March 2nd, 2025 - "When 2x5 = 5000 +" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

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 on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: Welcome to Worship, my friends.

My name is Michelle Morris, and I'm the lead pastor here, and we are in

the last week of our 2x2, the Miracle of Multiplication series, and today

we're gonna see when 2x5 equals 5, 000 And to get us in that frame of mind,

let's hear now from the Gospel of John.

After this, Jesus went across the Sea of Galilee, that is, the Tiberias Sea.

A large crowd followed him because they had seen the miraculous

signs he had done among the sick.

Jesus went up a mountain and sat there with his disciples.

It was nearly time for Passover, the Jewish festival.

Jesus looked up and saw the large crowd coming toward him.

He asked Philip, where will we buy food to feed these people?

Jesus said this to test him, for he already knew what he was going to do.

Philip replied, more than half a year's salary worth of food wouldn't be enough

for each person to have even a little bit.

One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said, A youth here has

five barley loaves and two fish, but what good is that for a crowd like this?

Jesus said, Have the people sit down.

There was plenty of grass there.

They sat down, about five thousand of them.

Then Jesus took the bread.

When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there.

He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted.

When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, Gather up the leftover

pieces so that nothing will be wasted.

So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of

the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes that we might see and know

the word you have for us this day.

In your holy name we pray.

Amen.

So how do miracles happen?

This is a question I get fairly often as a pastor.

And the short answer to that question is miracles happen when the power of God and

the free will of humanity meet together.

When we're both at the table.

Just like in this miracle, it is God's blessing of the loaves and the fish,

and the fact that loaves and fish were brought forward that created the miracle.

But of course, scholars will spend a lot of time trying to figure out the

mechanics of how these loaves and fish became enough food to feed 5, 000.

And I want to just say, you know, it's the creator of the

world we're dealing with here.

I don't think loaves and fish are going to be a problem.

But I also want to acknowledge that really God does invite us to

bring our free will to the table.

That really God does ask us to bring something forward

to make a miracle happen.

And so one of the things that is often suggested about this miracle is that

there was always enough food in the crowd.

What had to change were people's hearts.

What had to change was their own willingness to put

their piece into the basket.

So as the basket is being passed around, what is happening is that

more is being added to the basket.

There was always enough there.

It's just the invitation had to be made and the hearts had to be

changed for that sharing to occur.

It takes trust and faith.

To make belief a reality.

So, I want us to kind of think about where we've been over the course of this series.

We started out with Noah landing the boat and immediately sacrificing animals.

Which seemed like a crazy thing to do when those animals are

supposed to repopulate the earth.

And yet, Noah trusted enough in God and God's provision to do that.

Then we talked about the widow who offered her two pennies that seemed

like such a small gift, but Jesus recognized the vast generosity that

was present in that small gift.

And then last week we talked about Shiphrah and Puah who went against the

orders of the Pharaoh to do what was right by God and who trusted that that would

work out somehow anyway, and from that act came vast multiplication of a people.

And now we're going to talk about that in all of those is a recognition of the

abundance that was present all along.

Concrete abundance.

So to give us an illustration of that we're going to talk about what

we are often invited to add into the basket as it passes around.

And we're gonna boil it down to one dollar.

There you go, you're ready.

One dollar.

Let's talk about when we drop one dollar in the basket that goes around.

And this is both the literal basket and the proverbial online basket as well.

Let's talk about what happens with every one dollar in this church.

So with one dollar given to this church, 59 cents of it employs

I don't know about y'all, but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now with all

the news of people losing their jobs.

But let's remember that you, you, keep 10 people employed.

And let's talk about what those 10 people do.

We have three who work in administration.

That's our facilities manager.

And we are not going to know until the end of this year how much

money it saved us to have a full time facilities manager on deck.

But I can tell you that trustees is running under budget right now,

and they never run under budget.

So that's a good sign.

I can also tell you that our accountant has already saved thousands

of dollars by asking questions.

Why are I don't know, why are we spending money on that?

And then our Communication Director, I want to celebrate that, um, we have

dramatically increased the number of people who are online watching us.

And that's been small tweaks that our Communication Director has made

throughout the course of the year that I know have contributed to that.

In addition, he also put together the videos and is printing the

materials for the Lenten series that we're making available again

to any United Methodist Church.

Who wants it for free?

You employ three people in children and youth.

Now if we break this down into 20 year increments, so 0 to 20, 21 to

40, etc. Our 0 to 20 year olds are the largest population in this.

church by far, which is stunning.

I don't know another church that can lay claim to that, but that means it

takes a lot of work and it especially takes a lot of work to make sure that

those kids are not lost in the sea.

