What's Possible?

Each one of us wakes up every day of our lives with assumptions about what’s possible and what’s not possible.

What would life be like if we were able to expand our vision of what’s possible? If we were to open ourselves up to new possibilities? Would that make a difference in how we live our lives?

These days, we spend much of our time at our cottage on the Gatineau River . One of the highlights of our day is having breakfast on the dock. Often, as we’re eating, the paddlers from the local paddling club will be training on the river in front of us. And for years we’ve watched as one paddler in particular, a little girl named Sophia, paddle her canoe in front of us. You could always pick her out, because she was really good, strong and fast. Even as a little girl she had a dream of paddling in the Olympics, and you could see how hard she trained. There was just one problem. Canoe sprints at the Olympics was a men-only event. It just wasn’t possible for her to achieve her dream.

That could have been devastating for a young athlete like Sophia. But she had a bigger vision of what was possible, and she just kept right on training. And finally, for the first time, women’s canoe sprints were added to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. And Sophia, who at 22 years old is no longer a little girl, she’ll be competing for Canada in the women’s C-1 event in Paris in a little over a week.

What might change in your life if you were able to expand your vision of what’s possible?

Our gospel reading today is all about expanding our vision of what’s possible. It’s about moving us from a mentality of scarcity to a mentality of abundance. And that’s a move that we need to make. We’re surrounded by the mentality of scarcity, in fact, you could even say that scarcity is the engine that drives our capitalist economy. How many ads have you seen trying to convince you that you really need something you don’t have? That life would be better if only you could have this or that? How many Instagram posts have you seen of people having more fun than you, doing things that you’d do if only you had more time or money. These are the signs of a scarcity mentality. But God doesn’t want us to live in scarcity. Jesus told us he came so that we could have life, and have it abundantly. Every Sunday we conclude our worship by marvelling that God’s power working in us can do more than we can ask or imagine. But do we believe it?

When Jesus sees the crowd that gathers in front of him, he has compassion for them, for as the gospel tells us, they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he teaches them, and then, when the day gets late, and the crowd starts to get hungry, he wants to feed them. Jesus recognizes this as a teachable moment for the disciples. So he draws them in. He asks Philip, “where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” But Philip doesn’t see any possibility, and you can hardly blame him. “Six months wages wouldn’t be enough to buy bread for all these people.”

Then Andrew, another of the disciples, opens things up, just a crack. “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.” Do you hear the difference? One responds “it’s impossible”. The other answers, “here’s a possibility.” It’s not that Andrew can foresee what Jesus will do, he still knows that five loaves and two fish are only a tiny bit of food for such a crowd. But at least he’s willing to say, “hey, here’s a start”. And let’s not forget the boy, who must have overheard Jesus’ question and is willing to offer up his lunch. Sometimes doing the impossible starts when we’re generous with whatever it is we have. But it’s hard to be generous with what we have, if we’re worried about whether we’ve got enough. That’s one of the reasons that we need to move from a mentality of scarcity to one of abundance.

Jesus then takes things to a whole new level, from an expanded vision of what’s possible to the truly miraculous, from the boy’s generous mentality of abundance to what we might call super-abundance, grace upon grace, which is the posture of God towards us. Not only is there enough food for all, there are twelve baskets of leftovers collected at the end of the meal.

What would life be like if we were able to expand our vision of what’s possible? What would change if we were to view life through the lens of abundance rather than scarcity? Would you live differently? Would we as a church community live differently?

You know, I have to say that a few years ago, as we wrestled with the pandemic and the future of this parish, we had something of a scarcity mentality in this community. We weren’t sure where we would get the resources to do the things we needed to do, or even to keep going as a parish. There’s no blame or shame here, that’s just where we were. But over the past few years, as we came out of the pandemic, as new people joined us, as people supported and re-engaged in the life of this church, I sense that we’ve moved from a mentality of scarcity to more of a mentality of abundance. It feels different. It feels good.  And it’s expanded our vision of what’s possible. God is good, we are blessed, and we have work to do.

What might change in your life if you were able to expand your vision of what’s possible? If you saw life through a lens of abundance rather than scarcity?

Now I’m not saying we have to go so as far as to expand our vision of what’s possible to include the miraculous - though we could, it must be said that life itself is full of ordinary, everyday miracles. But let’s start by practicing abundance, by seeing what we have, by giving thanks for what we have, and by offering to share it with others. And rather than always declaring things impossible, let’s be open to an expanded range of possibilities - including the possibility that God’s power working in us can indeed do more than we can ask or imagine.

How would that change your life?

Amen.

Homily: Yr B P17. July 28 2024. Trinity

Readings: Ephesians 3.14-21; John 6.1-21

Photo by Jonathan Borba: https://www.pexels.com/photo/tourist-paddling-a-yellow-outrigger-canoe-on-the-river-19395914/