One of the dangerous things about a casual conversation with a preacher is that you never know when something you say might get repeated in a sermon. So when Lise Beane told me she liked sermons with success stories, I not only decided to take it to heart, I decided I would take it to the pulpit. Today's scripture reading by itself serves as a success story, but only if one defines success not in terms of wealth or status but in terms of what I call the three characteristics of success: courage, compassion, and the capacity to share. If I were giving a locker room pep talk, I might call these the three C's to success. Admittedly, all three C's to success might not be immediately apparent when reading today's text.

In order to recognize the characteristic of courage, one must begin by considering the often overlooked first sentence. Upon receiving a report from his disciples, Jesus withdraws in a boat to a deserted place. In the narrative preceding this passage, we learn the contents of that report and its probable impact on Jesus. The report told of a feast at King Herod's birthday party, a feast the exact opposite of the one Jesus later prepares for the crowds. At this feast, Herod orders his men to bring the head of John the Baptist on a platter as a gift for a guest. Instead of caring for the poor, Herod kills their prophet. Instead of feeding the hungry, Herod serves death on a platter. Herod leaves the disinherited in a state of intense despair whereby Jesus represents their great remaining hope. With his increasing significance as a leader, Jesus also faces increasing danger. Herod not only regards Jesus as his new threat, he believes Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead. When Jesus hears of this, he heads for the seclusion of his boat. The text doesn't indicate whether Jesus is seeking to hide or whether he is seeking to grieve in solitude. What we do know is that upon returning to shore, Jesus sacrifices his own safety and comfort by engaging in a public ministry with the crowds gathered before him. Thus, when Jesus decides to feed the hungry, he's not simply running a soup kitchen. He's risking his life.

Compassion represents the second defining characteristic of success displayed by Jesus in today's scripture. Matthew explicitly tells us that the driving impetus for Jesus in ministering to the crowds lies in the compassion that he feels. Such compassion serves as a distinct theme for Matthew. Earlier, in chapter nine, Matthew tells us that Jesus had compassion for the crowds because "they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." According to Matthew, Jesus then explains to his disciples how such feelings of compassion give rise to their call. He alone cannot minister to the crowds. God calls others to do the same. Jesus states, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers." With this metaphor offered, Jesus commissions the disciples. Just as he labors with compassion, so shall they. In our reading for today, Jesus gives the disciples yet another example of what it means to labor with compassion. Whereas the disciples want to turn their backs on the crowds, Jesus refuses to leave them. Jesus demonstrates that success requires compassion.

The third defining characteristic of success revealed in today's scripture pertains to the capacity to share. The capacity to share represents not simply the characteristic of an individual but the characteristic of a collective body. In order to feed a crowd, everyone has to share and cooperate. The bread and fish has to be pooled and divided, blessed and distributed. All of these practices run contrary to the practices of the Roman Empire. In the Roman Empire, the emperor claims to bless all those under his dominion with adequate provisions while in reality he conspires with the rich in the hoarding of wealth. By contrast, in God's Empire, God provides the harvest while calling on disciples to reap the rewards not for themselves but for the poor and hungry. God's Empire does what Jesus claims it does, and it does it by actualizing the capacity of people to share.

So are the three C's to success relevant for today? The problem of hunger has now reached mind-numbing proportions. Chronic hunger afflicts roughly 800 million worldwide. Nearly 30% of the world's population suffers from malnutrition. Largely, as a result of U.S. policy, the World Food Summit this past June floundered in trying to address the crisis. Out of 182 nations, the United States was the only one that objected to declaring food a basic human right. Instead, U.S. representatives at the behest of biotech corporations like Monsanto fought hard to promote the production of genetically modified crops. If the situation were not so sad, it would be almost humorous to note the record of genetically modified crops in countries like Argentina. In the six years that such crops have been widely planted in Argentina, crop yields have dropped, deforestation has increased, and hunger levels have remained the same or worsened. While all this happened, Monsanto reaped huge profits. In the name of fighting hunger, the U.S. government has now teamed up with corporations to make even more profits. Like the Roman Empire, the United States claims to do one thing while in actuality it does another. Evidently, our government operates according to a different definition of success.

