July 6th, 2025 - "Food for Thought" - Kristin Wells

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just

want to find out more about the ministries at First United Methodist

Church, please visit us online at

FUMCbentonville.org or check us out at Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Kristin Wells (2): Thank y'all so much.

My name is

Kristin Wells.

And I serve as the youth director for our seventh through 12th grade

programming here at FUMC Bentonville.

And I love my role here.

Uh, as I just alluded to, we took 21 students and six adults to Ozark Mission

Project in Benton, Arkansas just about two weeks ago, and it made me fall

in love with my job all over again.

We really have such a special group of youth and man are they

teaching me a lot about who God is.

And so I just wanted to share that with you today.

If you're worried about where the future of the church is headed, I

wouldn't be, and I wanna share some developments for me for in my life

personally since I spoke here last.

Some of you know that I've been discerning a call to ordained ministry for several

years, and so as an answer to that call this fall, I started seminary at

Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

And some of you may also remember that the last time I preached I was

very pregnant and I was tired then.

And Parker Grace is now one, and Wesley, and I love being her parents.

But we have a different definition now of the word exhausted.

So we're gonna move into our scripture reading this morning.

It's about a miracle, actually, two miracles that Jesus performs

when he too is exhausted.

Mark 6 31 through 44, hear the word of the Lord.

Many people were coming and going, so there was no time to eat.

He said to the apostles, come by yourselves to a secluded place and

rest For a while, they departed in a boat by themselves to a deserted place.

Many people saw them leaving and recognized them, so they ran ahead from

all the cities and arrived before them.

When Jesus arrived and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them.

Because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he began to teach them many things.

Late in the day, his disciples came to him and said, this is an isolated

place and it's already late in the day.

Send them away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages

and buy something to eat for themselves.

He replied, you give them something to eat.

But they said to him, should we go off and buy bread worth almost eight

months pay and give it to them to eat?

He said to them, how much bread do you have?

Take a look.

After checking, they said, five loaves of bread and two fish.

He directed the disciples to see all the people in groups as though they were

having a banquet on the green grass.

They sat down in groups of hundreds and fifties.

He took the loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven, bless them, broke

the loaves into pieces and gave them to his disciples to set before the people.

He also divided the two fish among them all.

Everyone ate until they were full.

They filled 12 baskets with the leftover pieces of bread and fish.

About 5,000 had eaten.

Mark eight, one through nine.

In those days, there was another large crowd with nothing to eat.

Jesus called his disciples and told them, I feel sorry for the crowd

because they have been with me for three days and have nothing to eat.

If I send them away hungry to their homes, they won't have enough strength to travel.

For some have come a long distance.

His disciples responded, how can anyone get enough food in this

wilderness to satisfy these people?

Jesus asked, how much bread do you have?

They said, seven loaves.

He told the crowd to sit on the ground.

He took the seven loaves, gave thanks, broke them apart, and gave

them to his disciples to distribute.

And they gave the bread to the crowd.

They also had a few fish.

He set a blessing over them and he gave them to the disciples to hand out.

Also, they ate until they were full.

They collected seven baskets full of leftovers.

This was a crowd of about 4,000 people.

Jesus sent them away the word of God for us, the people of God.

It is not uncommon for different gospel writers to include

similar stories as each other.

These writers emphasized the things that they felt were most

compelling about Jesus' ministry.

But I don't know if you caught this, the two stories that we

read about Jesus feeding a hungry crowd, they were both from Mark.

And I was a full adult when I realized that Mark tells two stories

about Jesus feeding a hungry crowd.

I knew the story about Jesus feeding the 5,000 in Mark six, but I never

realized that the writer tells a very similar story two chapters later.

And you know why?

I think the reason that I only knew about the feeding of the 5,000 is because when

preachers get up here and they only have a little bit of time to say, you know

what they need to say, they're gonna tell the most impressive story about Jesus.

Right.

So if you're gonna tell one of these stories, you're gonna tell the one in

Mark six, and I'm a visual learner, so maybe it might help you to see this.

I created a little graphic for you.

In Mark six, Jesus has five loaves and two fish, and after he

gets done feeding 5,000 people.

He has 12 baskets left over and in Mark eight, Jesus is presented with

seven loaves and it says a few fish.

I put two, I think I put two fish up there.

It might be three kind of ambiguous, but after he feeds 4,000 people,

he has seven baskets left over.

So in both of these narratives, the math isn't matting, there's not enough food,

there are far too many people, yet there is still food left over in both accounts.

The math doesn't math, but if, if we look at this, I think we can recognize

that both stories are miraculous.

As they stand alone, they're impressive.

But I wanna ask you, what do you think the more impressive story is?

I think we can all agree.

It's the one told in Mark six, he has fewer resources, more

people to feed more leftover.

So if the gospel writer only gets so many words to tell us about who Jesus

is, why does he use some of his pages to tell us a less impressive story?

It's not even like he's building tension, like he tells the lessons.

Impressive story.

Second right.

So these passages are some that I spent time researching during my New

Testament class this last semester.

And in hindsight, I realized that as I was studying Jesus' work in

the wilderness, I was also slowly emerging from my own wilderness.

