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Pentecost 12, 08/03/2008
Sermon on Matthew 14:13-21, by Hubert Beck
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. Now when it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." But Jesus said, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They said to him, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." And he said, "Bring them here to me." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14:13-21 English Standard Version)
A CALL TO CARE
There is nothing new about hunger. It may be as near as your own growling stomach or your child asking what's for supper. It may be a bit more distant and yet as near as the man on the street corner with a sign saying he is hungry or the woman holding the child's hand at the entrance to the supermarket asking for money to feed her son. It may be a bit more "theoretical" such as the plea from the local Food Bank for supplies to supplement those running dangerously low or the Salvation Army's request for help when speaking of the large increase in numbers of those coming in for meals. It may be as distant and abstract as a newspaper article concerning the starvation in Sudan or the TV documentary putting the empty hands of people made hungry by the typhoon in Myanmar before our eyes. Everywhere one turns, hunger is near at hand.
In many ways it has never been all that different. In our day, though, the immediate nearness of the whole world through the media brings the magnitude of that hunger so much nearer that we sense it even more intensely. Frequently it makes us edgy, for it sets a misery before us that shakes us up. It causes us to turn away from it on more occasions than we like to admit, for we feel terribly helpless before its immensity at the very time that we would really like to help. We try not to be where it is self-evident so that we do not feel too badly about it. But, still, what can we do? We cannot deny it, for the evidence is all too omnipresent. Wherever we turn it stares us in the face to our chagrin.
A Proper Concern
We can't even come to church without it staring us in the face. We have hardly settled down in our pews when we are told of five thousand men plus a multitude of women and children who are hungry.
Oddly enough, however, we are not told that the people themselves were complaining about their hunger. To their credit we hear the disciples drawing this hunger to the attention of Jesus! "This is a desolate place, and the day is now over," they say to Jesus. They urge him to "send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves." To their credit, I say, they seemingly recognized the problem before many of those gathered did - or even, strangely enough, than Jesus himself did!
In some ways the crowd had gotten itself into this predicament of being in "a desolate place," for they had understandably followed Jesus. Had they brought some provisions with them, stayed longer than they expected, devoured what they had brought, and now found themselves in need? We do not know. Had they simply "lost themselves" in their eagerness to be with Jesus and neglected to bring supplies for themselves? We do not know. They had evidently been so caught up with the things that Jesus was saying and doing (he was, after all, performing plenty of miracles before the one we are now about to consider, for we are told that "he had compassion on them and healed their sick") that it never occurred to them how late it was getting or how distant they were from necessary resources. Whatever the case, they had gotten themselves into this predicament and it was understandable that the disciples suggested they now had to get themselves out of this bad situation.
Yet, one also senses that the crowd was in this predicament because of Jesus! "When Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself." That of which Jesus had just heard was the beheading of John the Baptist, we are told. He wanted to get off to this "desolate place by himself," very likely to both grieve and to reflect on the situation now emerging out of this death of his predecessor. Surely he must have known, however, that, popular as he was becoming, the crowds would seek him out wherever he was. "When the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns." They were so eager to see him, to hear him, to receive the blessings of his presence, that they actually outraced him to this "desolate place" to which they recognized he was withdrawing. It was this very retirement to this "desolate place" that had, itself, created the dire situation now confronting them - and the disciples - and Jesus. Had he really thought he could get away from them that easily?
Jesus Disturbs the Disciples - and Us
Jesus stopped the disciples dead in their tracks, however, by saying "they need not go away; you give them something to eat." "YOU give them something to eat!?!?" They must have done a real double-take at this instruction! The other accounts of this feeding suggest they did. (All four Gospels tell of this miracle - a most unusual thing about this narrative all its own, for rarely, other than the account of his suffering, death and resurrection, is the same event noted in all four Gospels, suggesting that this story had a very special place in the hearts of those early Christians!)
Matthew speaks of a rather subdued response, however. The disciples simply say, "We have only five loaves here and two fish." All the accounts agree on what they had, but the text before us is quite simple and straightforward. "'You feed them.' you say? ‘Well we, on our part, do not even have provision enough for the twelve of us and you, much less for all these gathered before us.'"
Do we not echo these words in a hundred different ways when we recognize the hunger surrounding us today? How can we feed all those people when we have little more at our disposal than what is necessary for our own welfare? We are certainly sorry for all those hungry people, but sorrow does not feed them. Even cleaning up our plates will not feed the hungry in Sudan. Five loaves and two fish won't go very far even if we give up what is necessary for our own lives.
