Finding Sustenance in Times of Trouble – sermon on August 6, 2017
Matthew 14: 13-21 When Jesus heard what had happened to John the Baptist, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.” Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Bring them here to me,” he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Sermon: Finding Sustenance in Times of Trouble by Rev. Doreen Oughton
The story of the feeding of the multitudes is the only story about Jesus’ ministry that made it into all four gospels. Now each gospel writer tells it a different way, and I am especially taken with the events Matthew describes leading up to this miracle of loaves and fishes. The passage starts out, “when Jesus heard what had happened to John the Baptist, he withdrew.”€ Do you remember what happened to John the Baptist? He’d been arrested by Herod for criticizing Herod’s marriage to his sister-in-law. Herod wanted to kill John from the get-go, but hesitated because of his worry about what the crowd of John’s followers would do. After all, so many people thought of John as a great prophet, Herod didn’t want to trigger some sort of revolution. But then came that birthday party, where Herod, in a drunken state, promised his niece / step-daughter that he would grant her any wish, since she had so dazzled his guests with her dancing. Her request was John’s beheading, which Herod granted. John’s followers were able to obtain the body and buried it, then went to tell Jesus.
This story makes me think of the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. I was too young when it happened to have any emotional connection or reaction, but I can only imagine what it was like for people, especially people of color, when they learned of it. Do you remember? These people had a leader, a leader committed to ushering in a new way of life, a leader helping them take their freedom, command respect, a leader who lifted up their worth and dignity, who inspired them to stand strong in claiming their equal rights and status as citizens. Finally, after centuries of enslavement and decades of oppression and injustice, a new day was dawning. And then their leader was murdered, killed for his work on behalf of his people, killed for speaking the truth and challenging those in power to acknowledge it and act justly. What did that do to the morale of the movement? How much more could a people take?
I wonder if this was what it was like for John’s followers, for other Israelites who had for so long been oppressed by Roman rule. I wonder how much John’s prophecy of the one who would come, the one who would baptize them with fire, inspired people to repent – to look at their lives of hopelessness and despair and turn to a new path, one of hope and possibility. And then there were those who’d met Jesus, about whom John had prophesied. Jesus talked about how great John was, how there were none greater. People talked to each other and word spread. There was a movement in the land, one that scared Herod. But now John was dead, brutally – his head a trophy for a dancing girl and her mother.
Jesus hears the news and wants to go off by himself. He takes a boat. Is he completely alone, or on a boat with the twelve, or maybe just a few of them? Has he made arrangements with the others where to meet up? Perhaps that’s it, and the others set out. John’s followers perhaps ask where they are going and they tell them. And these dispirited, broken people, perhaps they figure if they can’t have John, perhaps Jesus is the one to help them. And so they follow, and as they follow, the crowd grows, for there is no shortage of people who are devastated by the loss, who are not discouraged and fed up by the injustices, the daily humiliations and cruelty. They follow along and when Jesus arrives, he is overcome. The translation deacon Quentin read states that he had compassion on them, but scholar Mark Davis says the word used implies a strong physical reaction – gut-wrenched might work. He felt gut-wrenched upon seeing them, and so he set about healing. I suspect it was not the type of healing we think of where a blind man sees and a lame person is told to get up and walk. I think it was about healing their broken hearts, their despair about John and what it all means, now that he is gone.
We might think about what it was like when the twin towers went down. We looked for a way to find strength and hope, to do something: give blood, light candles, volunteer at rescue sites, pray. I wonder if Jesus was offering some guidance for the people – listening and encouraging them not to lose hope, to strengthen their commitment to justice, and begin right where they were, right with the people around them. I wonder what happened to his wish for solitary mourning. I wonder if in offering healing to others he was healed himself, growing in the strength his own commitment. Sometimes acting for others can do that for us, can’t it? We give someone a message of hope and encouragement, and only later realized how much we needed that message for ourselves. Something to remember when we feel are exhausted, when we feel like we don’t have one more thing we can to another, and just at that moment we are confronted with need, with gut-wrenching need.
They’ve all been there for quite some time. Night is falling, and there they are, thousands and thousands of people out in some remote place. The disciples are probably hungry, thinking of their little stash of food they thought to bring. It would be enough, barely, for their small group of 13, but they could hardly pull it out and start eating in the middle of everything. They’d look boorish. So they suggest to Jesus that the people are probably getting hungry too, and it is time to wind things down and send folks on their way. But Jesus doesn’t want to wind things down. Perhaps he sees the hope growing and doesn’t want to nip it too soon. Perhaps he realizes that a majority of these people won’t be leaving for a good meal if he sends them away. Perhaps he wants his disciples to understand that all they need, they and the multitude, is right here, right now. So he tells them, you feed them. He doesn’t say “let us feed them,” but “you feed them” – the best at empowering, at giving them the gift of healing through helping others; the gift of sustaining themselves by feeding others. And somehow, miraculously, as the twelve set about distributing bread and fish, the supplies multiply and multiply and multiply – so much so that after all have eaten their fill, there are twelve baskets of leftovers, far more than what they started with.
There’s so much we can get out of this story: the reminder of Jesus’ great compassion – gut-wrenching care and concern – for the people then and for us now; the invitation from him to participate, to allow such compassion to grow in our own hearts; there is the hope we get from knowing of the things he is able and willing to do with whatever small offering we are willing to share. There is also the nature of his response to the devastation of John’s beheading. Some leaders might see an opportunity to fan the flames of grief and anger and outrage. A gathering of maybe 10,000 or more distraught people, people who have been pushed to the edge? It might not have taken much to channel that energy into violent revolt. But war is not the way of Christ, even a war fought for allegedly right reasons. Instead he responds with acts of healing and feeding, strength and sustenance for the long, hard, sometimes dispiriting work of ushering in God’s kindom of peace, of righteousness, of mercy, of love. Not through war, not through hatred, not through turning the tables, but by making use of what we have right here, right now – a loving Savior and a way forward. Let us join the feast.