I would just like to say that starting a full-time Master's

program while simultaneously learning how to be a mom for the

first time was not on my Bingo card.

It was exhausting.

I have always worked really hard at school, but it's never been easy for me.

And during the fall semester, I was taking three courses that

took every spare minute I had.

I breed the sigh of relief when we started daycare, but some of you

know those places are Petri dishes, breeding grounds for sickness.

And we were cautious because Parker was born a little early.

She spent her first 18 days in the NICU and she spent a lot of

the last school year homesick.

And of course, because she was sick, Wesley and I also got

sicker than we had been in years.

I didn't have any time for myself and I certainly didn't have

time to nurture my marriage.

I had tons of support, but even still, it was a really dark time for us.

The Wells family was not thriving.

We were barely surviving.

I would show up to work as just the shell of a human.

And I can remember walking into Pastor Michelle's office and just falling into a

puddle, and she would say, Kristen, do you know how you're gonna get through this?

Not alone.

You are not alone.

And I wasn't alone, but I felt alone.

I came to resent my studies because of all they were taking away from me.

And at times I was resenting God for calling me to this work as well.

But there was a conversation that changed something for me.

My sister-in-law is also in seminary and we were together for a holiday break

and I said, I don't know how you do it.

I dunno how you work, how you mom, how you take your classes and you

do it all with a smile on your face like you have time for everyone.

And she said, well Kristen, I know that God called me to go to seminary.

And when God called me to go to seminary, it wasn't so that I could hate the

next three to five years of my life, and that's when it clicked for me.

I was not willing to miss my family's life.

I knew the small moments are the big moments.

They're the entire point.

And I knew I had some choices to make, but instead of quitting school when the spring

semester rolled around, I reprioritized.

I still did plenty of research and writing, but I also made sure to

put my daughter to bed every night.

I started seeing my therapist again.

I couldn't afford not to.

A couple of times, Wesley and I hired a babysitter so we could go on a date.

I think I even got a pedicure one time last semester.

The choices I was making presented a marked improvement in my

mental health and every area of my life reaped those benefits.

I snuffed down my imposter syndrome and trusted God that it was all

gonna be enough to pass my classes.

And if it wasn't, I'd still rather be present with the people.

I love that.

Make it through seminary.

I share this story because all last year I was combating a scarcity mindset All last

school year, I was asking the question, is there enough of me to go around?

Am I making the right choices?

Am I not even qualified to do this?

I had followed God into a wilderness and I was standing in it asking God to provide.

I think this is the situation those in Jesus day find themselves in.

They have literally followed Jesus into a wilderness, and when it gets to

be about dinnertime, they're hungry.

And two main things I found when researching these passages, mark

wants to make it undoubtedly clear that Jesus brings abundance.

He will make the loaves and fish stretch, and it's not just a fluke.

Jesus consistently brings abundance in an environment of desolation,

and if you believe that it helps you to live with more freedom.

I think the gospel writer wants us to live in that freedom.

He wants to remind us that Jesus brings abundance and there is freedom in that.

It kind of reminds me of that saying, what would you accomplish

if you knew you could not fail?

What would you accomplish if you knew you could not fail?

Let's go back to that earlier question.

If Mark only gets so many words to tell us about who Jesus is, then

why does he use some of his pages to tell a less impressive story?

Well, what you may not know unless you've looked in some contextual evidence, is

that the hungry crowds in Mark six and eight were pretty different demographics.

The hungry crowd in Mark VI is a Jewish crowd.

The setting and language Jesus uses alludes to the fact that these are

people from Jesus' own tradition.

They are people that have been oppressed for a long time, and

Jesus their Messiah meets them in the wilderness and historic place.

A provision throughout the story of the Jewish people.

It makes total sense to them that God provides once again in the wilderness,

just like in the Exodus in the Old Testament, but what isn't expected.

Is that Jesus would meet a gentile population, those that aren't

Jewish in their wilderness too, and that's exactly what he does.

In Mark eight.

In Mark eight, after Jesus cares for his own, he does the same miracle in

Gentile territory and its territory of outsiders who have not been following

Jewish customs and traditions.

He says, come eat.

There's plenty enough to go around.

And even after Jesus feeds the outsiders, there is still some

leftover, there is enough for insiders and there is enough for outsiders and

there is more where that came from.

Jesus Bringss abundance in the spring semester.

I know I told you I reprioritized.

I took four classes instead of three, which included a

study abroad trip to Cuba.

I committed to putting my daughter to bed every night and being

there for the little moments.

I focused on self care.

I put time into my marriage.

I trust God to lead me out of the wilderness, and I ended

this semester with a 4.0.

I found myself this year in an actual mental wilderness wondering if I had what

it takes to go where God led me, and God showed me there was more than enough.

Full-time work.

Full-time school, full-time mom, full-time wife, when there is some

leftover after that, I think it's fair to say the math's, not math.

And I wanna remind you that in the economy of God, the math doesn't always math.

We asked earlier, what would you accomplish if you knew you could not fail?

FUMC?

Ville, I wanna ask you, who would you invite to the table if you

knew the bread would never run out?

May it be so.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

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Grace and peace.