So if you wander one of these hallways around here, you'll see pictures

with Ms. Allison and each individual kid that she goes and has lunch

with over the course of the year.

And just think about the regular things that they do in any given week.

They run the nursery, they organize Sunday school, have Wednesday night

programs, have SALT for the youth in the afternoons on Sundays, organize and

carry through with confirmation, organize meetups, have events such as lock ins,

run VBS, take kids to assembly and Veritas and Refuge and OMP, and this year

have added a new youth band that meets.

every other Sunday and starting this month we kick off youth leadership

which will be myself and Lexi working with a small group of youth to nurture

them in growing as leaders in our world and in the Christian faith.

And that will also meet every other week, opposite the band.

And then we have also those that are employed in music and worship.

I'm gonna discount me and Ray, because we'll be our own category.

So that's Matt and Ken, in particular, as well as a number of Musicians that

are on contract for us, and they, y'all, kill it every week, every week.

And not only that, I tell my musicians over and over, and you've

heard me say this, that people may or may not remember the sermon,

but they will remember the songs.

And they walk out of this place singing the songs and carrying the

message and the theology with them.

They are the true spreaders of the gospel from this place.

And I'm grateful for that.

So, so grateful for that.

And I will also add that this year we did a songwriting retreat.

So we have original songs coming in the Lenten series as a result of that.

And those we also made available to any United Methodist Church.

And, I don't know if y'all have noticed, it's getting a little crowded in here.

So we have a new worship service coming this year as well.

And then there's the pastoral staff, Ray and I, and feel free any time

to stop by and ask us to share with you what we do in any given week.

It's more than just Sunday, which we get asked all the time.

What are you doing?

It's not Sunday.

Thanks.

But in short, it is to order the church to see the vision that God has for us and to

empower the people to enact that vision.

So that's 59 cents of every dollar.

23 cents of every dollar goes to the maintenance of the building and the

administrative costs alongside of that.

Now let's talk about just what's going to happen in this building this week.

Roughly 400 people will worship here.

We will educate more than 200 kids between Sunday school and Explore

and Discover and We Friends.

We will feed between 200 and 300 people a week.

There will be recovery meetings all week.

There will be counseling offered, scouts gathering here, 501c3s meet in

this building for free, and this week that includes the Master Gardeners.

We have events like Friday Fun.

knitting, the pancake supper that takes place on Tuesday, and we offer

free parking for people who work downtown all week, as well as those who

come downtown to eat at restaurants.

This building and its grounds are both a training ground for the people

of God and a gift to the community.

So that work can happen and transformation can go on.

Eight cents of this dollar will change lives in our community.

Remember that we were a founding arm of Beer and Hymns and we

continue to support Beer and Hymns in many ways throughout the year.

And they have raised 420, 000 for non profits in the area.

We have our school partnerships, which do teacher appreciation throughout the year.

That has inspired many of you to serve as lunch buddies and greeters

at our two partner elementary schools.

We just this past week offered some service projects that we take to Gateway.

These are kids who have to have service in order to graduate.

We take service projects over to them and we act as their Supervising non profits

so they can still get service hours and get the credit that they need to graduate.

We will also organize a career fair that will take place in April.

And that is specifically for the kids at Gateway, so it's not as completely

overwhelming as the space at BHS.

And it's particularly geared for kids who may or may not go to college.

And last year resulted in some jobs for those kids.

And then for our community, we will have our Earth Day Fair

again at the end of April.

It is already grown.

There are more organizations going to be involved in it this year than in last.

We have a presence at Pride Day.

We have a faith walk group that does devotion and then walks the trails and

shares their faith out in the world.

We have a missional prayer group that prays every week for our

community and surrounding area and the difference that can be made.

through God.

We have a choir that raises money for scholarships for high school

students, and we are now hosting and leading and teaching lay

servant ministries classes which are empowering laity all across the state.

Eight cents.

And then ten cents.

Ten cents of every dollar goes to the Greater United Methodist Church.

And let's just talk a minute about our denomination.

Gotten a lot of rough press over the last few years.

But I think we need to stop and think about what in the midst of

disaffiliation kept happening anyway.

First of all, conference ministries in this state have continued to go on

including funding 200, 000 more reasons, which first looked at addressing childhood

hunger and has resulted in over 90 percent of the United Methodist churches

in this state having a feeding ministry.

Over 90%.

Yes.

And now they're taking on childhood literacy and making sure that we don't

have a kid that gets out of third grade that can't read in this state.

Yeah.

We support the Global Education Fund, which funds 748 schools, colleges,

universities, and seminaries in 69 countries, including two in Arkansas,

Hendricks College, and Philander Smith, which is a historically

black college and university.

