These past few weeks we have been studying various parables. Jesus has used those parables, stories of obvious and everyday occurrences, to teach us deeper meanings. Last week, for example, we learned discovering treasure brings great joy. Not for the treasure found but to the Christian joy that lasts forever. Joy in finding God. Joy in the assurance we are loved by God and joy in the sure and certain knowledge that through God’s love we will live eternally with God.
Today’s reading in Matthew is different. It is the story about the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. Actually, there were many more than just five thousand. Verse 21 says, “…and those who ate that day were around 5,000 men, besides women and children.” With women and children there could have been ten to fifteen thousand who were fed that day!
Through those earlier parables it became clear Jesus has the ability to care for our deepest spiritual needs. In this story we find Jesus has the ability to provide for our natural needs too. When the people were sick, Jesus healed them; when they were sad, Jesus blessed them; and when they were hungry, Jesus fed them.
Early Christians likely told this story again and again. They told the story when they gathered around the table for worship. It reminded them of the last supper when Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it and said; “…take, eat, this is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me.”
It reminded them also of stories in the Old Testament about how manna fell from the sky to feed the children of Israel in the wilderness and of the prophet Elisha feeding a hundred hungry men with twenty barley loaves.
Bread miracles are not new in scripture and today’s is one of the many impressive miracle stories. We find ourselves drawn to these stories. Like the magic trick that seems impossible we cannot wait until someone tells us the secret. How did he do that?
Did the bread and fish multiply all at once or as they were being passed around? Or was it more like an Easter egg hunt? There, look right there, it’s a hidden loaf of bread, there under that bush and my, oh my, I picked it up and look; here is this piece of fish! It was hiding under the bread. No, sorry, we really don’t know and Matthew doesn’t tell us.
Matthew does tell us the miracle happened in a lonely place where Jesus had gone. He was sad. He had heard his friend, John the Baptist, was dead. Jesus wanted to be alone for a while. But the crowds heard where he was and followed him. They followed him because they too needed personal time, personal time and attention to be with Jesus. They were sick, they were sad, and they were hungry. Jesus had compassion for them and he took the time to be with them, to lay his hands on them, to comfort them, and to cure those who were sick.
When it became evening his disciples recognized there were so many people out in that lonely place, in the middle of nowhere. If there was any hope of their having an evening meal they would have to be sent to the surrounding villages to buy food for themselves.
But Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” The disciples replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” Jesus replied, “Bring them here to me.”
Taking the bread and the fish, he looked up to heaven, “and after giving thanks to God,” he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, “take, eat.” And all ate and were filled.
The people had great needs, they followed Jesus to be comforted, to be healed and to be fed, not only with bread and fish, but with Jesus’ presence. They sought Jesus to be with him, to be seen breaking bread together at the common table of humanity where they would receive lasting comfort and healing.
The push back from the apostles was a common sense response. A simple inventory of the food on hand told them what to do. Send them away. That was the common sense thing to do. To everyone but Jesus that is. You see Jesus defies common sense. Jesus operates from a different set of assumptions about what is possible in his kingdom.
All too often we are like the disciples, our common sense recognizes when we don’t have an abundance, when there is a scarcity. Not enough bread or fish, not enough people, not enough money, not enough time, not enough patience, not enough knowledge, not strong enough, too timid, too shy, not skilled enough. It is the same mind set the disciples had when they said, “We have nothing here…” to offer.
Jesus clearly sees things differently. Jesus is telling us straight up in this story, there is plenty, plenty of time, plenty of food, plenty of possibilities with the resources at hand. Yet, we are skeptical.
We are seasoned folk, we know how things work. When we look at the needs of the world we know it’s best to send the crowds away. Their need is too great and we have a scarcity of resources. Common sense tells us we cannot heal the world of AIDS, we cannot feed the masses who are starving, we cannot stop war and injustice, not with the resources at hand. Just do the math!
Jesus doesn’t buy it in our gospel story and Jesus doesn’t but it today that we are without the resources. Jesus knew the key, he knew where the needed abundance comes from. Wherever there is plenty of God there will be plenty of everything else. Wherever there is plenty of God, there will be plenty of everything else! Abundance and possibilities beyond what common sense may suggest.
Miracles actually do us an injustice, they tend to let us off the hook. They lead us to say, let God do it! God can cure AIDS, feed the millions who are hungry, stop war and injustice. It is a convenient excuse for us to avoid being called by God. Just let God do it!
Jesus said to the disciples and Jesus says to us, “they need not go away; you give them something…”
But, how can we hang on to our own little piece of bread, sit in the crowd with despair all around us, and be responsible for the world? “God is in charge” works just fine for us. But it doesn’t excuse us from sharing what we have does it?
No, it does not excuse us, not then and not now. Jesus said, “they need not go away; you give them something…” Jesus is clear, we are to stop looking for someone else to solve the problem, to stop waiting for a miracle and participate in one instead. We create a miracle by bringing what we have. Jesus began with what he had, five loaves and two fish.
George MacDonald, the Scottish poet, pastor, and storyteller who inspired C. S Lewis, said, “The same God who is in us…also is all about us—inside, the spirit; outside, the Word, and the two are ever trying to meet in us.”
Jesus expects the something we have to give is really not something, it is someone. God, trying to meet in us, is the something we are being called to give, the someone who Jesus is asking us for. They need not go away, we can give the world all it needs if we will only help our God.
But we act so often like the disciples and think we have nothing or no one to share. So, in response to our doubt, Jesus said, “Bring them here to me…” the hungry, yes, and ourselves too, our resources, our scarcity and our plenty, our talents, our gifts, and our passion. These are the things we start with, whatever we have. We bring them and ourselves to Jesus and he offers to bring us to God. He blesses us and breaks us and we are fed by the grace of God that we may then be one with God sent out into the world to feed the unfed.
It is a curious thing, this giving of ourselves. Wendell Berry, in a poem titled “Amish Economy” offers these lines;
“It falls strangely on Amish ears,
This talk of how to find yourself.
We Amish, after all, don’t try
To find ourselves. We try to lose
Ourselves – and thus are lost within
The found world of sunlight and rain
Where fields are green and then are ripe…
And the people eat together by
The charity of God, who is kind
Even to those who give no thanks.”
Our trying to lose ourselves can be the most sincere, honest, hardworking giving imaginable. We dedicate ourselves to our work, to our family, to our community, even to our church. We take on a career, we provide a needed service, and we do our best to change people’s lives, to make life more comfortable. It is a curious thing. This call from God to give to those in need. Asking nothing in return “You give them something…”, he says.
Yet, I wonder. Are we perhaps short changing the one to whom we should be giving the most. God almighty. We are really busy with life. Our puritan work ethic is a strong and driving force in our lives. There are these fascinating tapes we play over and over in our head. We have to be busy doing something, we tell ourselves. To get things done, we have to be busy, it’s just good common sense.
Yet, Jesus is throwing us a great big curve this morning. There is something we can give that defies common sense. That we cannot work hard enough for. It is our humbled selves. It is what we find in ourselves that makes us human and Christian. Our compassion, our love for one another, our love for Christ and our passion to live the good news.
Have we been too busy with other things? How much does our busy life teach us about the food for our soul that only comes from the Lord’s table? How much does our busy life teach us about the food Jesus is telling us to give to the hungry crowd in this desert place where the hour is all too late. Not much I would say.
Yet we only have something to give them if we have first received it and we may truly miss receiving it if we are too busy doing other things. The hardest thing for us to agree with this morning may not be this clear message that we have what it takes, that there is within our heart and soul God given knowledge, skill, abilities, and passion which God intends us to use.
No, it just may be the hardest thing for us to agree with this morning is we think we have nothing to give because we are too busy to notice. Too busy and unable to spend more time alone with Jesus. The truth is Jesus expects us to live our entire life where his spirit and his word meet in us, in our heart and soul and mind. But do we?
Begin today. Is this hour in church on Sunday the only time you spend with Jesus? And when you are here are you on autopilot? Do you let the liturgist and the worship leader speak to God for you? When was the last time you took time to be alone with God, just you and God? Think you have nothing to offer, think again. When we spend time alone with God, God is very likely to show up. Just remember, God expects that we bring what we have, nothing more, and nothing less, for that is where we will begin with God. However little we have, that is the something Jesus is asking us to give in service to him. That is enough to begin with, that is enough to begin with to get a miracle started.
We really don’t know how the miracle with the bread and the fish happened, how that small amount of bread and those few fish could feed so many. But what Jesus has been saying to his followers forever he is saying to us today; They need not go away, you give them something to eat.” Our giving takes us to bring them and ourselves to Jesus where we come together as family, where all are fed the bread of life and the cup of salvation and all are filled. Filled with the miracle of the oneness in Jesus Christ.
For “…the people eat together by the charity of God, who is kind even to those who give no thanks.”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever . Amen
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