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7. Sunday after Pentecost, 07/31/2011
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. (English Standard Version)
ALL HE NEEDS ARE FIVE LOAVES AND TWO FISH!
We read this morning's text in something of a "ho-hum" manner. It is not the miracle that seems "ho-hum," of course, for that always catches one's attention - as it rightly should. But it is the surrounding within which the miracle takes place that easily escapes our awareness.
It is not even the seeming "dullness" of the disciples who do not seem to remotely consider the possibility that the answer to their concern for the hunger of the people lay with the one who had been teaching the people, who had looked upon them with compassion, healing their sick. Their urging him to "send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves" was a perfectly sensible suggestion. It is the very thing you and I would undoubtedly have done. No, there is another part of the story that is easily overlooked.
I refer to the fact that these crowds had gotten wind that Jesus was going across the lake in order to be alone and they had hurried ahead of him on foot while he crossed the water on a boat and they were already waiting for him when he disembarked! Now on the one hand this is hardly a major thing to take note of, while on the other hand it presents a remarkably dramatic scene unfolding as one reads this text.
Just imagine five thousand men (plus women and children) jostling one another, pushing one another, pressing forward like a mob (for they had no sense of a military marching army trained to get from one place to another in an orderly fashion), moving restlessly but very intently along the shores of the lake. We are talking about a very large village or a small city moving forward in a hurried fashion so as to greet Jesus on the far side of the lake! It must have been quite a sight! And they were carrying a number of infirm people along with them!
We do well to envision this mob scene stirring up the dust by the side of the lake as they rush along together in order to see, hear and be with Jesus! It would have made quite an impression on the watching audience of Jerusalem TV to have gotten a glimpse of it in the nightly newscast! No matter how hard we try to portray this scene through media of today, it is just more than one can properly depict in the artificial modes of Hollywood. Cecil B. DeMille gave a whirl at depicting an earlier such rapid transit of a multitude of people leaving Egypt, but it never quite came off - nor can it come off - as a believable representation of what it was actually like to be among that multitude pushing and shoving and elbowing one another in the great rush to get to the other side of the lake. Yet - that is what all four gospels tell us happened on this particular day. It is clear that this was a monumental occasion, for it is the only miracle story told in all four gospels, which suggests that, to the gospel writers - and to the early church - this was a major juncture in Jesus' ministry.
Why did they go to such great lengths? Why were they so anxious to get to where Jesus was going? We are told in three of the four accounts that, seeing them, he had compassion on them and he healed their sick, but one can hardly imagine that the major reason they hurried to see Jesus in this place, described as desolate, was because they wanted to see miracles of healing. They had seen and would see such miracles almost everywhere that Jesus went. They hardly needed to rush out to a desolate place to present their brothers and sisters in need of healing.
We are told in other accounts that he spent the day primarily in teaching them, in speaking to them about the marvels of the Kingdom of God. The crowds are our testimony - and their participation in this episode speaks to us loud and clear: "It is worth every effort one can exert to tend to that which Jesus of Nazareth has to say!" This, surely, was the main reason five thousand men along with women and children had rushed out to be with Jesus. His teaching had refreshed them earlier, and they wanted more. He had words of promise and of hope, of a Father's care and of a kingdom quite other than that which they presently experienced under the thumb of Rome. They hungered and thirsted after words like that and they were determined to hear more from this charismatic man who had been attracting such an immense audience throughout Galilee - even if they had to follow him - or, rather, go ahead of him! - to some desolate place to hear him.
While we hardly dare to make this the major point of this narrative, it is, nonetheless, of note that it is hard to imagine us, sitting quietly - and hopefully, attentively - here in these pews, rushing out under highly adverse circumstances to hear someone speaking about the marvels of the kingdom of God. Although there are some major exceptions, by and large "religious speakers" are pretty "ho-hum" to most people in the society of our day, as are most "religious events." Who among you gathered here, e.g., trembled with excitement at the thought of hearing a word of the Lord this morning in anticipation of coming to this (or any) community of God's people? How many books containing the word of the Lord lie covered with dust on end tables? The excitement of those gathered in our text tells us that we do well to pay close attention to this Jesus whom they sought and that which he has to say to us. People get excited about many things in our day, but few would have joined a crowd like that enduring considerable hardship and traveling either in the dead of night or in the earliest morning light to get to a "nowhere place" in order to hear that which our Lord preached and taught to this crowd! Once there, they stood or sat all day long listening to him, enthralled by that which he offered them through his words.
