Running

I can be a pretty horrible person.  I can be selfish and petty, impatient and entitled.  I can make the world not even see a glimpse of Jesus.  It is wrong and really embarrassing to admit, but it is true.

Not long ago, I was picking up my son's from school.  I usually walk up to the school, but if it is a "rainy day dismissal" I use the drive thru to pick them up.  If it is raining the car pick up line seems to be thousands of miles long, and slow.  It takes a near eternity to turn right onto the street that the elementary is on, and can bring me to a VERY dark place of frazzled nerves, murmured obscenities and over exaggerated sighing.  Maybe you have been there as a mom...maybe I am the only one.  On this particular day, as the pick up line slowly snaked along, and I waited desperately to turn right in the pouring rain to get my kiddos, the movement came to an abrupt halt...a car was not moving forward.  Minutes passed, and the gap between the stopped car and those who were moving (much faster than before it seemed) grew and grew.  I began to sigh...deep, long, exaggerated sighs.  I began to say out loud, "Go around!  Just go around!  Honk or go around!"  I may have even slammed my hand on the steering wheel a time or two...maybe.  Then, finally, it happened.  A car went around the stopped car.  Then another followed, and we were back in business!  Hallelujah and praise the Lord!  I turned right, drove around the stopped car and got my well deserved place in the moving line.

Something is wrong here.  Isn't it?

In the next second my heart was pounding.  I hear loudly from the ever present Jesus,

What if something is wrong in the car...

What if someone is sick...

What if they have had a heart attack...

What if their car won't start...

In a moment I am running a heart pounding, rain drenching, embarrassing, chubby, almost-forty-year-old run to a car back behind me.  I was pounding on the window of an SUV as a woman did not move inside.  Cars are passing me by.  I am pounding again.  I am pounding again.  I don't know what to do.  I am scared.  And then...she wakes up, and we both laugh really hard.  She says, "Thank You.", and that she is embarrassed.  And I jog in the rain back to my car as the others pass me by one by one.

I am crying.  How could I be so insensitive?

The other Sunday at church, a little girl in front of us, all of a sudden, went limp.  Her father picked up her lifeless body in a panic, and began the hurried exit of the church.  As he moved with his pale daughter hanging in his arms, people moved out of his way and kept on worshipping.  He carried her out the exit, and I stood, frozen as they left the worship center with a child dangling in some unknown.  I shoved my husband into the aisle, and went outside.  There was the child on the floor, her mother and father, my husband and myself.  No one else had followed, no one alerted the congregation, no one called for a doctor.  The people just kept on worshipping Jesus...

The girl began to vomit thankfully, and my husband grabbed a plant out of a pot so she could throw up in it.  An elderly gentleman and two old ladies came to help...that part was beautiful.  I ran to get wet paper towels, and asked two men to help find maintenance or call for a doctor.  They said that it looked to them like there were plenty of people helping, and they didn't budge.  I was shaken, and running to get paper towels.  Furious.  Sad.  Heart Sick and running to get wet paper towels wanting to scream. 

I would bring them to the small group of people, the mom and dad, the sick girl, three wonderful strangers and my husband.  We would wash the girl's face, clean vomit off the floor and no one else would come. 

I was crying.

Something was so very wrong with this picture.

Matthew 14: 13-21 is the story of Jesus feeding the 5000.  What a crazy day that must have been!  Jesus has been healing the sick people in the crowd all day, and it is a BIG crowd.  Evening is closing in, and the disciples tell Jesus to send the crowd away so the people will have time to go buy food.  Jesus tells His disciples that the people don't have to leave, and the disciples should feed them.  When the disciples explain that they only have five loaves and two fish, Jesus asks them to bring Him the food.

"And he directed the people to sit down on the grass.  Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves.  Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people.  They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketful of broken pieces that were left over.  The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children." Matthew 14:19-21 NIV

Where I have hung out lately is verse 19.  Jesus gives the food to the disciples, and the disciples hand it out among the people.  Their job has become to meet an immediate need by handing out food.  They pick up the food from Jesus, and get it to the 5000 people.  There is no major plan to enact...just a need to be met.  I have wondered what this story would look like if some of the disciples had felt like there were plenty of people around to help, and had decided to stand back and do nothing.  I have wondered what would have happened if the disciples had gotten annoyed that Jesus had not listened to them, and had sat down criss-cross-applesauce, and let someone else do the task at hand.  Someone typically will rise to the occasion, but then they are left running.  What if only one disciple had volunteered for bread and loaves duty...he would have been running back and forth, back and forth till he fell over.

This is no way to feed the masses.

You see, we are The Body of Christ.  We are supposed to be the ones stopping at all costs to meet the needs placed before us.  We are supposed to be helping and loving others, and making sure that they're OK.  The world knows what Jesus' expectations were, "Love your neighbor as yourself..."(Matthew 22:36-40), and they watch us selfishly scream, "Go Around!"  It is not supposed to be this way.

In Matthew 14:21 we find out 5000 men were fed that day with Jesus.  Jesus provided the miracle of an abundance of food, but His disciples were still expected to pitch in and do the legwork of getting the miracle of provision to the people.  We still live with this same expectation from Jesus...to do our part no matter how busy, comfortable, in-a-hurry, tired, annoyed or impatient we are feeling.  Our job is not to honk horns, but to get out of cars.  We are not to make room for people to pass by, but to walk beside them into the unknown.  We are not to send people away because it is getting dark, but to provide what they need and maybe grab a flashlight or two. 

When we all are working together, no one is worn out by the constant task of serving the crowds alone.  When everyone is doing their part no one is standing in long lines waiting on food.  Instead, they are able to sit refreshed and be served by those who have already seen and known that God is good.  What are we waiting on?  There are people everywhere , and abundance to be shared...maybe some love, maybe some bread, maybe a knock on a window in the pouring rain, or a few wet paper towels...The everyday miracle is waiting.  Grab some loaves and fishes...there are people everywhere...and they are hungry.