Nov 1st: Your Generosity at Work, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski.

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Your Generosity at Work, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: The Spirit of Generosity. A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: John 6:1–13; 1 Thessalonians 1:2–3.
When heartbreak feels overwhelming, how do we keep our hearts open? This Sunday we explore the power of simple generosity, like a boy’s lunch that fed thousands, to bring hope into a hurting community. Join us in person or online to hear stories of love in action, celebrate the everyday saints among us, and discover ways you can make a difference.
Transcript:
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Our gospel reading this morning is the feeding of the 5,000. It’s actually the only miracle told in all four of the gospels. It, it must have mattered deeply to the first followers of Jesus after Jesus was killed. Because those early followers gathered in fear often after dark, behind closed doors, and they would break bread and remember Jesus, and they would read this story of five loaves and two fish, and it gave them courage in a week when many of us are gathering in our own kind of darkness. May this story give us courage too. So here are these words from the Gospel of John chapter six, verses one to 13. Jesus crossed to the far side of the ality, and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs that he had performed healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and, and sat down with the disciples.
Speaker 0 00:01:09 Now, the Jewish Passover festival was near when Jesus looked up and, and saw a, a great crowd coming toward him. He said to Philip, where shall we buy bread to, to feed all of these people? He asked this only to test him for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him. It would take more than a a half years wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite. Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peters brothers, spoke up. Here’s a small boy with, with five small barlows and two small fish. But how far will this meager offering go among so many people?
Speaker 0 00:01:57 Jesus said, have the people sit down? And there was plenty of grass in that place. And, and they sat down and there were over 5,000 people. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and he told the disciples to distribute to those who were seated as much as they wanted. And he did the same thing with the fish. And when they had all had enough to eat, Jesus said to his disciples, gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted. So they gathered them and filled 12 baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten our world. Our world is broke,
Speaker 1 00:02:59 And you don’t need me to tell you to tell you that this week because our hearts are broken too. And they should be. You know, I’d really worry about us if, if they weren’t broken. Many of us have not. Most of us are, are still processing what happened at Silver Rail. You know, still searching for word, still holding the people that we love a little closer. And this coming Tuesday, the ballots many of you have already mailed in, will be counted at a time when, when the divisions in our country feel deep and dangerous. And our democracy itself feels fragile. You know, this might seem like a, a strange time to begin our stewardship season. You know, we’re all Saint Sunday a week like we’ve had, but I’ve come to believe that this is exactly the right time. Because no matter what happened at Silver Rail, no matter who wins on November 3rd, the same question is waiting for us.
Speaker 1 00:04:13 What is the work of love that is ours to do? You know, when I heard the news about silver rail, my hands curled into a fist, and since then my hands have felt mostly useless. You know, hands that, that desperately want to fix something and can’t maybe your hands feel that same way. You know, we look, we look at the size of the suffering then at ourselves, and we, we come up short, you know, not strong enough, not, not brave enough, not, not enough time, not enough money. I I mean, you fill in the blank. I am not. Whatever enough. Now in our story, the disciples knew that feeling. There was a huge hungry crowd. Philip does the math. Six months wages wouldn’t buy everyone a bite to eat. But here’s the first miracle. Jesus doesn’t send them away. And Matthew, mark, and Luke, Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, you, you give them something to eat. Then Andrew finds a boy with five barley loaves and two small fish, I mean a kid’s lunch. And Andrew says, what? Probably we’re all thinking, how will this meager offering feed so many?
Speaker 2 00:05:58 What is one vote among millions? What is one casserole when a family’s world has been shattered? What is one gift when the needs are this big, yet Jesus takes the boys’ lunch, he gives thanks for it, and it’s more than enough. 12 baskets left over. And look who does the feeding? I mean, Jesus blessed the bread. The disciples are the ones who carry it into the crowd. So the question was never whether we are enough. The question is whether we’re willing to open our hands. I mean, the world we live in is so heartbreaking. Our hearts can break apart into a thousand sharp shards into bitterness, or our hearts can break open. Making room for the suffering of others, increasing our capacity to love a heartbreak and apart is like living like this, closed off fearful.
Speaker 2 00:07:27 A a heartbroken open lives like this. Arms wide open generosity is what a heartbroken open looks like. I mean, we’ve watched the community of Ben respond to heartbreak with such open hearts and open hands. I mean, restaurants feeding anyone no questions asked. Art studios where, where children could paint what they couldn’t say, meals on porches, chalk drawings on sidewalks. Now none of that undoes what happened, but all of it, all of it refuses to let violence and suffering have the last word. We have witnessed the spirit of generosity. We have witnessed the best of our humanity in response to this tragedy.
