Pentecost 9

Pentecost 9 (John 6:1-21)  “It is I, do not be afraid.”

Fear kills.

Fear paralyzes action and clouds judgment. That is why those who wish to rule over people master the art of fear. Fear is one of three major spiritual distortions that result from Original Separation from God. The other two major spiritual distortions are pride (hubris) and self-will ( the will to power). This triad of distortion emerges from the pain of original separation from God.

God the Father designed our species according to the pattern of God the Son by the presence in this material universe of God the Holy Spirt. That design follows the three fold pattern of Love.

The Father designed us a unity manifesting in diversity. The original pattern of humanity is that we are one with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In that unity we are a community of distinct personalities who are interdependent with each other. And, we were created to hold the various aspects of our being- reason, will, emotion…,body, mind and spirit in a harmonious whole.

Adam and Eve’s choice to separate from God in order to acquire the divine attributes of knowledge and power shattered the three fold unity of our original design. Original separation produces original pain- a deeply embedded all pervasive fear that we are lost in a meaningless random universe. Pride is a defense against the despair of original pain. Pride and despair are opposite poles of the  same power at work in our souls. Self- will, which is the will to power, is the action of a soul lost in separation attempting to defend  itself from fear.

Now, a modicum of fear is prudent in our fallen world. Fear can alert us to danger and initiate the three fold strategy of self- defense. That three -fold strategy of self- defense is aggression, submission and withdrawal.  The defense and the strategy all proceed from the place of separation. They are not part of the original design for our species. They are spiritual processes that produce feelings that impel actions. The Bible is a record of how those actions subvert God’s Plan and Purpose for our lives.

In the Gospel reading this morning we see how fear produces scarcity in our societies and despair among individuals.  God created a world of rich abundance. People take that abundance and distort it into scarcity. Jesus, the pattern of abundance,  reminded the people of his time and of our time that God is abundance. Where even the disciples of Jesus saw only the minimum resource available to them Jesus perceived the pattern of abundance.

The pattern of abundance is compassion. The Bible is very clear. There is more than enough in this world for everyone to live well if and as we live from the place of divine love. There is never enough if we live from the distortions of original separation.

The little boy in the story shows the way. He shares. He shares from the place of kindness and compassion. As is frequently the case in scripture, God invites the poorest, the most marginalized and the least respected people to bring forth his plan of salvation. God chooses the people most open to the plan of original blessing.

Sadly, the record of Biblical history is that the people least open to the plan of original blessing are those who use fear to manipulate and control people. It is the political, economic and religious elites who are most tenaciously lost in separation, fear, self-will and pride.

The little boy saw the need and in his own limited way simply offered his meager resources to meet the need. His compassion, his kindness and his faith opened the spiritual portals of divine abundance into the material world through Jesus.

Jesus took the boy’s meager lunch. He blessed it. He gave thanks. He lifted it up into the embrace of the Holy undivided Trinity, into the superabundance of eternal love. Then, he distributed the food from the very source and center of abundance. There was now more than enough for all to eat. In fact, there was more food left over than what he had at the  beginning.

Starvation is the great scandal of our species. In a world of abundance human beings work very hard to distort abundance into scarcity, poverty and starvation. This is not the original blessing. This not the Father’s Plan of Creation. This is not the Son’s Plan of Salvation.

Fear always subverts the blessing.

Despite the miracle the disciples witnessed and participate in, they still lived from the place of fear. John, who was there as the youngest of the inner circle of the disciples, remembered what happened later that day. He remembered and he very honesty recorded for us that the disciples encountered a storm. In that storm they reverted to fear. Despite the miracle Jesus had performed the disciples remained lost in a belief that the universe is random, unpredictable and fearful.

For souls lost in separation from God, fear is the default reaction to life. With that fear comes the strategies to cope with fear. Aggression- interpersonal conflict and international wars. Submission: giving one person or one small group of people absolute control in hope they will protect us. Withdrawal- an escape into entertainment, pleasure or the spiritual but not religious self- indulgence of just giving up on the process of life.

Jesus is the very pattern of the original blessing of the original design of the universe, our planet, our species and each of us as individual personalities. His actions in the miracle of the feeding of the Five Thousand reveal and manifest the pattern of divine abundance working through and with ordinary, even inconsequential, individuals.

Jesus is the Father’s answer to fear.

He is the answer to fear in the words: it is I.