You Feed Them.

Download the sermon: (mp3)
Play the sermon now: (listen now)

You Feed Them.
Date:	10-28-2010
Description:	Jesus' command to feed the poor....
Key words:	jesus,mark,hunger,feed
Pastor :	Megan Rohrer
Sermon :	SPS Synod Hunger Group
Scripture :	Mark 6:23

Sermon: Jesus brings the peanut butter and jelly!

Push the play button (triangle) above to listen to the sermon.
Date: 08-02-2009
Description: Sermon at Bethlehem Lutheran in Oakland 8-2-09. About the history and call for giving away food that perishes in churches, urban sharing and the current economy....
Scripture :John 6:24-35

Proper 13B/Ordinary 18B/Pentecost 9

Urban Share

Garden made from used pallets and milk crates

John 6:1-21

Jesus feeds 5000. A pretty spectacular story that if you've heard it a million times before may lose it's power. And with all the stories of miraculous healings and bringing people back from the dead, we may have already put this story in the category of things that God(dess) could do, but we could not.

But what if we could do it too? Two Saturdays a month we feed more than 200 and we only spend $600 a year on food. How is that possible? Well, we simply let people who have more than their daily bread, know there were others who were going without. And they bring their extra bread (actually they serve restaurant quality meals that are better than I eat at home).

At the Welcome Ministry, we use a philosophy that I call Urban Share. Urban Share is founded in the belief that we have all the supplies that we need, we just have to share it and communicate our needs to others.

Using this model of Urban Share we are working on a community garden project to enable churches and other organizations to create gardens to grow food, learn about hunger and meet the need that is so much more than a need for daily bread. Working with local gardening activists we have learned that it is possible to create raised bed, sidewalk, rooftop and lot gardens virtually for free by recycling materials that are common in urban environments.

Now we are working on connecting gardeners with organizations to teach them how to use the space and things they have around them to produce food for those in need in their communities.

Join our movement! Help us create connections, to fund this program, to reach out to more organizations and churches. Let's use Jesus' ability to feed large groups of people with the resources he found around him and his commandment from Mark "You go feed them" and go and do likewise.

Call to action- Help us feed 5000: The Welcome Ministry plans to feed an additional 5000 people this year, but we need your help. We will be growing produce in community gardens. How? Send us seed! Please send us one or more packets of seed (to grow food) in the mail along with your prayers - we will use your seeds to grow food and feed 5000.

Send seeds and prayers to:
The Welcome Minsitry
1751 Sacramento St.
San Francisco CA 94109

Proper 12B/Ordinary 17B/Pentecost 8

Sermon: Sheepdog's Tale- Don't Wait for Help

To play click the triangle above.
Date: 07-19-2009
Description: The text is cropped to say that we should all take a vacation, but hunger, health care and the needs of the world can't wait. Jesus' response: You feed them. Learn some ordinary and extraordinary ways you can help with hunger in your community
Pastor: Rev. Megan Rohrer
Congregation: St. Francis Lutheran Church
Scripture : Mark 6:30-34, 53-56; Psalm 23

You give them something to eat!

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

When the lectionary cuts out an important story in the middle of the text it does a disservice to the story and to those who hear it! Jesus' command that the disciples feed those gathered is an important part of this story. This cut out story seems to be the script that many people have today about why the poor should help themselves. Yet Jesus responds, despite the cost: "You give them something to eat" (v. 37).

Don't argue about how they got here, if they should have planned better, about how much it will cost or if it will split the church. Just feed them!

In much of my work with those living in poverty or who are homeless it has often felt like the obvious thing to do is just staring everyone in the face:
People without homes -- give them homes
people without food --- give them food
people with out clothes --- give them clothes
people without health care --- give them health care

You can see where I'm going with this. And I can hear the questions now: but what if they use it for bad purposes? Or what if they just waste it (after all if they were able to use things appropriately they wouldn't be in this space now)?

Perhaps. But people living in emergency situations, don't have the privilege of time to figure out what your budget should look like, if there is a better way to use the money or the color of the carpet in the room where the service happens.

Perhaps giving people the basic needs that are required for a healthy life may lead some people to be able to make choices we wouldn't condone. But thankfully, when I'm given my paycheck each week no one asks me how healthy the groceries I will buy are or if I will get any exercise this week before they give me my check.


