They are exhausted, spent, wrung dry. They have just returned from having been sent out, two-by-two, to knock on doors and proclaim the gospel … no easier or more appealing to them than it would be for any of us! Jesus gathers them for a private retreat, in a deserted place … that they might swap stories, lick their wounds, learn from each other, rest and regroup.

But Jesus is a first century rock star. He is a celebrity healer, a dazzling preacher, a terrific teacher. Folks just want to be with him. They can’t get enough of him. It is inevitable then that word of his whereabouts leaks out… and the crowds follow.

So, instead of a private retreat they are descended upon by thousands of people. What does Jesus do? He betrays no annoyance. He does not shoo them away. He welcomes them. He gives them his full attention. He weaves stories about prodigal sons welcomed home with mercy and grace.He reports to them about God’s good news for the poor and how in the Kingdom of God the captives are released and the blind receive their sight. He recites a list of beatitudes that are as soothing balm to those with blistered souls. He heals the lame and ill.

Before they know it, the day is transitioning into night. The sun is setting. The air is cooling. Stomachs are rumbling.

The disciples are dog-tired and hungry. They whisper to Jesus: It is time to call it quits. Send the crowds home. At the very least, urge them to find lodging and provisions in the surrounding villages. It is getting late.

Jesus scans the enormous crowd. Then he looks at his 12 disciples. Then, still looking at the disciples, holding them in his stare, he says: “You give them something to eat.”

After a bit of hemming and hawing, they do … to their own surprise, they do.

I want to change direction and turn to another story … also one about eating and feeding.

This story concerns an old Cherokee legend and a conversation between a tribal elder and his grandson. The elder is teaching his grandson about human nature and the battle between good and evil that each of us wages within ourselves throughout our lives.

“The battle inside each of us”, says the elder, “is between two wolves. One is an evil wolf: full of anger, envy, greed, violence, resentment, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is the good wolf: that wolf is filled with joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”

The boy absorbs this in silence. Then, after a while, asks his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee replies, “The one I feed.”

I don’t know about you, but for these past weeks and months I have fed my bad wolf. My bad wolf has gorged on an unhealthy diet of campaign news. My bad wolf has gnawed on self-righteous pundits, sarcastic blogs and convention speeches that were mean-spirited and ugly, whose intent was to demean. My bad wolf has digested ads and speeches whose purpose was to slander and ridicule the enemy, the opponent, the other side.

Campaign season not withstanding, out there in the world it is impossible not to feed the bad wolf inside each of us …the mean wolf… the wolf prone to self-righteousness and judgment of others. Food for the bad wolf is cheep, abundant and easy to come by. It is all over the internet, all over the TV and radio. But you will also come across it on children’s playgrounds,soccer fields, in board meetings, at office drinking fountains, and even at our own kitchen tables.

By stark contrast we come here, to this house and home of God, to feed and nurture the good wolf, to dine on a banquet of Christian fare.

I invite you to look up to your left: high up above the left gallery, above the five Miracle windows. There you see seven round windows in which angels proclaim St. Paul’s Fruits of the Spirit. They are a bit hard to see from below, so let me read them to you: Love, Joy, Peace, Long Suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, and Faith. (Galatians 5: 22) These are the virtually the same qualities and virtues named in the Cherokee legend.

These fruits of the Spirit are the consequence of keeping company with God. They are the achievement of a disciplined Christian life. But they do not come easily …not to we, who are frail and faulty, prone to an unhealthy, indulgent diet of vices.

And so it is that we come here. Week after week we gather in God’s house to drink in the comfort of the psalmist’s words. Sunday after Sunday we imbibe the bracing justice of the prophets.

Here, we learn to eat from a banquet of grace, for we are the people of the second chance …we are they who depend for our very lives upon God’s bottomless well of forgiveness.

Here in this Kingdom-world kindness and mercy are served in abundance.

Here in this household of God we practice our Christian table manners and learn ways of relating to one another: person to person, nation to nation, race to race … as brother to sister, aunt to nephew, cousin to in-law. We come to this place where God trains us in the manners of the Kingdom: a realm without sarcasm, meanness, or violence.

Here in the company of the prophets and apostles, the patriarchs and matriarchs, the saints of old upon whose shoulders we stand – here we feast on a diet of a gentle relationship with our world and all its people and creatures.

Here we indulge in forgiveness and gorge on grace. Here we feast on the goodness of God.

While Christians use different images than the Cherokee people, we agree that each person is a battleground between good and evil.

One of the primary obligations of the church is to equip and train us for the struggle. It is the church’s responsibility to form and shape us, mold and make us into Christ’s own people.

The story of the feeding of the 5000 has been understood across two millennia as a story about what Jesus expects of his followers, his church: “You give them something to eat.”

He invites us to join him in preparing God’s feast for any and all who will come to this table of grace.

As Jesus once turned to the disciples in their wilderness, so he turns to us in ours. “Give them something to eat,” he says. That’s what we do, or try to do here, as God’s church.

The Deacons of Old South do it by setting the table, preparing the bread, filling the chalices
until these become for us the living bread and the cup of salvation. They do it by organizing ushers and greeters and whole host of hospitality volunteers … so that our welcome is wide and warm.

Give them something to eat. The members of our Christian Education Committee do their best to oblige. With tender care and attention they secure curriculum, become teachers, direct pageants, plan breakfasts, set tables, lead retreats, teach confirmation and feed the stories of our faith to the young among us: the babies and toddlers, the grade-schoolers and youth.

Jesus turns to the musicians Old South and says to them: You give them something to eat.

They get to work, stirring up music so beautiful and poignant, so gentle and hushed, so grand and majestic that we can taste Kingdom of God.

Jesus turns to the Congregational Care and Support Committee and says to them: Give them something to eat. They cook up rides and visits and simple meals. They write cards of condolence and thanksgiving … until the lonely are companioned, and the hungry fed and the stranded rescued.

It can be a callous world out there … a world of tooth and claw. It can be a mean-spirited, ugly, demeaning, a winner-take-all and dam-the-consequences world …a world where truth is trampled and the best spin wins. And we (most of us) are susceptible to the whiles of this world … to its distractions, illusions and excitement.

And so it is that we gather here, Sunday after Sunday, week after week, to learn the ways of God. We gather to practice the art and craft of discipleship: to sup on goodness, to lay a table of kindness, to feast on grace.

Give them something to eat, says Jesus. And we do. We serve to others and to each other, what God has first served us.

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SCRIPTURE

Luke 9: 10-17

On their return the apostles told him what they had done. And he took them and withdrew apart to a city called Bethsaida.

When the crowds learned it, they followed him; and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God, and cured those who had need of healing.

Now the day began to wear away; and the twelve came and said to him, "Send the crowd away, to go into the villages and country round about, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a lonely place."

But he said to them, "You give them something to eat." They said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish -- unless we are to go and buy food for all these people."
For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, "Make them sit down in companies, about fifty each."

And they did so, and made them all sit down.

And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.

And all ate and were satisfied. And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces.