Matthew 14:13-21
As many of you know, we just returned from a cruise
to Alaska on the inner waterway.
Normally, I don’t think of cruises as my vacation of choice. I’d prefer spend my time enjoying a
particular location for a few days rather than passing days on board a ship
with only a few hours in each port of call.
But I quite enjoyed this particular cruise, and I would recommend it to
anyone who likes to see amazing scenery.
Just leave the children behind so that you can actually spend time
appreciating it!
Two days were particularly nice for me. One was the centerpiece of the cruise – a day
in Glacier Bay where I got to watch icebergs calve off into the sea, to see a
pod of orcas swimming lazily by, and to observe development of mature forest in
fast forward as we sailed from the glacier past land that had been uncovered
longer and longer in past.
The other was our day in Juneau. We used our time there to go and visit a
glacier that ended in a freshwater lake surrounded by old growth evergreen
forest that was rife with waterfalls. At
the park, there were several trails, and we decided to take a 3 ½ mile hike up
to the head waters of the biggest fall and back through the forest. At one point, we stood on a board walk on the
edge of a hill that descended about 500 feet in the course of about 50
feet. (That’s a 90% incline in case you
were wondering.) As I stood there
looking out into the forest and listening the rills of water streaming down the
exposed areas of rock, I realized that I was still fully in the forest despite
the height, and I was taken with awe at the beauty and the majesty of the
scene. It was my kind of place – the
kind where I feel most alive – a place where I felt enfolded in the bountiful
gifts that God showers on this creation.
And that, it turn, tuned my ears to hear the story
of “not enough” that flows through our society, seeping into our subconsciouses
(is that a word) and dripping into our minds until we find ourselves reaching
for whatever we can grab hold of.
Reaching for it and holding on tight just in case there isn’t any
more.
But there is another voice out there that tells a
different story. It speaks to us in the
creation narratives filled with life in plenty and soothes the fears of the
hundreds of thousands of our ancestors who spent forty years in the wilderness
eating manna and drinking sweet water.
It resounds in the words of the prophets and echoes in the letters of
Paul. It paints a picture of what the
future might look like in Revelation, and it shows us how the table of God
provides for us all – even now – in the story of Jesus and a crowd sitting on
the side of a mountain with the sun setting on a long day of listening and
learning.
In Matthew, 5,000 people have gathered in the
wilderness between villages. I say
5,000, because that’s the number in the text, but it was probably more like
12,000 once you include the women and children that are mentioned (almost as an
afterthought). The people followed Jesus
to see the man who had been doing miracles of healing and to hear his wisdom.
The crowd spent the day listening to the strange new
rabbi share a vision that was less-than-orthodox but filled with hope and
promise, and it must have been a long day.
Lunch time passed and everyone ate whatever food they had brought with
them. Evening drew near, and children
began to complain about being hungry.
Parents began to argue about when they should head home. And the rumblings reached the ears of the
disciples who were taking it in turns to walk among the people and get a sense
of their response to the message.
They shared their concerns with Jesus, urging him to
finish up so that they could all go and find something to eat. But Jesus wasn’t quite done. He sent them to find food for everyone just
as they would have it this was their home, and they returned with five loaves
of bread and two fish. Setting aside
their concerns, Jesus took the food and blessed it and it multiplied to feed
all 12,000 people with left-overs for the next day.
I could go on for a while and talk about how that
can happen, but I’ll Sue Clemmer Steiner show you what it looks like as she
shares the story of how Matthew’s story has come alive in her experience….
A couple of times a summer, [when I was a child], a thin man dressed in black
would politely knock on our back door about an hour before suppertime. His face looked old and weather-beaten, and
despite the heat he always wore layers of clothing. The little cart with his belongings sat by
the front gate.
He would ask my mom if there was any food he could have that night. So she made extra of whatever she was
preparing for dinner, keeping me inside the house while the man waited on the
back steps. She filled a plate for him,
and he sat on the steps and ate. After
finishing his dinner he knocked on the door, said thank you, and continued on
his way.
Afterward my dad would launch into stories of the many hobos who passed
through our small Pennsylvania town on freight trains during the Depression,
looking for a meal and sometimes sleeping in the sheds at the family feed
mill. “They’re homeless,” said my day,
“down on their luck, and it’s good for us to feed them.”
My mom’s action, supported by my dad, left a deep impression on me…. Sixty years later, when I pray about Matthew’s
telling of the feeding of the multitude , it’s the words “You give them
something to eat” that beckon. Like my
mother, I hear these words addressed to me.
And like the first disciples, I’m overwhelmed….
I am surely infected more than I know by the invasive script of North
American politics and culture. This
scarcity script tells me that I need to protect what I have and grasp for
more. It encourages me to look after my
own interests and succumb to new and ever more exotic cravings.
[Yet, as I ponder Jesus’ amazing act of compassion] I’m startled to find
a new script emerging, drawing me in.
It’s a script that begins not in fear of obligation but in compassion,
and it leads to awe…. Jesus blesses and
breaks open what is surely not enough and dares us to offer it to others. As he does this, God’s economy of abundance
emerges.
Perhaps, I can help set the stage for such miracles when I pay attention
to my own cravings for more. I can pray
with Isaiah, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your
labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good.” For when I do that my spirit is nourished, I
catch a glimpse of God’s economy of abundance, [and I step forward to share
that gift with others.] [1]
That’s a good enough message, and maybe I should stop
there. But I remember saying in my last
sermon that we might do well to spend more time wrestling with the well-loved
scriptures as well as the challenging ones.
When I did that with this text, when I used a few tools to dig a bit
deeper, I discovered a truth that John Shearman puts this way:
Perhaps, he says, we moderns may tend to focus too much on the miracle of
the loaves and fishes when we should look more closely at what it expressed. That appears to have been the more important
aspect of [the stories in Matthew’s gospel.]
Jesus had just heard about the execution of John the Baptist. It was an
ominous turn of events. Whether or not we accept the tradition that John and
Jesus were related does not matter. It does not mean as much as the fact that
Jesus grieved for John's death. We might
even think of John as Jesus' mentor with whom he had had close association at
the time of his baptism and possibly some time before that. He wanted to be
alone not only to mourn but probably to talk with his disciples privately about
the dangers he now expected lay ahead for himself and for them.
A colloquial translation of vss. 13-14 implies that his departure in a
boat was secretive, but that the crowds "got wind of it" and followed
him on foot. The traditional site shown to tourists … was not far from the
villages of Capernaum, Gennesaret and Magdala. It is an even shorter trip by
boat across the northwestern bay of the lake. When Jesus saw the crowds who had
gathered on the lakeshore, "he had compassion on them." … We might
say, "He felt it in his gut." [And,] no matter how great his own need
for privacy and time to grieve, he felt that their need for his attention was
greater. [2]
A parable ….
One that teaches us, as all parables do, about the reality we make for
ourselves and the reality that God wishes to give us. And what I get from this parable is this: God provides abundantly.
Whenever we find ourselves in need … whenever we look
around us, and there is not enough, God takes whatever little bit we have to
offer, breaks it and transforms it so that pours down on us as a blessing.
Whether it is food or water we need, whether it is reassurance or courage in
the face of fear, whether it is hope or dreams to lead us forward, God has the
power and the desire to meet our needs … and not just in some idyllic
future. God has the power and the desire
to provide for us here and now.
Thanks be to God, AMEN.
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