8/4/02
"They Need Not Go Away" - Matthew 14:13-21
(view lectionary notes for this text)
The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is probably one of the best known stories of the gospels, more familiar even than the parables which precede this chapter. In this scene, we find Jesus seeking peace and quiet: the passage opens, "now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself." The news that Jesus had just heard was that John the Baptist, his cousin, his predecessor, his dear friend, had been beheaded by Herod. Jesus, filled with grief over this great loss, has a very natural response: he wants to be alone, he wants to hide away and be with his own thoughts for a while. But the crowds can not leave him be - the follow him on foot - traveling great distances, assembling in a great crowd. They just couldn't get enough of Jesus, they couldn't leave him alone even for a time of mourning. Like today's celebrities, hounded by media, fans, and paparazzi, Jesus could find no quiet time to himself when he most wanted it. The crowds - the thousands of men, women, and children, were relentless.
Yet, instead of reacting with anger, instead of holding a dismissive hand up to the cameras, we read that Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them. The word compassion might not have much force in our vocabulary today, but for the gospel writers, this word meant that Jesus' insides literally turned over with worry when he saw the crowds. It means that he felt for them in the very core of his being, so filled with compassion he was for the people swarming to see him. So when the disciples suggested sending the hungry crowds home to find food, Jesus responded with mercy and love that you can almost hear in his voice, "They need not go away, you give them something to eat." The disciples are baffled - what can they do? Jesus insisted, "bring them to me." Out of the crowds they find five loaves of break and two fish. Jesus blessed the food, broke the loaves, and passed the food to the crowds. In the end, all eat until they are full, and there are even twelve baskets of broken pieces of food left over - and those who ate were about five thousand men, we are told, not counting even the women and the children. A miraculous display of Jesus' power, a miraculous story of feeding the hungry. And yet, the story takes us still further than that, teaching us many lessons from this miraculous feeding.
Jesus teaches us about leadership, about our responsibility to care for others because of our faith. Jesus' first response at hearing of John's death is to retreat and spend some time alone. Most people would agree that spending some down time just for one's self is important, a healthy way to respond to stress. But Jesus puts aside his own needs in order to respond to the needs of others. He gives up his retreat time, his quiet time, in order to meet the crowds pressing in on him. The crowds, hungering both spiritually and physically, writes pastor Garret Keizer, represent everything from which Jesus is in retreat. He has withdrawn to 'recharge his batteries.' But he does not turn them away. Keizer compares this to keeping the Sabbath, and the way Jesus always responded when he was questioned for violating the laws of the day of rest. "It requires something like ruthlessness to keep the Sabbath," Keizer writes. To turn a blind eye toward the need of others in order to meet one's own needs of rest, refueling, spiritual recharging - Jesus found this impossible. Again and again, Jesus broke the Sabbath laws in order to heal, to reach out to others. Even now, when he needs rest for himself so greatly, he cannot fail to help those who come to him. Instead of finding his strength in peace and quiet, Jesus finds his strength, his joy, in being with the people. Can we do the same? When we feel we've nothing left to give, when we feel spent, spiritually and physically, can we give still more? Jesus calls us to respond as he did, by giving more, loving more, and even more than we think we can bear. Like Jesus, we can find our strength and our peace in the very act of working for others, we can find our selves by serving the crowds who are in need.
But the lesson holds even more for us: The disciples' response to the hungry crowds is a response I've often heard, one I've often felt like using myself - "what can we do?" they ask. "We have nothing here to give, but five loaves and two fish." The disciples are overwhelmed by the crowds - there are too many people, they have too little to offer. I can almost imagine Jesus' groan of frustration with the disciples - they don't get it, again. Jesus wants the disciples to step up into their roles of leadership, he wants them to initiate the response to the crowds. But they are too limited in what they see - they only see how big of a crowd there is and how little in number the food is, and they see no possible actions. The disciples want to use their limited resources as a pretext for inaction: so many people, so few loaves. But Jesus refuses to let this be the response - he makes things happen - with what little they have, he finds a way to feed everyone. Too often, we can be overwhelmed like the disciples - we look at our small selves and think how little we have to offer, how little we can do. How can we possibly make changes in the world when we are so small, when we have so little to work with? What can we do? We respond, like the disciples, "we have nothing here!" But in doing so, we shortchange ourselves and God, rejecting, by our inaction, the gifts which God gives to us. If we say there is nothing we can do, then we are in fact saying that God has not given us enough, or good enough. Jesus shows us that we just need to use what we have, put some heart and faith behind it, and watch miracles take place. We ask, "what good will our little bit do?" But Jesus' answer is always the same - to the one cup of cold water offered to a child, to the one widow's mite, to the five loaves of bread. The answer Jesus gives is, "Let's see what good we can do here."
And another lesson still - we can wonder about the miracle here - did Jesus really work supernaturally to create more loaves and more fish? Did he simply by his actions encourage others to share their loaves and fish that they didn't want to give up at first? These questions are historically intriguing, but they miss the real point: thousands and thousands of men, women, and children were fed, full, with just a minimum of food. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do that with the world's hungry today? One pastor suggests that it is stories like this: the feeding of the five thousand, that must keep starving societies going and hoping against all odds, hoping for a miracle of such a kind. But what happened that day, as much as anything else, was a miracle of redistribution. Instead of one person having five loaves and two fish, everybody could have something to eat. Instead of one person having it all, everyone got a share. Through Jesus, things were redistributed, reordered, so that everyone was taken care of. Can you imagine a world like that? Listen to this story of what our world looks like, shrunken down to a small scale: If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human rations remaining the same, there would be:
57 Asians
21 Europeans
15 North and South Americans
52 females
48 males
70 are non-white
30 are white
70 are non-Christian
30 are Christian
Six of the hundred would control 59 percent of the entire world's wealth and all of them would come from the United States.
80 live in sub-standard housing
70 cannot read
50 suffer from malnutrition
1 has a college education
1 owns a computer
The truth is, things aren't very evenly spread in our world. Most of us, even if we are not wealthy, have so much, so many blessings, while some go with hardly anything at all. Jesus' actions with the thousands of people are actions that even the playing field, actions that make sure everyone is taken care of - they are radical and revolutionary actions, ones that seem foreign to our culture driven by dollars and profits, actions that were so upsetting to Jesus' contemporaries, that he was put to death over them. But following Jesus is a radical lifestyle, and Jesus asks us if we are willing to do the same - are we willing to give up some of what we have, that others might not go hungry? Are we willing to give out of what God has given to us? They are tough questions, but Jesus encourages us, saying, give your five loaves, and I will see that thousands are fed with them - we don't act alone, but with God, in Christ. Miracles can happen.
Jesus has been teaching in parables throughout Matthew's gospel about the coming of God's kingdom here on earth. In today's lesson, Jesus gives a concrete example of the kingdom's manifestation. Here is the kingdom, where none are turned away, here is the kingdom, where all are full and no one is in need, here is the kingdom, where individuals can do great things by sharing the little they have, here is the kingdom, where the sum is greater than its parts, where a small portion is turned into more than enough to go around, here is the kingdom, among us, real as can be. The promise of this kingdom is in front of us, ready for our taking. We need not go away, when God offers us something to eat.
Let us pray: Gracious and Loving God, sometimes we feel too small to make changes in this big world, sometimes we feel too tired to try anymore, sometimes we feel to afraid to act out. But through you, miracles can happen, lives can change, worlds can be turned upside down. Give us strength and courage to help bring about your kingdom here on earth. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.