Dear St. Paul’s Family,
Well, how’s this for perfect timing?
I typically try to map out my sermon series a few months ahead of time, in order to promote the series and collect sermon material in advance. Despite my attempts to plan ahead, sometimes the unexpected slips under my radar. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I realized last week that the text I’m preaching this week perfectly coincides with the major event in Cherokee this Sunday.
Our town is honored to host the first overnight stop of the fortieth annual Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, affectionately known as “RAGBRAI.” It started back in 1973, when two reporters for the Des Moines Register offered each other a challenge to ride their bicycles across the width of the entire state, from Sioux City to Davenport. Along the way, they would report on the interesting people, towns, and sites they could only see by putting pedal to the pavement.
That first bicycle ride covered nearly 400 miles and took six days. Their reporting escalated interested from many readers, such that the next year, 2,700 bicyclists made the trek from Council Bluffs to Dubuque. Today, the ride has become so popular that RAGBRAI officials have had to cap the number of registrations to 8,500, for the safety of the participants.
In a mere six days, our blessed little town of 5,000 people, nestled among the corn and soybean fields along the Little Sioux River, will be burgeoning with visitors from all around the world. Many of you who remember when Cherokee last hosted RAGBRAI ten years ago have tried to prepare me for the sight of bicycles around every corner and tents on every green space. I simply can’t imagine a population increase of 270%, even for just a twenty-four hour period.
Which gets me back to the text for this Sunday. What better gospel story to consider than the one offered by the Lectionary. Are you ready for this?
It’s Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000!
In Mark’s gospel, Jesus and the disciples had finished a long day of ministry and sought the solace of a private boat trip to a secluded shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. But rather than experiencing quiet solitude, Jesus was greeted by a huge crowd needy, hungry people. As if it were a RAGBRAI tour stop! This led to the critical question from his disciples:
How do you feed a flash mob?
YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT
Needless to say, the connections between this story and our RAGBRAI hosting responsibilities are fairly self-evident, and you’ll want to join us in worship this Sunday for a sermon titled “Give Them Something to Eat: Jesus Caters a Huge Meal.” Worship that morning will kick off an eventful day of cooking, serving, and welcoming riders into town, as we follow Jesus’ clear command from Mark 6:37: “You give them something to eat.” Specifically, we will be hosting two separate feeding sites in town.
THE COWBOY OASIS
Our church campus is located on the west end of Main Street, which puts us squarely on the front line of welcoming riders from Sioux Center. That means we’ll be the first to welcome people with our friendly, cowboy-themed feeding site right on our front lawn. From 9am to 3pm, we’ll have giant grills and cookers kicking out delicious grilled rib eye steak sandwiches, fresh sweet corn, fruit, desserts, and ice cold drinks. We’ll have plenty of room under our shady maple trees for folks to stop and sidle up to our alfalfa hay bales to sit for a spell.
You can help out by providing individually wrapped brownies, cookies, and bars. We’re hoping to have about 200 more by this Saturday in order to feel fully prepared for the crowd. You can also offer to help out from 11am to 2pm on Sunday to set up at church. (You have this preacher’s permission to skip the worship service if you are helping out with the Oasis!)
COMMUNITY CENTER MEAL
Veteran RAGBRAI riders are very clear about the “Magic Trio” that they are hoping to find in every town: Air Conditioning, Homemade Pie, and a Meal Cooked by Church Ladies.* Our kitchen and dining hall may be under renovation, but that won’t stop us from offering all three at the Community Center. From 4-8pm, we will be serving up baked chicken, pasta with alfredo or marinara sauce, salad, bread sticks, pie, and beverages, at a convenient location to the Cherokee Symphony Concert at the high school.
Again, your help is appreciated, if you would be willing to bake a pie (we’re looking for an additional fifty pies, of a wide assortment), then you can bring it to the Community Center with you either on Saturday from 1-3pm or on Sunday morning. (If you would like your pie plate returned, please write your name on the bottom for pick up at the church on Monday.)
And, I haven’t even mentioned that our entire Education Wing will be occupied by 75 bicyclists from the Hawkeye Bicycle Association, who will be using every available floor space among our basement and classrooms (along with a handful of tent campers on our lawn) to stay overnight. If you’d like to donate a gallon of juice or some boxes of cereal bars to give them for breakfast the next morning, feel free to drop those off at the church office or bring them with you to worship.
Come along and join the fun! It will be an exciting weekend!
Magrey
The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
Email: mdevega@sp-umc.org
(* Thanks to Jenny Burroughs for passing along this insightful article that talks about the “Magic Trio” http://www.midwestliving.com/travel/iowa/ragbrai-bike-ride/
Mark 6:30-44
30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught.
31 He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.
32 And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves.
33 Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.
34 As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
35 When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late;
36 send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’
37 But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’
38 And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’
39 Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass.
40 So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties.
41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all.
42 And all ate and were filled;
43 and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.
44 Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.
FIRE RECOVERY UPDATE
Sanctuary – We are anticipating that the new carpet will arrive for installation around the first week of August, and Carey’s Electronics will be reinstalling the audiovisual and computer equipment during the second half of August. Sometime around the first of September, the new pew cushions will arrive and New Holland Furniture will be installing the pews. We now expect to be back in the sanctuary sometime around the first or second week of September. In the meantime, members of the Chancel Choir are looking into the replacement of choir robes, and the Worship Committee is researching new pew hymnals and Bibles.
Kitchen and Fellowship Hall – We expect to have completed plans from the architect by the end of this month to present to the congregation for your feedback.
A PRAYER FOR OUR FARMERS
During this extended period of heat and drought, I invite you to offer a prayer on behalf of our farmers, both locally and across the country. You may wish to use this Catholic prayer as a guide: "O God, in Whom we live and move, and have our being, grant us rain, in due abundance, that, being sufficiently helped with the temporal, we may the more confidently seek after eternal gifts. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen." (from the Roman Catholic Rural Life Conference. A prayer in honor of St. Isidore, the patron saint of farmers.)
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