Fortunately for the children at Synod School, the Great Zambini stopped by during a worship to perform a little magic.
The very amateur magician, also known as Dr. Jeremy Penn of St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Iowa City, Iowa, had to try three times to magically move a sack of snack crackers from a table into a small bin. On the third try, after he’d turned his back and said the magic word, a child helpfully moved the snack to its intended spot.
“OK,” the Great Zambini admitted. “It’s my first time doing this trick.”
His second trick was much more successful. In order to illustrate the evening’s Scripture lesson — the feeding of the 5,000 — the Great Zambini and his helpers had distributed dozens of snacks to adults seated in Schaller Chapel. He asked the children to go find the people with the snacks, ask for them and then either devour them or share the crackers with someone who needed them.
“Sometimes, I think the miracle was the people watching the disciples being generous,” the Great Zambini told the children. “The people thought, maybe I can be generous, too. The miracle was changing hearts and minds, turning us into generous people.”
With all the problems currently confronting society, the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, the Synod School preacher, said she’d like to see a miracle like the feeding of the 5,000 — only bigger. “Not one time, but over and over,” she said.
Years ago, Theoharis witnessed one such miracle in Tent City in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. “That scrappy, imperfect miracle is more of what expanded hope looks like,” she said.
In those days, Tent City was a homeless encampment of more than 40 families living in cardboard boxes and tents during the hot summer months. “The shelters were full,” Theoharis said. “The moms and their babies were told to sleep in their cars or on the streets.”
The Kensington Welfare Rights Union shared food, clothing and toiletries with Tent City residents. People living in Tent City provided child care for one another and pooled their money. Their neighbors would drop off water, juice and food.
Philadelphia had around 39,000 abandoned housing units at the time. But the shelters were closing, and affordable housing programs were being cut.
“That’s when the miracle happened,” Theoharis said. Maybe it was the growth in donations from nearby churches. “Perhaps it was God’s work creating order and justice out of the chaos of poverty and hunger,” she suggested.
Groups of folks would “come and pray with us, witness and share what they had. More and more people heard about the miracle taking place. People came and they came, and some of us never left.”
The miracle in the biblical feeding story is the community that was formed, she said. In the past few months, Theoharis has traveled to 40 communities, “and in every single one, I see a miracle, and in some, 200 miracles.” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said it this way, she noted: “Only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.”
A friend recently sent Theoharis a gardening video. Gardening is a good comparison for people working on building justice and expanding hope, Theoharis said.
“Sometimes you put in a lot of work and you don’t see the results. Sometimes some plants die but others grow,” she said. “The moment can be frustrating, but beautiful miracles grow every day. It’s a lesson in perseverance.”
Theoharis closed her reflection with Cardinal Dearden’s “Prophets of a Future Not Our Own,” which includes these words: “We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.”
“We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
“To me, this is the good news,” Theoharis said. “Thanks be to God.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)
Let us join in prayer for:
Ali Laswell, Accounting & Payroll Administration, Controller, The Presbyterian Foundation
Lee (DJ) Dong Jo, Lead, Korean Congregational Relations, Engagement & Church Relations, The Board of Pensions
Let us pray:
Most gracious God, we seek your presence whenever and wherever we gather together in Christ’s name. We know you watch over us and lead us. Continue to bless us as we look for ways to share our ministry with siblings near and far. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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