One of the things I do as a Pastor is teach the Bible to members of our congregation. If you look at my other preaching and teaching duties that means that I am seriously studying three or four different passages of Scripture every week. The characters and teaching in these passages weave in and out of my consciousness during the week and often lead to insights and comparisons that I find reveal even
more about our relationship to God than any of the individual passages bring to my awareness.

The Bible according to the ELCA constitution is “the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of [our] proclamation, faith, and life. (Section 4.03 of the Sierra Pacific Synod Congregation) For us as a people of God that means that Scripture should provide the guiding principles for not only our teaching and preaching, but should be of first importance in the decisions we make as a church body and in our daily lives as well. Because of this everyone who is a disciple of Jesus, and especially our leadership, should be constantly engaged in Bible study both in a group and a personal setting. It is like our constitution tells us, it is a living source that enriches our personal relationship with Jesus and enables our growth in faith as well.

The importance of this connection to God through Scripture really came alive for me as I moved through this last week, planning a proposed budget with the council for next year, while trying to be realistic about our budgetary shortfalls for this year.

In our Sunday Bible study we worked through the passage in Matthew where Jesus feeds the 5000. First he asks the disciples to do something, much like he has asked us to “Make Disciples.” Their first response was shock. I can see them responding; “You want us to feed them? We have only five loaves and two fishes, that is hardly enough for our own dinner.” This is a shortfall of massive proportions, and the disciple’s response is pretty predictable. In the years I have worked in the church both as a pastor and a layperson I have even heard the same words coming from my own mouth. The Mission Jesus has called us to do is indeed overwhelming. You might even go so far as to say it is impossible. But the lesson of this passage is simple. Our resources, freely given, plus the presence of Christ in our midst is always equal to the task if we will give first and worry later.

That is a simple restatement of the Biblical principle of first fruits giving. The real insight this week came on Tuesday morning when I taught the Bible study on Hebrews. We were in the 11th chapter where we find the famous Biblical definition of faith. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. (Hebrews 11:1-2)

The rest of the chapter is example after example of the faith of the great men and women of the Old Testament, people who left their homes, lead large groups of people through the desert not knowing how they were to survive, endured persecution, risked death and all for the love of God, trusting in God’s promise, a promise most of them never saw truly fulfilled in their lifetime. All of a sudden I really began to see where all of this was going in a new way. Faith always involves two elements which make all of us very uncomfortable, Risk and Uncertainty. Doing God’s will, responding to God’s call as a people of God, a Church, just like Moses or Abraham setting out for the promised land, will always involve risk and uncertainty. That is what walking by faith is all about. Jesus asking his disciples to accept the risk and uncertainty of sharing their dinner was a small act of faith when you compare it to Abraham leaving his home or Moses facing down Pharaoh to free his people only to spend the next forty years with them trusting in God for the very food they ate to finally reach the promised land.

Jesus fed two large groups of people in the Gospel of Matthew, and each time someone had to give up their dinner in order for Jesus to be able to meet a greater need. We, too, need to enter the place of risk and uncertainty, to walk in faith. Maybe if we all are willing to give up a couple of things we will grow in faith and our relationship with God, and our concern for budget shortfalls will be the same kind of memory the disciples shared when they thought about five loaves and two fishes.

Pastor Jim Bliss
May 2008