The Rev. Margaret Watson
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Jeremiah 45:1-5 | Psalm 78:1-29 | Romans 8:35-39 | Matthew 14:13-21
Five loaves of bread and two fish feeding 5000 men, not counting the women and the children. Let’s see, I think we’re more than 50% of this crowd, ladies. So, I would guest-ti-mate that this crowd in the Gospel was probably between 10 and 15 thousand souls. Wow! Can we wrap our 21stcentury minds around this story of Jesus feeding the “5,000” and more? Can we put to bed our science, our knowledge of how the universe works, and believe this story which breaks all scientific law?
I know some post-enlightenment, post-modern people who try to explain this story
as the ultimate story of generosity. These folks explain the story that when the
crowd saw the example of Jesus and the disciples, they, too, brought out what
they had. And then more, and then more, until all were fed. That’s one
explanation. And it would fit our science. And I know others who would explain
it, standing steadfast, declaring a miracle - that five loaves of bread and two
dried fish really did feed 5,000 and more. Because God can do anything! That’s
another explanation. And well, maybe you can imagine I am not interested in
either explanation. I’m not interested in the explanations because I am already
convinced that something absolutely amazing happened! Something so amazing that
this story of feeding 5,000 or more appears in every Gospel, twice in the Gospel
of Matthew and not even the birth or the resurrection of Jesus appear in every
Gospel. That’s how important this story is. I am already convinced that
something amazing happened. So, I am far more interested in explaining the
meaning of this event - why the heck does Matthew tell us this story? I am far
more interested in the meaning rather than explaining what happened. What do I
mean?
Let’s walk through the story and look for meaning. The first part of the Gospel
describes how Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself, but the
crowds persisted and followed him, going along the shore from town to town on
foot. Why had Jesus withdrawn? Because John the Baptist, by some accounts his
own cousin, had been arrested and killed. