Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 28, 2025

Sermon

Camille Cook Howe
Pastor

Psalm 45
Mark 6:30–44

I saw a T-shirt this week that had a compass on it. The top had an N for North, the bottom an S for South, a W on the left side of the shirt for West, and on right side of the shirt where you expect to find an E there was the word LAKE. A month ago, I would not have understood this shirt at all — this is Chicago humor! For those of you watching online or not from these parts, apparently Lake Michigan is always east in Chicago, and this is how we orient ourselves: north, south, west, and lake.

When I lived in Oxford, I said to a friend I was going down to London for a job interview. This British friend informed me that one never goes down to London. London is always up! Always. It is easy to be disoriented in new places and spaces, and I know because most of my last two weeks in this building have been a case of physical disorientation as people say words of strange places like “I’ll be in the Loggia” or “let’s meet at Gratz or go to Bumpus”! Eventually I will know what this all means and where and to what or whom these names refer, but for now I’m highly dependent on others to show me the way.

I think about the experience of disorientation for those who are new to the church and, specifically, new to the Christian faith. It is not just when do you sit versus stand or what do you say and when do you say it. It is also about how to be oriented to the beliefs of Christianity. When you hear a story like the one we just read about Jesus taking five loaves and two fish and turning those meager offerings into enough food for 5,000 hungry people, how do you orient yourself to a story like that? How do you orient yourself to the person of Jesus, with his ancient customs and his nontraditional teachings and his miraculous acts? If you grew up hearing in Sunday School the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes, then this story might just wash over you as another display of the power of Jesus. If you heard this story for the first time today, though, you might have follow-up questions. We really should all have follow-up questions!

How did he do it? Why did he do it? What does it mean that he did it? Why did he have the disciples hunt around for scraps instead of just making the food appear? And lastly, what did they do with the leftovers? When confronted with these stories, we can be disoriented as we contemplate the person of Jesus and as we contemplate the existence of and the relationship to our Creator.

Before the arrival of Jesus, the people of God needed directions — someone to show them the way to God and how to be oriented in the world. And Jesus was the answer. The arrival of Jesus into the world fixed the broken compass of humanity. Jesus arrived, and people could fix their eyes on him as the way and the truth and the life. Jesus reoriented the world.

There are a whole lot of people who feel disoriented right now. They are disoriented by life and its ups and downs. They are disoriented by the news and how they feel things are going. They are disoriented by the pace of change. They are disoriented by their lack of connections with others. They are disoriented by not feeling rooted and grounded in lives of faith and meaning. They are disoriented by health challenges, financial concerns, and new stages of life.

Fortune magazine last year had an article titled “Bible Sales Soar as Anxieties Spike.” It starts, “While the book industry as a whole is flat so far this year, sales of Bibles are red-hot.” The article said that booksellers say the demand is coming both from spiritually curious people and people who already own one or more Bibles and are looking to expand their collection. Walker Hayes, a country singer whom I like, has a new song titled “Bible Sales Are Up,” and the refrain goes:

Bible sales are up.

People are searchin’.

Lord, I bet your ears are burnin’.

People are turnin’ to turnin’ his pages,

tired of lookin’ for hope in hopeless places.

Guess the good news at rock bottom is …

Bible sales are up.

Seasons of anxiety do force people to ask big questions and to try to find meaning in the midst of chaos. That is true for us today, and it was true for the people in the time of Jesus.

When Jesus was in the midst of the tired disciples and the hungry crowds, he performed an act of reorientation. Matthew says, “Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves.” Jesus looked up to heaven to remind others where the blessings were coming from and Jesus looked up to heaven to keep himself connected to God in the midst of the commotion around him. Jesus was pointing people to God in the food he provided, in the community he shaped, in the prayers he said, in the love he expressed — all pointing towards God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

A retired Presbyterian minister once told me that when facing a complicated decision or tough situation he usually would go to sleep and then quickly wake up again in order to spend several hours doing what he said was his favorite pastime: stewing. Stewing, he said, involved thinking and planning and worrying, but after a period of stewing, eventually he would remember to pray. He would remember to be oriented towards God, and that was the only thing that was actually productive in the middle of the night. This humble confession made me feel better about the pace of reorientation, because sometimes it can take time and missteps and wrong turns to find our way to God’s path.

And that is why the church has an important role to play. People are wandering around looking for direction, and the church can help by telling the stories of Jesus clearly, by welcoming the follow-up questions about faith, by modeling love and forgiveness and hope in our midst, and, of course, by providing for the needs of God’s people, both spiritual and physical. All these things point people to God.

I don’t know if this is just lore, but it was said that Billy Graham arrived in a small town to preach, and he asked a boy directions to the post office. The boy told him, and Graham thanked him. Graham said in parting, “If you come to the Baptist church tonight, I will tell you the way to get to heaven.” The boy said, “No thanks, you don’t even know your way to the post office.”

Whether or not that is a true story, I think the point about being good tour guides is a worthy one. If you are new to the faith, you really have to hope someone will show you what to do. And if you have been around the faith for a long time, then you hope to be able to give someone directions when asked. How would you feel if someone asked you about Jesus? Or if they asked you if you believed in the miracles? Or if someone asked you if you really believed in God? Or if they asked you about heaven and salvation? Would you feel honored to be entrusted with the questions, or would you immediately panic and look for an exit?

Jesus included the disciples in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, and I am fairly certain that was intentional. Jesus wanted them to be part of it. Jesus wanted them to know how to take care of people and how to share the faith with others. Jesus wanted them to know they could use what they had, meager though it may be, and it would be enough to reorient people towards God.

Whenever we welcome new members into the church, we welcome them into the shared ministry of the work of being tour guides. Each of us in our various places where we live and work and spend our days has a role to play to helping others find their way. Some will use words to do so. Some will use deeds to do so. All of us will use heart to do so.

There are only two miracle stories that are in all four of the Gospels: the feeding of the 5,000 and the resurrection of Jesus. The four Gospel writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John — all tell this story of the hungry people being fed by Jesus and his disciples. All four Gospels’ writers include the details of the remarkable numbers of people who were fed and sustained and saved by the work of Jesus and his disciples. Five thousand hungry people were fed on that day on the green grass by the lake. Can you imagine how many times those people told the story about the way Jesus lifted his head to the heavens, about the way the food never ran out, and about how it felt to be in the presence of the Holy One? Those 5,000 people would spend the rest of their lives telling the good news of Jesus Christ: they were strangers but Jesus welcomed them; they were hungry but Jesus fed them; they were lost and Jesus showed them the way.

Thanks be to God!

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church