“Remind Us Again, Brave Friend”
Rev. Laura Fitzpatrick-Nager
John 6:1-13
“Remind Us Again, Brave Friend”
Many years ago, I was teaching at UCC Summer camp on Lake Winnipesaukee. I met a man there who, though retired, had been a young activist in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. Over coffee, Dave told me his story of being a Freedom Rider down South in the Summer of 1964. This story has always stayed with me, and it feels timely to share it again with you now.
A young minister from Boston in those days, Dave hopped on a bus with friends to join the protests down South and the fight for the end of Jim Crow and for voting rights for Black Americans.
On this particular day, he’d been rounded up with his fellow marchers and found himself in a jail cell somewhere in Mississippi. “The doors of the cell clanged behind us and we were scared,” Dave remembered.
“The sheriff separated us by color so the white folks like us were pushed into some cells and then the black folks were put into other cells across the hall…as it was a Sunday morning, someone asked me to offer communion and handed me some bread from their sandwich.”
Dave took the bread, blessed it, broke it, gave thanks to all around him. Chunks of bread were passed and folks took a piece and passed it back and forth one to their cellmates. Then, someone found a cup, hands reached across the aisle, water was passed in the cup back and forth through the bars to those people of color imprisoned across the hall. Someone even passed the cup to the sheriff who suddenly appeared
standing there on the other side of the bars. To their amazement, he took a sip and passed it on to the person next to him. No one dared look at him.
The sandwich was eaten, the cup was empty, a song was sung:
We shall overcome, We shall overcome,
we shall overcome some day….
The next thing Dave remembered was hearing the sheriff’s footsteps as he walked back into his office and picked up the phone:
“I’m letting them all go…these kids are too powerful for my jail.”
Would it be so, that all protests led to this kind of communion? Where a little turned into a lot more and multiplied.
Living as we are in a time of diminishment of human rights and what’s been called, “the Outrage Industrial Complex”, I’ve been reading a book by Bishop MaryAnn Budde called, How We Learn to Be Brave.1 (Bishop Budde, you may remember is the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C. and she was the one who made a plea to the President at that famous prayer service.) How We Learn to Be Brave is about not only her own life decisions but those of others who have inspired her to keep going during challenging life moments.
Bishop Budde writes about those decisive times that lead to clarity and then courage, where we “feel summoned to go beyond the borders of life as we know it.”
Those moments don’t just happen but “are almost always preceded by seasons of preparation, and they are followed by an equally important season of alignment, in which we learn to live according to what the decisive moments… set in motion.”
“I am convinced that we all have the capacity to live within a narrative of great adventure, no matter our life circumstances. The courage to be brave when it matters most requires a lifetime of small decisions that set us on a path of self-awareness, attentiveness, and willingness to risk failure for what we believe is right.”
Sometimes those small decisions might involve sharing 5 loaves and two fish with a crowd as our scripture story indicates this morning.
In preparation for today, I googled the word “Brave”, and found lots of magnificent words: Courageous, fearless, valiant, valorous, intrepid, heroic, lionhearted, Bold, daring, daredevilish, adventurous, audacious, undaunted…and plucky.
There’s more:
Unflinching, unshrinking, unafraid, Dauntless, indomitable, Stouthearted, spirited, gallant, venturous, stalwart, resolute, determined, Gutsy, and spunky,
I’m thinking of cutting them up and putting them in a jar to take out a word a day during breakfast time each morning.
In our familiar scripture story (John 6:1-13), the crowd has gathered to hear the healing teacher named Jesus. And the disciples and Jesus (like any good hosts) were necessarily concerned about the practicalities: food!
People don’t listen to one another let alone the teacher when they’re hungry (or as we say in my family, “HANGRY”). We learn that “When Jesus looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” (Jn 6:5)
As the story goes, a little child in the crowd has something to offersome barley loaves and two fish-and brings them to Jesus. A child’s brave contribution set a potluck in motion. Somehow, this simple act of sharing those few items was enough to get the crowd sharing too.
Beyond any social and physical barriers, lines were crossed and everyone was fed.
Not only did the child’s actions bring them to a new place of abundance. but there were leftovers. Twelve baskets’ full!
Jesus seems to have been concerned about this overflow, and
told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” (v 6:12)
So that nothing may be lost. Jesus seems to be paying attention here to what is left-the fragments of the meal. The fragmented hearts around him. Maybe he knows folks will be hungry again soon enough Maybe he knows how long the journey still is ahead of them. Maybe the act of sharing and gathering up again are holy acts of hospitality and restoration.
What does being brave look like to you in your life?
I don’t believe it means we all have to ride the Freedom Flotilla with Greta Thunberg now taken into custody or that one has to be a Freedom Rider or get arrested for standing up against illegal immigration policies or that we all have to show up and protest at a No Kings Day event on October 18th.
I do think it means taking a risk outside of our Comfort Zones
I do believe it means embracing someone who has been othered I trust as a person of faith that it means responding to the Spirit of Love alive in us.
One of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye wrote a poem about the late singer and social activist, Paul Robeson. Bass-baritone Paul Robeson was one of the most popular figures of the 20th century, and also one of the most controversial.During another time of authoritarianism, during the McCarthy Era, Paul Robeson who toured the world with his voice as his livelihood and stood up for injustice, was labeled a communist and had his passport revoked for 8 years. During that time, he planned a concert on the border and performed. Here’s the poem:
Paul Robeson stood on the northern border
of the USA and sang into Canada…
His voice left the USA when his body was not allowed to cross that line.
Remind us again, brave friend. What countries may we sing into? What lines should we all be crossing?
What songs travel toward us from far away to deepen our days?2
Our Breakfast Run took place yesterday and 4 carloads of kids, chaperones, turkey and cheese sandwiches and winter clothing made their way to 28th and 9th Avenue, our assigned street corner. No one can ever predict who will show up, but as on that ancient grassy hillside with Jesus, there are more people than you expect and —there is more than enough of everything (except the donut holes).
Here’s the thing: meals like this one made out of nothing but good will and crusts of bread are exchanged on an ancient grassy hillside or passed through the bars of a jail cell, or offered over coffee in NYC with those living on the street…These stories signal to us that moments of communion and relationship that are not only miraculous when they happen but they are the best of who we can be together on this brave and gutsy, sometimes exhausting and always adventurous journey of faith. It is in this expeditionary work together that we learn to be brave
In our communion service in a few minutes, we’ll re-enact the words Jesus said at the Last Supper.
Do this in memory of me Do this
Feed My people Do this
Free my people
Do this
Stand with the brokenhearted and the banned Do this
Speak up against injustice
Do this.
Amen
**One more thing: I’ve put all the synonyms for brave in the sacred bowl. I invite you at the end of the service today to dip your hand in the sacred bowl and take a word and let it be part of you this week.
1 Mariann Edgar Budde, How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith (2023).
2 Naomi Shabib Nye, Crossing the Line poem.