Last Sunday our pastor talked about Jesus feeding the 5000 folks on five small barley loaves and two fishes. You can read the story in John the sixth chapter. As I was listening to him, I wondered if everyone stayed for dinner. Women and children aren’t mentioned so there must have been many more than 5000. So I made up a man sitting there with his wife and two children. They were listening quietly to what Jesus said up until he had his disciples distributing the small amount of food a young boy had brought with him, five loaves of bread and two fishes.

Then the father leaned over the kids and whispered to his wife: “They will never feed very many with that small stack! Let’s get out of here before everyone figures it out.”

The mother felt they should stay, but she looked at her children and saw how hungry they must be, so she said “ya, let’s go.” They tiptoed away from the crowd, Daddy picked up the youngest child,and they ran to the nearest village to get some food before the crowd came. Daddy laughed as he said, “We sure beat everybody, didn’t we?” Mama looked sorrowful as she answered, “Ya, but I feel that we have missed something pretty great, I really do.”

Yes, they missed that dinner, but they missed one of the greatest miracles Jesus did. Did they miss more? Certainly they missed the feeding of the 5000, but did they miss Jesus too? We hope not, and since we all like stories that end on a happy note: They found Jesus as he was walking to another small village. The parents saw how He picked up the children and talked to them. They walked and talked with Him with Him all the way to the village. They followed Jesus the rest of their lives. Is that what you wanted in a story?

Do you want your story to end like that? It can you know. But you need to meet Him and know Him, and these days He is easy to find. I’ll bet there are many churches in your town. That’s where you will find Him. Go there next Sunday. Also, one of your friends know Him, ask your friends or your neighbor. You might find Him there. But don’t miss another Dinner. It will be a great one. The place will be in Heaven and Jesus will be your host.

Oh, It isn’t just the CoVid. America was messed up before that! Many of our churches stopped telling folks what was right and what was wrong. They did talk about Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit, and that is, of course, is the live or die message. However, the Bible tells us much more. It tells us killing babies is wrong, and now we have 60 million babies dead! It says homosexuality is wrong, as is killing anybody, stealing, using bad language. These things are all wrong. If we heard about them when we go to church, our country would be in better shape. We also need more instruction on what Sunday is all about. It means we, all who call ourselves Christian, should go to worship. The rest of the day is for rest. Jesus knows we work hard all week. Wouldn’t it be great if we read our Bibles or other books, and listen to good music or have a quiet picnic somewhere? We would be ready for the week. Instead, we have records broken on murders. You can’t go down the street without hearing very bad language. Schools are teaching crazy other things rather than things the children need. I could go on but you know what goes on in America these days

I would like to tell you what America was like when I was a little girl in the thirties. It was natural for every person in our little town to go to Sunday School and church. And church was sometimes quite noisy. Moms and Dads brought their little children to church with them. We never heard of such things as nurseries, or Sunday School at the same time as worship. The rest of the day was quiet. We kids were allowed to go outdoors and play hide and seek, kick the can, or marbles. Stores were all closed. You got everything you needed on Saturday. Our school day started with prayer and a Bible reading. Our Christmas or Easter plays were about Jesus and we sang Christmas or Easter carols and everyone in town came. We visited friends often and whenever a person had a problem, there was someone there to help, I realize that I lived in a rural area. The cities were much more advanced, if you call it that!

You probably know that all schools were started by Christians. The settlers decided they needed to have places for children to go to be together and learn their reading, writing and arithmetic. So they built all those little red schoolhouses you have seen in pictures. They were still using them when I was little, but we had a much bigger building because children came from all the little towns around us. They came in school buses pulled by horses. I thought it was quite a treat to ride one out to a friend’s house. It was very cold in winter so some buses had stoves in them but most just had curtains to pull down.

We didn’t have electricity, phones or running water. It was hard to get the news. I remember Dad going up to Carlsons Store to hear the news on a short wave instrument, but we had music. Practically every home had a piano and I remember many happy times standing around the piano singing with my friends. We also had a machine with a big horn on top which you had to pump to keep it going and the singer would sing slower and slower unless we pumped.

I never heard bad language or even heard of a murder in those days, but I do like many of the things that make life easier. I do know that we need more instruction on right or wrong, both in our churches and in our homes. How do you feel on this?