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for All Saints-by-the-Sea, Proper 13, August 3, 2008 In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – Amen. I have a special place in my heart for hospital elevators. It may sound strange because they are very dreary places to be—carrying weary doctors, nurses and families endlessly from floor to floor. But I have a special place in my heart for hospital elevators because of what I have learned while riding in them. I remember the first week of being a hospital chaplain at Bridgeport Hospital. It is an inner-city hospital in Connecticut that I have described before. Located in between New Haven and New York City, Bridgeport is a rusted and burned out city whose heyday passed long ago. P.T. Barnum was once the mayor, and today its many turn-of-the-century brick factories are being overgrown with weeds. The hospital sits on top of a hill overlooking it all. The first day we got a tour of the entire hospital, and we learned all the rules and regulations. It was a fun day. The next day we talked about patient visits and what that would be like. That was a pretty fun day as well. But on the third day, once our fresh hospital badges were printed and we had them around our necks, it was time for us to do what we were there to do. We started to visit the rooms and see patients. On one of those first days I was given the on-call beeper for emergencies. Everybody took turns with this, and on this day it happened to be my turn for the first time. I got paged, and I called the number that appeared on the pager. The nurse said, in a quiet but urgent voice, “There is a family here who needs you to be with them.” That’s all I got. I felt light-headed as I stood up from the desk where I had taken the call in the chaplain room. My shoes felt extra heavy with each step I took across carpeted lobby toward the elevator entrance. When I got into the elevator, I was the only one, and I pressed the button for the floor where the patient’s family was waiting for me. For probably the first time in my life I wished that this elevator ride would take forever. Once those doors would open, I had no idea what I’d be walking into. I didn’t feel ready. You can believe that I prayed heartily to God during this elevator ride. I worried that I did not have anything to offer. I was empty-handed. When I arrived, the nurse guided me to the room quickly and closed the door behind me to leave us alone. At that time I was right to think that I could not have been prepared for what I walked into, but I will save those details. It was a unique and sacred moment for the family. But I will say that an interesting thing happened. I misunderstood something that I had seen, and then closed my eyes to pray and hold hands, which is what they asked for. When I opened my eyes I realized what was really happening was different than I’d thought. But thanks be to God, the words that I prayed were actually the right words for that family at that time, completely in spite of myself. The little that I had, or thought I had, was emptied out, and my open hands were used for what God needed to give that family at that moment. Like Mary, who proclaimed that her soul magnified the Lord, I was merely a window for God, and the emptiness of my hands were in the end a blessing. There were a lot of moments like that in the hospital. Those elevator rides, excruciating though they were, always served to remind me that it wasn’t about me. It’s good to get that reminder. It’s not about us when we are called to minister in moments like these. It’s about God. All ministry comes from God, and anyone who is a minister is “magnifying” God, like Mary who spoke the Magnificat. *** This morning we heard the familiar story of the loaves and fish. The “feeding of the five thousand.” Familiar stories are the hardest to hear sometimes, because we think we already know all there is that happens in them. But let’s look over this story again and notice what we might have glossed over. Jesus is relatively early in his ministry at this time. He has just learned the troubling news of the execution of his friend John who had baptized him. He starts off to find a place where he can be alone, but there are great crowds following him. And he decides, instead of seeking the solitude that he desires, to go ahead and let the crowds stay with him. Jesus is moved by compassion for them, and he heals their sick. And before long it grows close to sundown. Here is where the disciples start to get nervous. They know that there is not enough food to feed the crowds, and perhaps they are worried about what a hungry crowd might do if it were to get impatient. There is urgency in their voices when they suggest that Jesus dismiss the people to go into town and buy something for themselves to eat. Jesus seems crazy to the disciples when he is not worried at all. (Father Stivers has a good observation about what worrying really is, by the way. He says that worrying is temporary atheism!) He then takes the little that they do have, which are just five loaves of bread and two fish and he looks to heaven and gives thanks to God. He breaks the bread and gives it out, and to the amazement of the disciples there is enough food for all, for five thousand men plus women and children, with twelve baskets left over. It seems that Jesus and the disciples had almost nothing to offer to feed the crowd at first, but in the moment when Jesus looked toward heaven and gave thanks to God, everything changed. This, to me, seems to be the very heart of the miracle. *** To really give thanks is a miracle in and of itself. All that we have is gift. That is always the case, but there are times when we are more aware of it – sometimes it’s much more obvious because we go from emptiness to fullness. Our gratefulness at these times connects us to the reality of God Our gratefulness is more than politeness. It is a movement of the heart. It can be in the very miracle of gratefulness and in prayer that we find what is of need, when it’s needed most Parenting has times like that. Friendship certainly does. *** The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word for “thanksgiving.” This miraculous meal that we share is the Great Thanksgiving. When we celebrate Eucharist, our prayer book gives us the same pattern as Jesus at the last supper, which is the same pattern as at the miracle of the loaves and the fish. There are four actions: Jesus takes the elements, gives thanks, breaks them and offering them to others. In our Eucharistic prayer, we do the same four actions: taking, giving thanks, breaking and offering. And through our gratitude, what was formerly just wine and bread becomes much more. It becomes that which nourishes our souls as well as our bodies. When we worry that our hands our empty, as we ride those unbearable hospital elevators of life, we can be reminded that Christ fills our emptiness when we ask him to—when we raise our cupped hands to receive him. Amen.
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