MAKING IT UP AS THEY GO ALONG

During my childhood, the United Methodist Church rarely left a pastor in one place for more than 4 or 5 years. By the time I entered the 8th grade, Ray Brown was the third man to pastor my home church in Shelbyville, Indiana. 

I never much liked him. This was due partly, I suppose, to the fact he had replaced Reverend Jack Haskins whose son was my best friend.

The bigger problem was that Reverend Brown was a phony. I picked up on it quickly: The man couldn't be bothered to learn my name or any of my brothers'. 

So if Ray Brown passed me in the hallway at church, he would always greet me - a 14 year old boy - as "Mr. Gross". And then pawn it off as a  joke. 

"Good morning, Mr. Gross."

It wasn't particularly amusing the first time and downright suspicious by the 32nd time. 

I wasn't in the habit of listening to his sermons, but one stuck with me. For all the wrong reasons.

Reverend Brown was preaching the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. He explained that there was a rational explanation for how the disciples were able to gather more bread and fish at the end than they had started with.

Simple! A miracle had taken place - but it was not the miracle you have always been taught.

No, this was a miracle of sharing. 

Here's what had really happened: Most of the people coming to hear Jesus had the foresight to pack themselves some lunch. But as they approached the hillside and saw the masses of people, they got to feeling rather selfish and stuffed the bread and fish up the sleeves of their robes, for fear that if they had their lunch out in full sight, others would ask them for a bite. Then, of course, they would likely be guilted into sharing their hard-earned food with a bunch of slackers.

But after a full morning sitting under the spell of Jesus' powerful preaching about love and self-sacrifice, they watched with interest as Jesus offered to feed the crowd with nothing more than a couple of baskets containing a handful of fish and bread.

This is when the miracle occurred - the miracle of sharing!

As the baskets were passed around, one by one the formerly stingy listeners reached up their own sleeves, tore off just enough bread to stave off their own hunger and dropped the remainder into the basket to feed those down the line. 

Truly a miracle. 

Even at my young age, I had several questions about this "sermon":

• Where in the text could one find the evidence for this version of the "miracle"?

• And why would a preacher feel the need to sweep all references to the supernatural clean out of the Bible? 

It might have been the first time I realized that not all pastors find Scripture particularly useful or relevant to their sermons.