Give me some proof!

 

I want to start today by playing a little game of make believe.  For a few moments I want you to place yourself into the Gospel lesson that we ready for today.  For just a moment pretend that you are a person in the crowd that was listening to Jesus preach 2,000 years ago.  You have questions about where your life is going, you have questions about what God is doing in your life, and there are many “religious authorities” who all have a different answer to your questions.  A day ago you saw one of these “religious authorities” named Jesus feed you and 5,000 of your closest friends a two-course picnic lunch from just 5 loaves of bread and two fish.  Today, because Jesus gave you a free lunch, you feel obligated to listen to Him teach again.  Today Jesus is telling you that He is the one you should be looking to in order to find your place with God.  He is the one who can give you a relationship of love with your God.  How would you respond to such a claim?

 

Well, the crowd in our Gospel lesson responds by asking Jesus a few questions.  They want Jesus to show them proof that He is who he claims to be.  They ask Jesus, “Jesus, what miraculous sign will you give that we may see it and believe in you?”  In other words, they want Jesus to prove that He can back up His claim to fulfill their needs. 

 

And I don’t blame them for wanting Jesus to prove that He is God’s son and their savior!  I mean how many of you have ever committed yourself to somebody before you first received some proof that this person was worth your commitment?

 

For instance, how many of you have ever entered into a relationship without first doing a little reconnaissance on your prospective mate?  I bet none of you did.  Before you got into relationship you probably first went on a lot of Reconnaissance missions with your future mate (Perhaps you called them dates).  You needed to find certain things out about your mate before you gave him or her your heart.  Are they clean?  Can you talk to them?  Will they let you go fishing whenever you want?  You needed proof that your prospective mate would not take your heart, throw it on the floor and dance all over it. 

 

Our faith in Jesus Christ is no different.  He is asking for our very hearts, souls, and minds.  And so you can probably understand why the crowds asks Jesus, “What miraculous signs will you give that we may see it and believe in you.” 

 

But Jesus does not give the crowd a miracle (heck he gave them one a day ago, and that didn’t seem to be enough for them).  Instead, Jesus says that He is the bread of life and asks them to simply believe in Him.  In other words, He asks them not to have faith in simply the miracles that He performs, but to have faith in Him, period.  He wanted the crowd to stop putting their energy into looking for miracles and start putting their energy into trusting His promise that He has already brought them into a relationship with God. 

 

And this is a very difficult thing to do.  As I mentioned earlier it is not in our nature to put our trust in something or somebody without a little bit of proof that our investment is a trustworthy one.  I had a conversation the other day with one of our youth.  She said that she did not know if she believed in God (she gave me permission go share this conversation).  She said that she has never seen God.  God has never spoken to her in a booming voice, and she has never witnessed a miracle, so what does she have to base her faith on?  Perhaps, though, her search for proof, and all of our searches for proof will eventually makes us frustrated enough to look for God in the not-so-miraculous and not-so-obvious events of our lives.  In other words, perhaps it is when we frustratingly begin asking Jesus why He won’t make Himself blatantly obvious to us that we will finally be willing to see Him where His presence is not so obvious. 

 

So what in the world do I mean by that?  I’d like to tell you a fishing story from my youth that illustrates this point.  When I was 13 I was just getting interested in fishing.  The month of May had come in Montana and it was just getting warm enough for a few fishing trips.  But even though the weather in Montana is good for fishing in May the spring run off from the mountains makes fishing nearly impossible.  The rivers turn chocolate milk brown and they get very high and dangerous.  But difficult conditions do not stop a 13 year old kid who really really wants to go fishing.  So my mom, my brother, and one of our friends went out one day to fish the high muddy river.  As soon as we got to the river my mom kindly told us that we weren’t going to catch anything and she would be in the car with her book.  My friend and my brother decided to throw rocks in the water rather than waste their time dunking worms.  I was a little upset since we came to fish and nobody seemed to want to fish anymore. 

 

So I went down to the river with my worms and started to cast.  I didn’t get anything, and I knew that I probably wouldn’t, but I did not want to come back to the car and hear everybody tell me, “I told you so.”  So I prayed to God.  I said “God, if you will give me one fish… even a little one to show these guys that would be great!”  On my next cast I threw my worm behind a rock, and as soon as that worm hit the water my line took off for the middle of the stream.  10 minutes later I was walking to the car holding a 15 inch brown trout.  I had experienced a miracle and I was vindicated. 

 

A few months later after the mud had left the water and the river was a bit calmer we all went fishing again.  I was getting skunked for the first half of the day and everybody else was catching fish, so I figured that if I prayed again, God would hook me up and I would not go fish-less.  So I prayed, and then proceeded to go another few hours without a bite.  I was somewhat angry and frustrated with God, and I told him that I would do it on my own.  So instead of waiting for another miracle I decided to switch flies to a wooly bugger (a fly I had never tried before).  I ended the day with more than 10 trout on my line!  God withheld a miracle from me that day, but he gave me something much more.  He challenged me to try something new and gave me new insights and tools that I could use later in life to catch more fish.  In hindsight, I’d say that was quite miraculous.

 

In two short months I experienced God as the miracle worker and as one who withheld a quick miracle.  In other words I saw God as one who would not allow me to simply know Him in the miraculous events in my life, but also in the times that are frustrating and challenging.   

When the crowd asked Jesus for a miracle the only thing Jesus gave them was His promise to be the bread that would fill their hunger.  He gave them no miracle.  He knew that at some point their faith in him would have to whether those times when the miracles simply do not come.  He knew that at some point, their trust in Him and His promise to take them as his own would have to be so strong that it could endure moments when He appears far off, or even absent. 

 

That is the faith that Christ desires to give to us.  He calls us to find him in our lives not only at those moments that are full of light and hope and love and miracles, but also at those moments that are full of darkness, and sadness and despair.  Christ knows that we will experience both light and darkness, hope and despair, and He loves us too much to allow us to look for him only in the light.  He challenges us to see Him in the darkness as well.  Life is occasionally miraculous and it is occasionally void of miracles.  Christ has promised to be ours during both occasions.  Jesus gives us the miracle of being owned by Him and claimed by Him when there are no other miracles around.

 

So to that young lady with whom I shared a conversation, I would like to say that God loves us too much to give us faith that sees Him only in the miraculous parts of our lives.  He gives us faith that sees Him in every part of our lives.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.