Perhaps some had brought a lunch of some kind, but that had been devoured at mid-day. By evening the disciples brought the needs of this crowd to the attention of Jesus. It was not the crowd, we note, who complained about hunger, nor was it the people who asked where they might find food. It was the disciples who recognized this and spoke to Jesus about it, expecting him who had had compassion on the crowd earlier in the day to also now have compassion on them, gently and kindly dismissing them so that they would have opportunity to seek an evening meal. Jesus had compassion on them, to be sure, but not in the way the disciples expected him to. "They are our guests," he said in effect, "so we must feed them." He did not give a simple imperative, "Feed them." He said even more emphatically, "YOU give them something to eat!." It is as though we, praying for the hungering people in Somalia, would hear God suddenly say to us, "YOU feed them!" That would shake us up, would it not?
"With what?" we would respond in dismay, as did those disciples. "Well, what do you have?" Jesus asked in return. The disciples themselves had surprisingly failed to have anticipated even their own and Jesus' provision, it seems, for they had precious little to tell him about! In other accounts we are told, in fact, that they had to scrounge around to find a young boy with anything at all to offer in the face of this situation. Whether they found the fare among themselves, as in the text before us, or whether it was that which the young boy had offered, the answer was simple: "Five loaves and two fish. That's all we have at our disposal to feed all these people. There is no more food around, nor is there money enough to buy such rations even if there were a place nearby where we could purchase such." (Mark 6:37; Luke 9:13) One can imagine the dismay in the hearts and eyes of the disciples as they reported these meager findings - just as our hearts and eyes express dismay when we hear of the hungry people around the world and recognize how helpless we are in the face of it all. "What can we do in the face of such need with so little in our hands?" we ask.
It is a frightening thing to be faced with needs so far beyond our ability to satisfy - even if we had several tons of wheat or a hundred head of cattle to present to such destitute wants. Our best intentions or desires become depressed wishes that we could so something meaningful to alleviate the needs of the world. We are filled with a terrible sense that there is nothing we can do to even make a small dent in the face of adversities such as we see depicted on our TV screens, read about in our papers, and hear about through our local charitable organizations attempting to meet the impoverishment of people without means in our own community. Sometimes this sense even gives us reason to hand out a dollar or two to someone on the street corner when that person gives us the impression of being really honestly needy as he / she holds up the sign, "Hungry. Need help." "Here. Have a loaf of bread and a fish," we say. "That's all we can do. There are too many street corners - and too many unworthy beggars to care for them all. Take this bread and fish since you impress me as one who could use a lift, but it's the best I can do for you." So there the disciples stood - and we along with them - with two loaves of bread and five fish in hand, saying, "What is so little for so many?"
"Bring them here to me," Jesus said. What the disciples could not provide, Jesus proposed to provide in their stead. Having received them in his hand, we read, "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." That was enough to "shake their timbers!" If we find it all but impossible, as we suggested earlier, to properly portray the movement of this large crowd around the lake in a short time, it is even more impossible to properly portray this moment. What did it look like for Jesus to keep breaking bread off of a loaf while it never diminished much less became exhausted? What was it like to see him break off pieces of dried fish, handing them to the disciples to distribute among all these people without having the fish used up? Even the people in the front row probably could not have described it, much less those who sat way in the rear! The point for them, however, - and for us, mind you - is not "what it looked like" to have this happen. The point for them - and for us who hear this reading - is simply this: "And they all ate and were satisfied." Is that not a marvel? There is no telling what can happen when things get into the hands of the God who created them in the first place and who stood among them in the human form of Jesus of Nazareth.
Especially when they are nails! Those hands handing out bread and fish to the disciples were destined to be fastened to a cross.
When John tells of this feeding he goes on to interpret it in ways that we do not find in the other three gospels. He says that the first response of the people fed in this way recognized in this and other ways that Jesus was "indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world." (John 6:14) They undoubtedly saw in this miracle an echo of the manna provided for the people of Israel who journeyed for forty years through another "desolate place" long ago when they were hungry. Perhaps they remembered how God, working through Elisha, had multiplied "a few loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain" to feed a hundred or more men. (2 Kings 4:42-44) They undoubtedly remembered words of Isaiah, a prophet long before Jesus, who had said that the Lord would take an impoverished and broken people and feed them with "a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined." (Isaiah 25:6) Remembered words and actions such as these undoubtedly emboldened the people to think that the day of their deliverance was at hand in this Jesus who fed them so abundantly in this wilderness. Therefore they were ready to pressure him to "make his move," taking up a kingship of an earthly sort where his ability to feed people so richly with such little resources would without question receive unanimous public support.
