after family comes asking for assistance with power bills, water bills, doctor’s bills.  The future feels impossible to them.  

The same is true when we look at what’s happening in our culture and church.  We see all of the negative things happening all around us.  The changes in culture.  The changes in community. The changing morals.  We see how church is changing – fewer people on Sunday mornings.  Less people interested in Jesus.  Fewer people holding to biblical truth or following Jesus.  This too feels impossible.

Failures:  Attempting the Impossible on our own.

Most of the time when we face impossible circumstances, we try to solve them on our own.  That’s what the disciples do.  And their feeble attempts only lead to failure.

Looking across the fields of people – thousands and thousands of them – the disciples see an impossible task of feeding them and fail when they try to solve it on their own.   Look at what they say when Jesus tells them to give the crowd food.

“Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii [200 days hard labor] worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?”

What Jesus is asking them to do is impossible.  They see the test before them with realistic, rational eyes – the way you or I would see it.  These disciples don’t have the money to feed this many people; they don’t have time to go to a town to order food to feed them.  [Ask any of our folks who work at the Cornelia Soup Kitchen – feeding lots of people takes careful planning].   When the disciples attempt the impossible on their own – they fail.  

The same is true of when they cross the lake – straining hard against the wind.  They are attempting the impossible the best way they know how – the muscles of their backs.  Tackling the impossible with their own willpower and strength is the only resource they think they have at their disposal.  

And then, when help does show up, they forget all they know about Jesus and react in fear. 

While they are straining in the boat, Jesus walks by them in the pitch blackness of the night – walking on water.  V.  “But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out; 50 for they all saw him and were terrified.” 

When faced with the impossible, we will fail every time we attempt it on our own.  

This was the challenge for our team from Beaufort as we planned for our mission trip to Long Beach, MS.  I remember sitting in one of our planning meetings about 2 weeks before we left for MS.  I led the meeting by trying to answer as many questions for everyone as I could.  Someone asked – what will our sleeping arrangements be like – I don’t know.  Another – how will we get electricity to the football field for the fall festival – I don’t know.  Will there be people to help us when we get to MS – I don’t know.  How will we cook the hot dogs and hamburgers – I don’t know.

Eventually, my friend, Ron, a gruff, former Marine staff sergeant blurted out – “Well, preacher, what do you know?”  
I smiled and said, “Ron, right now this task seems impossible to both you and to me.  There are more questions than answers.  Yet, I have a feeling that God is in this.  And if you trust me, and we both trust God, we might just experiencing something extraordinary.”

Well – Ron, didn’t really like that answer – it was a little too preachy.  But he said – “well, we’ll just have to see about that.”  We both knew that every rational look at this endeavor said we would fail in our attempt.  

You see, when we attempt the impossible on our own, we fail.  When we try to solve all of our country’s problems with a new politician – we fail.  When we try to fix all of the challenges at church with our own ideas – we fail.   Something else must take place.  

Solution:  Act on the empowerment of God for Ministry.  

The secret … the solution … to impossible circumstances comes through the empowerment of God.   

Here’s what Jesus did … “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. 42 And all ate and were filled.”

I’m always amazed at this miracle and think about what it would have been like as a disciple participating in the miracle.  Jesus gives you a piece of one of the loaves of bread and small portion of fish and sends you to your first group of 50 people sitting on the green grass.  You pass a basket around – watching as each child and mother and farmer take a piece of bread and fish and pass it to another.  You watch expecting to run out of food, but instead, you have just enough to start at the next group.  And when they are done - Still you have just enough.  

Jesus doesn’t accomplish the impossible automatically.  The miracle happens when each disciple has just enough faith to walk to the next group to see what might just happen.  And when they are done – not only has everyone eaten their fill, there are baskets of food left over.  The disciples did think they were accomplishing the impossible, they were just following the instructions of Jesus – empowered by him for the ministry in front of them.  

The same is true with the disciples in the boats.  Faced with the impossible, the wind, and the inconceivable – Jesus walking on the water – the disciples welcome Jesus into the boat.  When Jesus sits among them, the wind suddenly ends and suddenly they are moving again.  

This was my greatest spiritual lesson of our time in Long Beach, Mississippi.  From the moment we attempted the impossible for Jesus, Jesus provided just want we needed when we needed.  The impossible became possible only because God empowered us for ministry.  To this day, I still cannot explain it – I can only describe it.  

When we needed a place to stay, the city offered us cots and a shower.  When we needed a place to hook up RV’s the city provided a parking lot.  When we needed a large moving truck to get all of our supplies to MS, someone in town called and offered us one.  When we needed pumpkins for Halloween, a vendor in Mobile donated them to us.  When we wondered if we had enough food, the Red Cross showed us and started serving steak dinner.  When we wondered if anyone in town would show up, over 3000 people came to the football field in Halloween costumes and enjoyed being a community together, playing fun games, eating carnival food, and thinking about something other than survival.  

That night, when we were done and the lights on the football field were turned off, we gathered our volunteers from Beaufort, and I read them this story of Jesus feeding the 5000.  My friend, Ron, looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, “I saw Jesus tonight.  Jesus did the impossible.  He empowered our hands for the task.  Thank you for allowing me to be a part of it.”  

FBC Cornelia has seen God’s empowerment of God for ministry too.  We saw God show up when we decided to open our first cold weather shelter.  It was an impossible task – but God provided all that we needed just when we needed it.  

The same is true when our church decided Cornelia needed a soup kitchen in Cornelia.  We said, let’s start to work, and God provided what we needed when we needed it.  And now there is this great place in our community where anyone can eat whose hungry.  

Why do we forget God’s empowerment when it comes to our church or to our lives?  When we see the impossible, we think rationally.  We think about all of the reasons why something can’t work instead of what Jesus wants to do.   Jesus is already here empowering each of us and this church for the things we see as impossible.  

God doesn’t see impossible.  God sees the opportunity for you and me to participate in the Kingdom.  
Don’t be discouraged. Don’t focus on the negatives of your life.  Don’t listen to the doomsayers.  Jesus invites you and me to “Take heart; do not be afraid. Because he is here empowering us for the day ahead.” 

Thanks be to God!  Amen.