We have UMCOR, which you hear about a lot, but I think you should know that

they are present in over 70 countries and are known for being the first on

the ground in the case of disasters, or sometimes they're ahead of it.

And I say that and share with you that when the Haiti earthquake happened in,

I believe it was 2010 or 2011, Reverend Sam Dixon, who was the head of UMCOR,

and Reverend Clint Rabb, who was the Director of Mission Volunteers for

UMCOR, both died in that earthquake.

And they didn't die because the earthquake happened and then they showed up and

then something happened to them there.

They died because they were there when the earthquake happened.

They were already on the ground in Haiti.

We're already on the ground.

We have World Health Initiatives.

We have approximately 300 hospitals and clinics in 27 countries, including

Methodist Le Bonheur, which is located in Memphis, and which I must

say, saved my son's life when they discovered a heart condition that

several other cardiologists had missed.

They fixed it, and he's fine.

And we don't talk about it so much anymore, but we were part of the

Imagine No Malaria campaign, which officially ended in 2024 and started

at the beginning of the 2000s.

It cut the deaths of malaria in half.

There are 60 million children, 60 million children, who made it to adulthood.

Who wouldn't have?

Except that the United Methodist Church was raising money

and getting nets purchased.

and doing malaria education in places all over the world where malaria

was killing people right and left.

And the United Methodist Church, it's a little hard to tell because all kinds

of things came in as a result of that, but we're responsible for somewhere

between one third and eighty percent of the funding for that program.

And we don't do it anymore, but here's why.

It's not that malaria's disappeared.

It's that in the course of the time that we did that work, Cottage industries

in Africa and other places where malaria is a real struggle sprung

up and they started making nets.

We had been importing nets to those places, but as those cottage

industries sprung up, we quit importing and started buying local.

And as a result of buying local, those industries grew to the point where

they could be self sustaining, so now they can take care of themselves.

Thank you very much.

We also lead the fight against HIV and AIDS and many other

diseases around the world.

We have missionaries in a hundred countries.

We've met a couple of them a few years ago, David and Elizabeth

McCormick, but I want to share with you an example of a missionary I met

in the Holy Land a few years ago.

She's a woman, she serves in Palestine, and she is a missionary

like Methodist missionaries are, where she's just there loving people.

Because she's just there loving people, the Methodist Church is

present in places that a lot of times Christianity is not allowed.

We're just there to walk alongside the people and show them God's love.

And while she was there, she wears a collar.

Because it's a little odd to have a woman pastor roaming around over there.

She wears a collar, and she got followed by this taxi driver one day.

She's walking back to her home, and he's just following along, following along.

She's looking, following along.

She's looking.

Finally, he says, Can I give you a ride, please?

And she said, I don't have far to go.

It's okay.

And he said, No, please, please let me give you a ride.

Just, just let me do this.

So she got in the taxi, and he drove her the five blocks she had left to go.

And then he said, Thank you so much for letting me do that for you, Father.

Uh, what, what do I call you?

And she's like, Father's fine, mother's fine, friend's fine, whatever.

It works.

And then we are also still engaged in the fight for civil rights, in climate care,

in helping with global migration pressures, in, Providing food

security around the world and fighting for inclusion.

And, uh, about a week and a half ago, we joined the lawsuit against the

United States government to argue that all churches and religious

organizations, whether you're Muslim, or Jewish, or Hindu, or whoever,

should have sanctuary status.

Ten cents.

How do miracles happen?

Apparently, one dollar at a time!

One dollar, as well as the myriad of acts of service that were implicit

in everything that I mentioned.

The people who volunteer, the people who give of their lives, the people who

offer to serve, who, the people who come to the table with God, and make God's

miracles a reality around the world.

My friends, this world feels overwhelming a lot.

You turn on the television for about a minute and you will be overwhelmed.

But I'm going to challenge us that we can choose what overwhelms us.

We can choose to be overwhelmed by everything that's going wrong.

Or we can choose to be overwhelmed by everything that's going right.

How many miracles can you be a part of?

How many lives can you change?

I promise you this.

Whatever you can give, will be a part of you.

of miracles,

whatever you can give, God will turn it into so much more.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

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

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you would like to let us know you were here, follow the link below to connect.

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FUMCBentonville welcomes all.

Because we believe the communion table is God's table, we invite

everyone into our church family.

We welcome and celebrate every race, gender, gender identity, sexual

orientation, marital status, age, physical and mental ability, national origin,

economic station, and political ideology.

We come together in action and outreach, aspiring to follow Jesus' example of

radical hospitality, love, and grace as a transformative movement in our community.

Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings at nine and 11:00 AM, both

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All are welcome and we'd love to have you with us.

Grace and peace.