Daredevil Duck, Part 5

This is part of a series of posts that are a sermon I preached at Milton United Methodist Church on July 25.  The sermon was based on Ephesians 3:14-21 and John 6: 1-21.  

Think back to the story of the Daredevil Duck.  What motivated him to step out – even in fear?  The idea of helping someone else.  And doing that changed him into a real Daredevil – his fear was overcome.

Douglas John Hall, as he was writing about the miracle of Jesus walking on the water, says, “What is truly awe-inspiring is not that someone could walk on the surface of water without sinking, but that his presence among, ordinary, insecure, and timid persons could calm their anxieties and cause them to walk where they feared to walk before -  in the end, all the way to their own Golgothas.”

Think back to that church meeting one more time.  How would the outcome be different if we remembered three things:

1. That Jesus asks us, every day – How will you feed my people?  This is our purpose as a church.  This is our call as disciples.
2. That we have everything we need.  We have each other and we have God in our lives.  Our lives and our churches are full of abundant blessings, if we would only see them.
3. That we do not need to be afraid.  Jesus is the I AM, and in him a new miracle happens every day – we step out of the boat and leave our fear behind.

How would we be changed if we remembered our call as disciples, if we saw the abundance around us and stopped being afraid? How would we be changed if we would just climb out on the branch, like Daredevil Duck did, and help someone else?  How would the world be changed if we stepped out of the boat and walked on the water?

My prayer for you comes from Ephesians: I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.