These all seem to be impossible tasks. All but the first are being asked of us as a parish at this time. The question for us is, Can we make the impossible, possible?

I would like today to do some lateral thinking from today's reading. The feeding of the five thousand men (not including the women and children) is one of the few stories from Jesus life, that is recorded not only in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but also in John. The fact that John chooses to repeat a story from the other Gospels would seem to suggest that it is of importance. It also means that the story is well-known, so there is little need to explain it.

So let us begin with a bit of visioning - Can you think of how many people make up five thousand men. Including women and children perhaps eight or nine thousand people. (It is in our circumstance around six times the population of our parish. It is perhaps four times a good crowd at York Park. Fifteen times the population of out local school. In any case. It is a lot of people.

It is not like my grandmother's practical solution when extra unexpected guests turned up. She used to say "just add a little bit more water to the soup, dear" nor a case of FHB - Family Hold Back!!!. The situation is well beyond that five to ten thousand people with a little more than five bread sticks and a tin of sardines.

I hope you understand - it is mission impossible. And yet, the disciples did give them something to eat, not just a morsel, but sufficient so that there were twelve baskets left over.

Now I guess this is a good definition of a miracle. William Barclay, the Scottish commentator, doesn't believe in miracles, and so explains it away saying that when Jesus got the food out, they all brought out their cut lunches and ate together, but this is a denial of both the text and the understanding that Jesus divine nature means that he has the power to intervene. Needless to say, this is the definition of a miracle - define intervention to produce super-natural results. Significantly, the difference, was the interference of Jesus

I think there are two principles that we can extract from the story. First - the disciples gathered together their own resources. They took stock and although the list was short they began with five loaves and two fish. Can you imagine how they must have felt. On one hand there is the crowd - estimated with a catering bill of $20,000 by Phillip (in another account) and on the other, five bread rolls and a tin of sardines. It would be easy for them to have given up at this point, but they brought their resources to Jesus - this is the second point and Jesus acted.

Now let us take these principles forward to our situation. We have before us the seemingly impossible task. To continue in ministry in this area. We have limited resources and we struggle to achieve the dynamic required for many things. As I see it, we have two choices - we can give up, or we follow the principle of this story and give our meagre resources to Jesus and ask him to bless them and our ministry.

But perhaps I should let you a little secret - I think that this miracle is already here. For the problems that seem insurmountable now, also were discussed in the 1950's. (I have spent some time reading old minute books.) and I suspect that if I was to go back to the 1920's the same would be the case. We are not a church that has had a golden age and are in decline. We are a community of faith, who from month to month and year to year have discovered the resourcing of God. This is our history and should inform our faith.

At this point of time, we can look at the crowds and the five bread rolls and a tin of sardines, or we look to Jesus. Will you join me in this vision? Will you add your faith to mine and ask God to bless us in all that we must do for him?

Two last points from the story - the disciples chose to feed the crowd because Jesus asked them to. We must be mindful that we pursue the mission and purposes from Jesus. (By that, I don't think that he is asking us to build a 2,000 seat auditorium/church.) We must all spend time seeking our Lord's priorities.

And second, the disciples were not sitting back as directors or managers. Jesus asked them to roll up their sleeves and distribute the food and to clean up afterwards. Today, we are all called to the task, The church has no passengers. The miracle happened because the disciples also put in the work. We can not expect these things to happen without us doing our part.

Let us then consider how God is calling us to share in the miracles he is prepared to do here.

AMEN.