Despite the desperate reality of hunger throughout the world, success stories can still be found, and some of them can be found right here at Old South. During the last advent season, the Christian Service and Outreach Committee led us in collecting contributions for Oxfam's hunger relief program in Afghanistan. Through the Outreach Committee's alternative giving program, our church raised more than $8,500 in contributions and matching funds. Moreover, this past May a team from Old South participated in the annual Walk for Hunger which raised over $3 million to combat hunger here in Massachusetts. Finally, over the last nineteen years our church has sent volunteers to serve the hungry and homeless of Boston at Sunday's Bread. When Sunday's Bread began in 1983, our church provided some of the original volunteers. This past year on the majority of occasions our church participated in Sunday's Bread we sent more than the requested number of volunteers due to the high level of commitment by our members.

I suppose the question that remains for us as a church is whether or not we possess the courage, compassion, and capacity to do more. What would it mean for us to more? We are already engaged in charity and service. A good place to begin finding an answer might be to examine the causes of hunger. I am here reminded of something the famous priest and liberation theologian Dom Helder Camara once said, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." As has often been the case, the label "communist" in this instance was used not so much as a way to describe Camara's politics, but as a way to condemn and castigate him for being a threat to the existing economic order. By merely asking why the poor go hungry, Camara became marked as a threat, and, in a sense, he was a threat. The simple question of asking why the poor have no food inevitably leads one to also question the dominant economic order. When one realizes that even in third world countries struck by famine only the poor go hungry, one begins to ask questions about the prevailing economic order. When one realizes that the corporate quest for profits is fundamentally incompatible with the demand for food as a basic human right, one again begins to question the prevailing economic order.

If merely raising such questions causes one to be regarded as a threat, one can easily guess the kind of courage it takes to not only answer those questions but to also act upon those answers by challenging the economic status quo. An understandable response to such a situation would be to throw up one's hands in despair, quickly concluding that the matter is hopeless. The disciples responded this way. They pleaded with Jesus to simply turn away from the crowds. There wasn't enough food. But Jesus proved them wrong. Jesus proved that great harvests often have small beginnings. Writer Margaret Mead once wrote, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has." In a sense, Jesus called upon the disciples to act as a small group of thoughtful committed citizens. Jesus knew that regardless of the odds one can never calculate in advance the potential effect of one's actions. One never knows when a loaf might make a meal or when a fish might lead to a feast. The history of human progress is the history of small ripples leading to giant waves. As an example, one can look back upon the civil rights movement. The movement began with simple acts: a woman refusing to change seats on a bus, a church organizing a boycott, students sitting at a lunch counter. The civil rights movement began when people stopped second guessing the potential results of their actions and decided to act anyhow and anyway. One can never know what will happen.

That's why we act on faith. We don't always know where our actions will lead us, but we act anyway. While there is no step-by-step set of instructions for achieving social change, there is always the first step. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." With faith there are no failures, there are only successes. Simply taking the first step is a success, because it means that you've thrown off the shackles chained to your mind. You've thrown off the shackles of doubt and despair, pessimism and cynicism. In freeing your mind, you've freed yourself to act.

Simply refusing to go along with the status quo is also a success. Even when you act alone, the power of your example remains. You show that it's possible to say no, to take a stand, to say there's another way. Even those who watch your example in silence, often find inspiration. After those meetings full of debate, after those long days in the office, after those times when it seems no one appreciates your views, someone comes up and says, "You know I really agreed with what you were saying in there. It made a lot of sense." Right then, at that moment, you've won an ally, you've realized the price was worth it. What seemed like a failure was a success, a success that never would have happened unless you took that first step.

Ultimately, what makes faith the unfaltering ground of success is not the immediate results of one's actions, it's the endurance of one's core values, it's the endurance of the values that guide us on our way to God's empire. One might occasionally head in the wrong direction due strategic and tactical mistakes. One might even fail to fully understand the reality at hand, but what really matters is whether one's core values are preserved. As long as one's core values are maintained, corruption and evil will eventually be revealed, the right way will eventually be found. When more than a quarter of the world lacks for food, the causes and problems of hunger can no longer be hidden, denied, or ignored. Just as water held over a fire inevitably reaches a boiling point, there comes a time when demands for fundamental human rights boil to the surface and can no longer be covered or contained. Instead of waiting for the water to pour over the sides, we can begin to take action now. So long as we have a few loaves of bread and a few fish, we have enough to get started. The effort will take courage. It will take compassion, and it will take the capacity to share. These are the defining characteristics of success. The challenge lies before us. The decision is whether to take the first step.

Scripture Reading Matthew 14: 13-21