Jesus, Himself, Undisturbed, Takes What the Disciples Have To Use In a New Way
Unperturbed by this information, Jesus simply asks for the provision they have at hand. "Bring them here to me." In John's account of this event we are told that those five loaves and two fish were not even possessed by the disciples themselves, but that a little boy had them and Andrew discovered them in his possession. They have, in other words, even "commandeered these provisions" from someone else! And now Jesus takes charge of them as though they belong to him from this time forward! They become his provisions - not for his own good, but for the good of all those gathered before him.
Are these words not meant for us also? "Bring whatever you have at your disposal to me. Give them to me. Let me take charge of them. They will no longer be yours!"
It is far easier to hear these words as theory, though, than it is to enact them! It is hard for us to live as though we own nothing and that everything we have really belongs to the one who first gave them to us. Jesus says, "All things that you have that you consider so necessary for your life . . . Bring them here to me. Place them at my disposal. I shall care for them in your name!" In a possession obsessed society these words cut us to the quick. Even if we are able to consider that which we have as "gifts from the Lord," gifts are not given to take back again! We pray "Give us this day our daily bread" as though we are willing to recognize that we will have nothing save that which the Lord gives us . . . but once he gives it to us, it should belong to us, should it not? And even if we could keep those gifts, it remains true that "we have only five loaves and two fish," and we can't do much with them in the face of five thousand men plus women and children. At least these are ours, though, and they would be enough for us.
"Bring them here to me," Jesus says. "It is true that you, yourselves, cannot do much with them. But I can do far more with them than you can imagine!"
The Hungry Are Fed
After ordering the crowd to be seated Jesus does that marvelous thing we have heard about so many times in Sunday School and elsewhere: "He looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied." Wonder of wonders! When Jesus gets hold of the little that we have at our disposal he can multiply that little so many times it boggles our imagination!
Several things are brought to mind when we read these words.
The way this miracle is described by all four of the Gospel writers consistently makes one think that the narrators are giving us a "preview" of the Last Supper - or at least a "shadow" of what is yet to come. In fact, John's account of this miracle is thought by many to actually be his account of the institution of the holy eucharist, for he draws it out much more than Matthew, Mark or Luke do. But we are told in every instance that Jesus "took the bread," "looked up to heaven and said a blessing" (one might say, "gave thanks" for that which he held in his hands), "broke the loaves," "gave it to the disciples." "Took bread . . . gave thanks . . . broke the bread . . . gave it to them." It is all such a familiar way of speaking about the meal on the evening before Jesus' crucifixion.
It is very doubtful, it must be said, that this is meant to be anything other than, at best, an "anticipation" of that supper. The connection is at best tenuous here in Matthew's account. Yet it should not be overlooked, for it gives us a sense of the importance Jesus was attaching to the sharing of that which he claimed for himself before distributing it to others. It is part of the "compassion" that he had earlier exhibited in "healing their sick." In Mark we read that Jesus, upon seeing this crowd coming to him, "had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things." His "teaching" took the form of words that became lively in that which he did when he healed and fed them - just as his suffering, death and resurrection were to become life-sustaining for all those who would eat and drink after the fashion of that Passover meal where he "took, gave thanks, blessed, broke and gave" the bread and wine to his disciples the evening before his death.
Another thing to which we must pay attention in these words is this: "He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowd." That which Jesus claimed for himself when he asked for the loaves and the fishes was returned after Jesus had blessed them to the very same people from whom he had first taken them. They were given back, however, to be given to others as life-nourishing food from his hands. They were the same loaves and fishes . . . and yet they were much more. The multiplication of the loaves and fishes came forth as "new creations" once they had passed through his hands just as water becomes the washing of a "new creation" when it passes through his hands.
When we say this, we also sense, even if in a somewhat remote way, another miracle yet to be enacted here - the miracle of bringing new life out of the death of this one whose hands change everything. The hands that hold this bread will be nailed to the cross of our redemption a relatively short time after this. John quotes Jesus' own words when he elaborated on this miracle, "The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. . . I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." Through this Multiplier of Bread life itself is multiplied for all who find in him their hope and their salvation. When we place ourselves into the hands of this man he re-molds our very lives and creates a new thing out of the simple bread and fish which we place into his hands! And then he goes still further . . . offering himself to us over and over anew in the continued breaking of bread and in the cup of salvation.
These things coming from his hands are now placed into our hands as gifts to be given to others. He asks us, his disciples of today, to distribute them among those who are "like sheep without a shepherd," leading them to the pastures of the Lord and feeding them with the Bread of Life that we, ourselves, first received as gifts. We were reminded of all this in the First Lesson for today: "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat. . . Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food." Isaiah assures his listeners that the grace of God - that which is beyond price or possibility of payment - shall be bread and wine for the nations. To use the words of the Gospel: "He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds." Surely we hear in these words the call to pass on to others that which the Lord has first given us "who have no money," but still may "come, buy and eat." Again we are reminded of the prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread." The "us" is a prayer that we might become distributors of that bread as well as receivers of it!