No, we seem to want to control other people choices, but don't want people to control our own choices. If you have money you can choose from so many different types of milk that there is an entire aisle of milk. But, those who do not have money we seek to take away what little choices they do have (for fear they'll make a poor decision).

I happen to believe that giving people the things they need to be healthy is what we ought to do. We can't know or control what people will do with the things we give them. But that doesn't mitigate our very real responsibility to share what we have, with those who have less. And I find that when we do, those in very real need - more often than not- will use what we have shared in appropriate ways.

At WELCOME this is our mission. And we have a huge increase in the number of people who are begging for food right now. Help us to meet the growing need. Jesus commanded us to feed them. If you can please support our work, or volunteer so that we don't have to turn anyone away.

Proper 11B/Ordinary 16B/Pentecost 7

Hunger is not a metaphor!

I'm preaching two services on Sunday: 11am at St. Francis and 6pm at Grace Cathedral

Since I'll be at an Episcopal service in the afternoon, I thought I'd talk about the Episcopal Psalm Reading: Psalm 22:24-30

I happen to like the entire Psalm and wish that it was read together. Note the omission of verse 31 which proclaims "deliverance to a people yet unborn." Such a beautiful promise. We can't even imagine the things that God(dess) can and will do in the world.

And yet the promise that the poor shall eat and be satisfied (v.26) seems to be beyond our grasp. So often preachers turn promises of hunger being filled into metaphors about a spiritual reality. The Psalmist, like Isaiah, seems to get it that we all are equal in our need to eat food. We all have stomachs. Regardless of what we eat and if we ever get to feel full, we all require nutrients to live. In a world with so much to grumble about - there seems to be nothing more consistently biblical than people grumbling at God(dess) - God(dess) promises that we will be satisfied.

The feeling of satisfaction is not one we get very often. In a world where bigger, better and faster is just around the corner it's no wonder that popular musicians proclaim: "I can't get no, satisfaction." That could be our modern day mantra.

And yet God(dess)'s constant refrain of "peace, be still" continuously meets our perpetual "not enough" space. Stop and smell the flowers. Stop and notice the satisfaction of a meal you eat. The taste and texture are meant to be enjoyed. And in all the moments that we truly do not have "enough," or the privledge to reflect we can remember the promise of what is coming.

It is our obligation to confront those who are content to let biblical promises of satisfying hunger and God(dess)'s groining for justice become metaphors (another way of saying permission to not act).

Whiners get Bread from Heaven? I will Go and Do Likewise!

Exodus 16:2-15
What is the lesson from this text? Can it really be that if you whine to God(dess) you will get what you want? Perhaps. Lutherans believe that we always get more from God(dess) than we deserve - this is grace.

While there is a part of me that cautions against the simplistic understanding that if you pray for things you will get them like a genie waiting to provide wealth and fortune, if you but believe. While I do have had powerful experiences in my own life and in those I love of times when prayer heals bones, mends broken lives, heals addiction and other diseases, I also know a number of very faithful people who have prayed mightily and have not found relief from what plagues them.

It is too easy to say just pray harder, or that prayer doesn't work if you don't believe "enough." My Lutheran charisms always remind me that I am never "enough" for the "more than enough" that I get from God(dess).

I think this text and many of the angriest Psalms give us a better idea than prayer. Our God(dess) promises to be for justice, and yet sometimes we need to yell, scream and whine at God(dess) to help God(dess) remember and honor those promises.

This means we need to be yelling, screaming, whining advocates for justice on earth, not only in our prayer lives, but in our sermons, our letters and our interactions with those in power.

The Exodus text tells us that we must whine as we advocate to end hunger (our own and our neighbors).

If you pair this reading with the Philippians (1:20-30) we have good reason to believe that this whining, screaming and yelling can also be applied to our physical needs, our health and wholeness in our bodies. Certainly, the physical distractions that make it hard for people to be able to think, pray and advocate for themselves are issues that we need to care about as Christians if we want to help are neighbor be able to live a life that is worthy of the Gospel.

Note that I arguing that we make it possible for others to live the life they believe is worthy of the Gospel. I am not saying that we need to tell our neighbor what that means for them. As a community of faithful we can hold each other accountable, but ultimately we are better off when others have freedom (free for and free from their neighbor).

Lectionary Cycle B: Proper 20A/Ordinary 25A/Pentecost +19