Today's Gospel

A Great Investment

Five loaves and two fish. The skeptical disciple Phillips says, "How in the world are we going to feed these people? Are you kidding me? There's 5,000 people." But that's what the little boy had, and he offered it to Jesus, five loaves and two fish. Kind of hard to believe what happened next. Jesus blesses those five little loaves and two fish. He asks the 5,000 people to sit down, and he told his disciples, "Distribute the food to the people and feed the people." They did. So much so that after the people had eaten, Jesus had the disciples collect the leftovers and filled 12 baskets with the bread left over. The lesson is very simple. With Jesus, a little becomes a lot. Hattie Wyatt lived in Philadelphia. She was six, maybe seven years old, a little girl. And one morning, she walked down the street to a little small Baptist Church for Sunday school. She had a Bible, and she had a little small offering, but she couldn't get in the door because it was too crowded. Pastor Conwell saw her. He placed her on his shoulders and he put her in a chair in the back in a dark corner. The next day, Pastor Conwell saw her on the street and he said, "Hattie, we're going to build a larger children's classroom soon." And she said, "I hope you will. It's so crowded. I'm afraid to go there alone." And he said, "When we get the money, we're going to build a space large enough to get all the children in, and we're going to begin to raise that money very soon." But he was really just talking. He didn't have any plans to do anything.

Not long after, Pastor Conwell heard that Hattie was very sick. Her family asked him to come visit, and tragically, not long after that, Hattie passed away. After the funeral, Hattie's mother handed a little bag to Pastor Conwell. And in that bag was 57 cents gathered by Hattie to be her contribution to the new children's classroom. Pastor Conwell took that 57 cents to church and he announced to the leaders that he had received the first gift for the church's new building. He then offered her 57 pennies for sale to the people in the church. Most people paid about $5 each for one of those pennies. And so soon Hattie's 57 cents had become $250. 54 of the people returned the pennies to the pastor as well, and he framed them and put them on a wall for everybody to see as a reminder of Hattie Wyatt and her vision for the children in that church. The church purchased the little small lot in the house next door for $250. Hattie's 57 cents became the seed for that expansion. Pretty soon, the church outgrew that space. And the leaders saw a need for more mission space for children. They had a mortgage of $30,000 remaining on their original building, but the leaders stepped out in faith. Pastor Conwell met with the owner of a large lot and said, "We need a place to build a new church home." The man wanted $30,000. The pastor told him, "We've only got 54 cents, but someday soon we're going to own this lot." He went back and a few weeks later, the owner came and said he'd hold the lot for five years. "I've made up my mind. I'll sell you the lot for $25,000 instead of 30, and I'll take the 54 cents for the first payment and hold the mortgage myself at 5%."

Pastor Conwell went back to the church to the leaders and he said, "We can give more than 54 cents." So they used those 54 cents from Hattie as the down payment, and that became the seed for the second expansion of the church. Using Hattie's 54 cents, giving some more and borrowing the rest, they built a church home that became the largest congregation of any kind in Philadelphia at the turn of 1,900. It was about a 3,300-seat church. The largest donor gave on the condition that it not be named Grace Baptist Church. So instead, they called it the Temple. Pastor Conwell began teaching classes in that new home, begun with Hattie Wyatt's 54 cents, one little girl who saw a need all around her and did something about it. Pastor Conwell formed a school in that building, a Place of Hope in 1884. Today that school is called Temple University. A few years later, the congregation opened a hospital, a Place of Compassion. Then a second, then a third, and all three later merged to become Temple University Hospital. One little girl, Hattie Wyatt, living in very modest conditions, but with a very large vision and a generous heart, was used by God to give birth to the largest church in Philadelphia. A school that today serves 34,000 students and is one of the 50 largest universities in the US, law, medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, campuses in Tokyo and Rome. And three hospitals all launched out of that same space. Those hospitals today serve 20,000 inpatients a year and 150,000 outpatients a year, all from the initial 57 cents that Hattie Wyatt gave because she saw what nobody else could, and she gave all that she had, 57 cents, a little girl.

I mean, I can hear the skeptical disciple Philip saying, "Jesus, how in the world are we going to feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish?" Really? But with God, all things are possible. With Jesus, 57 cents can birth the ministry serving hundreds of thousands of people. With Christ, 57 cents can fund a pregnancy resource center that saves the lives of 90 babies a month just down the street from your parish. With Jesus, 57 cents can share a life-changing book with every person who attends Christmas mass at your parish. With God, 57 cents can send teenagers in your parish on a mission trip that will change their lives forever. You get the point. Jesus Christ lives in you. With you, he can do extraordinary things because all things are possible. You and 57 cents just might change the world. With Jesus, a little becomes a lot.