Proper 12B
In the name of God, who is within reach and beyond understanding. Amen.
Earlier this week I was reading about a bonsai tree that is on display at the National Arboretum in Washington, DC. The tree is a Japanese White Pine that was originally potted 399 years ago. It was gifted to the United States as a part of a wider collection of significant Japanese bonsai trees in 1976, in commemoration of the nation’s bicentennial – perhaps a subtle reminder that, in the scheme of things, we’re not as mature as we might imagine ourselves to be (or, at the very least that it’s all relative).
Now – a tree that’s nearly 400 years old is remarkable enough, but when you consider that it has required nearly daily maintenance throughout those 400 years to stay in its form, it takes on even greater significance. But even beyond that – this tree – this tree that was owned and cultivated and maintained by the same family in Japan for around 350 years before being gifted to the United States – this same tree was less than two miles from the point of impact when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. And then! 31 years later it was given as a gift to that same country that came so close – literally close to within two miles – to destroying it.
It is a miracle, within a miracle, within another miracle, still. It defies explanation. So much was going against this tree. The forces of nature. The ravages of time. The dedication of succeeding generations. The destructive powers of incomprehensible warfare. And finally, the shocking generosity of victims and their ultimate ability to forgive. It’s almost hard to imagine it. But we don’t have to imagine it, because it’s real. Any one of us can go and look at it, living still, today. A living miracle.
Every step of this tree’s story of survival can be explained, but somehow, altogether, it represents something bigger than itself – some culmination of grace upon grace that can’t be explained.
In our readings today, top billing goes to the dramatic story of Jesus’ miraculously feeding the 5,000 followers from such meager rations, and then ending the day with leftovers to spare. It’s an important reminder to us all of the promise of God to sustain us, even when our situation feels unsustainable. God has promised to be with us in our need.
I’ve heard social theorists try to explain how it might have happened – how maybe the miracle was born of the crowd being so moved by the generosity of the boy who was willing to share all he had, that together they were able to scrape together enough for everyone. It’s a nice thought – a nice imagining of how people can come together for a greater good when we want to.
But the thing about miracles is, they aren’t meant to be explained. Even if they can be explained, they still contain something inexplicable – some nugget of truth that means more than the explanation alone can carry.
For me, today, despite its stories of miraculous feedings in the other readings, the real focus is on Paul, and on the generosity of his prayer for the people of Ephesus as he ends his letter to them.
Listen to those words again: “I pray that, according to the riches of [God’s] glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 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.”
I pray that you will “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge”. I pray that through the grace and power of the God of love that you will know what can’t be known.
That’s what it means to experience a miracle. It means to know what can’t be known. To have lived experience of what shouldn’t have been possible.
When we think of miracles, we tend to think of the far-removed workings of Jesus. We tend to think of the supernatural stories of the ancient saints. But what about the Yamaki family bonsai tree in the National Arboretum? What about forgiveness that comes when it wasn’t earned? What about the hungry man in a Paterson homeless shelter who eats a hot meal because some people in Kinnelon decided to help him? What about the families from Afghanistan who got a fresh start half a world away in Boonton because some people wondered how they could help the nameless strangers they heard about on the news?
Just because we can see them doesn’t make them any less miraculous. And just because we can explain the logistics of how it came to be doesn’t mean it wasn’t a living embodiment of God’s grace and love at work in the world.
Miracles aren’t just stories from long ago. The stories from long ago are just meant as examples to help us notice the miracles that are put in front of us every day. And they are there. There are miracles all around us. Miracles of healing the sick and feeding the hungry and giving shelter to the vulnerable are all around us every day. Miracles of compassion, grace, and love shared between people who haven’t earned them happen every day. Just, sometimes we don’t see their miraculous nature because we think we can explain it. We think we understand.
Everywhere there is love, there is a miracle. Love lives inside every miracle and every kind of love holds miracles within it. It may seem ordinary because we see it all the time, but it is not. It is extraordinary. It is miraculous. And even when we think we can describe and explain all its facets, it defies all explanation.
If you want to be more open to recognizing the miracles in your life, take this reading from Ephesians with you this week. Read those words not as a prayer, but in remembrance that they were prayed for you. Read them again and again as if you were listening in on someone else’s prayer for you. Claim that power of the Spirit in your own life. Claim that comprehension for yourself. Claim the spiritual gift of coming to know what can’t be known.
The miracles will start cropping up. They
are not ours to understand, but they are ours to see. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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