Yet one other thing is brought to mind when we read this account of Jesus feeding the multitude. We sense yet another feast foreshadowed here. An anticipation of the Great Banquet over which Jesus will preside forever is brought to mind. Remember how many times Jesus spoke of the Last Day as a time of feasting when all of God's people shall gather to celebrate the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation. Once again we cannot force this account to become what it is not, for it is basically and primarily an account of Jesus' compassion concerning the hungry people gathered before him then and there. Yet there are "shadows" in it that cause the light shining from this account to shine even brighter! One can "see through" this narrative in such a way that the very bliss of the everlasting feast of gathering with all of God's people with Jesus as our host leaps at us and causes our hearts to rejoice. There the words of the text will surely find their greatest fulfillment, "And they all ate and were satisfied."
We Are Called to Care for the Hungry
Once we have reflected on these various ways of seeing into and through the text we must come back to where we started, however. There is a longing in the face of all those who hunger in our day for a Jesus who will multiply loaves and fishes to feed their starving bodies. A Jesus who satisfies every immediate need is the Jesus that everybody would love to have at their disposal. We can well understand John's note concerning this event: "Perceiving that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself." Everybody would flock to following a true "Bread King" who would satisfy every need as it arose.
Although we are also told by Matthew of yet another feeding of a multitude - this time of four thousand men plus women and children - there is no sign that when Jesus returned to the heavens after having performed his many marvelous deeds all the sick had been healed, hunger and related needs had been eradicated, or all the demon-possessed had been exorcised. While he did many wonderful things, the nation was still wracked with pain, beggars still were hungry, the sick were still suffering. Jesus' miracles were "signs," ways by which he was making it plain that the kingdom of God had become present among them by virtue of the fact that the King, namely himself, had established it in their midst. He ran from the title of "Bread King" and never pretended to re-create a Garden of Eden among God's people.
It was ultimately his suffering and death that marked the culmination of his ministry, not the healing of all the troubled or the feeding of all the hungry. In his suffering and death he broke the back of all the powers that threatened Eden with eternal annihilation, but the world was still left in the paradoxical tension between the troubled present and the yet-to-come glory of the heavenly banquet.
It is in this troubled "between-times" that we look around us, as we did at the beginning of this sermon, seeing all the physical needs that still exist, weeping in grief over our human inability to wipe it all out. Yet that is not cause for despair. The text reminds us that Jesus did not feed the five thousand by means of a wholly creative act, bringing bread out of nothing at the snap of his finger, magician-like. He took that which was at hand, blessed it and gave it to his disciples, asking them to distribute that simple "beginning" to all those people.
He takes what is at our hand also - the created gifts of food and drink, making them his own - then blesses it as he returns it to our hands to distribute among the needy as the possibilities arise. If we try to turn this text into a "spiritual text" only and neglect the very worldly side of it, we do it an injustice. We are confronted here with a call to care for those less fortunate around us. As St. John puts it so plainly, "If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" (I John 3:17 ESV) Or as James says, perhaps even more boldly, "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?" (James 2:15, 16 ESV)
Just as Jesus did not feed everyone in Israel nor heal all the sick in that country, giving only "signs" of the presence of the Kingdom of God through those things that he did do, we, too, are to be "signs" that the Kingdom of God has come among us. Would that we could feed them all, to be sure! But that we can feed some in one of a variety of ways at our disposal is very true.
There is an old story perhaps told too many times already, but a story nevertheless worth repeating at this point. It is about a person who was given a vision of hell and who saw, to his amazement, that everybody was seated around a sumptuous banquet table laden with good things to eat. All had a long spoon attached to their arms - a spoon too long to both reach for the food and then bring it to their mouths. All looked gaunt and starving as they, try though they may, could not bring the nourishing food on the table to their mouths for sustenance. They could only look at it, smell it, long for it . . . and starve.
The person was then given a vision of heaven where he saw the same kind of table, laden with good things to nourish the bodies. All gathered there looked well and happy in spite of the fact that they, too, had the long spoon attached to their arms. They had discovered what it meant when Jesus took their bread, blessed it and gave it back to them. They had discovered that when he gave it back to them and asked that they distribute it, they took him literally, dipping their spoons in all that was delicious and nourishing, and then placing that nourishment into the mouths of those around them.
"And they all ate, and were satisfied."
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.