Speaker 2 00:08:31 You know, in fear, it’s, it’s natural, it’s really natural to wanna close our hearts, but bend the community of, bend our community has reminded us of something truer. We were made to open our hearts wider, to actually give, give more of ourselves than feels reasonable. And when we do that, we discover how much light we carry and we don’t do the work of love. That’s ours to do alone. I mean, this weekend we celebrate all saints, what we call All Saints. The book of Hebrews says, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Barbara Brown Taylor calls them, I love this, calls them the balcony people, the bel people who’ve who’ve passed on, but they’re up in the balcony cheering us on. I mean, the very earliest words in the New Testament were written to a small, fragile church in Thessalonica. And the Apostle Paul writes, we give thanks to God for, for, for all of you remembering your work of faith, remembering your labor of love and the steadfastness of your hope.
Speaker 2 00:09:57 First Presbyterian has its own balcony. I mean full of saints, you know, people who’ve been part of this church for, for decades. People who’ve taught our children who fed the hungry, comforted the grieving who’ve, who’ve knitted prayer shawls who, who rang the bell on Sunday mornings, who dared to trust God’s abundance in those lean years. For over a hundred years, first Presbyterian has been known as the church you can count on when the need is great. This church, our church exists because of the saints who have gone before us. Church isn’t a product we consume. It’s actually a group project of love. And this weekend we’re celebrating our volunteers. We’re celebrating, celebrating the living saints of this church. I mean, you make the coffee, you teach Sunday school, you sing in the choir, you create prayer, shawls and quilts. You seal serve meals to the hungry. You sponsor and tutor students. You sit with the grieving, you welcome the stranger at the door. And I, and, and we, we just don’t say thank you nearly enough for your generosity of spirit. So let me say it, thank you. You are what the balcony is cheering for. Our theme, the stewardship season is your generosity at work, our invitation and our calling is to keep this generous, generous spirit alive in a heartbreaking world. Because the remedy for heartbreak is not to close off our hearts.
Speaker 1 00:11:54 The remedy for heartbreak is actually to open our hearts wider, to love, still to love more. Together, together we get to be a strong and invisible presence of love in the days ahead, making sure our generosity keeps working. I mean, bringing hope where there’s despair and there’s a lot of despair. So here’s what I want, what I most want you to hear. Your generosity isn’t simply paying the church bills. Your generosity is God’s mission in the world. I mean, God longs to feed the hungry God. God longs to comfort the grieving, to shelter the wholeness, to bring hope to the hopeless.
Speaker 1 00:12:51 And God has entrusted that mission to ordinary people with open hearts and open hands. God has entrusted it to you. Remember the hillside? Jesus blessed the bread. The disciples were the ones who carried it into the crowd. When you give, when you are generous, you are the ones carrying the bread into the crowd. You know, I, I wanna be honest with you, our giving this year ha has fallen a little behind. And, and if our giving, if our generosity stays the same, our ministry stays the same. If, if our generosity drops, it will be forced to shrink the presence of love that, that we can offer. At the very moment, the community of Bend needs the presence of love the most.
Speaker 1 00:14:07 There’s this great story during a, during a siege in Berut where the whole, this whole city was under siege. A Presbyterian church argued for six hours about who should receive the food that they had been storing up. I mean, should they, should they feed themselves first? And, and then if there’s any leftover feed their Muslim neighbors. Finally, one elder stood and, and, and proposed feeding their neighbors first and themselves only if there was something left over this elder said, if we, if we, if we do not demonstrate the love of Christ in this place, who will friends if we, if we do not demonstrate the love of Christ at this time, in this place, in this moment, who will? And here’s the good news, we can and we already are as you consider how you’ll be part of God’s mission in the world. And it’s really tempting to decide to make that decision based on, on what’s reasonable, what’s what’s comfortable, what’s what’s safe.
Speaker 1 00:15:41 But this is not a reasonable moment. So I wanna encourage you to begin somewhere else. Begin with that boy on the hillside and, and ask yourself, what is mine to offer? What is the work of love that is mine to do? There’s this church in England. There’s a church in England that was destroyed by bombs in World War ii. Somehow the statue of Jesus survived the bombing, all except the hands of Jesus. And someone propped a piece of cardboard at the base of the statue with forwards. We are his hands. The hands that that curled into fists, those hands can open again. Those hands can stir a pot. They can, they can write a note. They can, they can hold another hand, they can give generously. And the baton is now placed in our hands a hundred years from now, a hundred years from now. May someone stand here on, on All Saint Sunday and give thanks for the work of our faith. Give thanks for the labor of our love, the generosity of our spirit. Jesus is still saying you, you give him something to eat. Not because he doubts us, but because he trusts us. Amen.