To such hopes he only said, "You are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal." (John 6:26, 27) He then speaks of himself as "the bread of God ... who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world"; as "the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst"; as "the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." (John 6:33; 35; 51) He who took the bread and fish into his hands had already begun to feel the nails that would pierce those same hands when the time had come for the ultimate act of salvation to be carried out. One could speak of the feeding of this crowd as an act in which it is seen "how so little can become so much" - from five loaves and two fish to a meal for eight thousand or so. In doing so, one can also catch the vision of how one man's suffering, death and resurrection - what seemed so little to those gathered under the cross on the day of his death - could / would become the redemptive act changing everything for all creation (Romans 8:18-25).
At this point that crowd over which we made so much earlier becomes an entire world restlessly, yearningly, desperately longing for a word of hope and promise, hastening toward a desolate place where Jesus was to be found. He who sought a lonely place to reflect on the distressing news of John the Baptizer's beheading by coming to this desert retreat had to give away his own longing for a place of reflection and contemplation in the interests of those whose desperate search for him brought them to this one whose ultimate self-giving would lead him to the cross where the true bread of life was to be found. Was there ever a more desolate place than Calvary? Yet it was on that desolate hill where the Bread of Life was offered, not just to a few thousand, but to the whole world!
It is no wonder, then, that many find in this account a prototype, a foreshadowing of that meal called in the liturgy "a foretaste of the feast to come" which we celebrate regularly in our worship services. The very way all the accounts tell of this feeding suggest this: Jesus "looked up to heaven and said a blessing [a ‘thanksgiving'], broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples." It sounds eerily like that Passover meal when Jesus did exactly the same thing, telling those gathered there that in a continued breaking of bread he would be present among them, with them, and for them through the ages to come - "as often as you do this."
Having said and done all this, he "gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds." Then - and only then - did the disciples have enough and more with which to feed the people! "YOU give them something to eat" had become "I will take from your hands that which you have and then give it back to you so that you will have enough to give them as though it were from your hands." He who had created all things could have created the food for five thousand as he had created all things - from nothing, simply by a word. But he did not do this. He took what was at hand and multiplied it. Much earlier Jesus had been tempted to turn stone into bread for self-preservation, but he had refused to do this. Now, when the needs of others had become the issue, he took what was at hand and used it to satisfy the hunger of others.
When, therefore, we hear his words to the disciples, we hear the words as though they were addressed to us also: "YOU give them something to eat." And we say, "That which we have is far too little for that which is so necessary." He does not let us off the hook so easily as we would like, however. He says, "Bring them here to me." He takes them into his hands, hands which now have nail marks in them, and takes what little we have and multiplies it. A loaf to Lutheran World Relief; another loaf to the local food bank; yet another loaf to Bread for the World; still another loaf to Covenant House; and a fifth loaf to a the Lutheran Social Service organization. A fish to Habitat for Humanity and another fish to Jubilee Housing. Our Lord gathers them all in his hands, blesses them, and gives them through us, his disciples, along with a multitude of others who have heard the "YOU" in this text and along with many other resources for a multitude of other causes and associations and institutions and humanitarian societies addressing the distress of the world, to thousands and even millions. So our poor little loaves and fish nourish and support and shelter thousands upon thousands of nameless and faceless people spread across the face of the earth. Our little is multiplied beyond our comprehension. "We have only five loaves here and two fish," we say. "It is enough," Jesus says.
Then he says, "Bring them here to me." He blesses them, breaks them, and they are distributed by hands appointed by him until the little we each bring is multiplied many times over. We can no more describe just how it all happens than we can describe how Jesus took five loaves and two fish and broke them endlessly until "they all ate and were satisfied." In fact, more than that, "they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over."
One cannot describe how all this works in the hands of the Lord any more than those in the front row of "five thousand men, besides women and children" could describe it even as they watched it happen. The point, though, is not how it happens. The point is to give until they all eat and are filled. He does not do it ex nihilo, out of nothing, though. He does it through that which we place into his hands - for it is in his hands that the little becomes exceedingly much!
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.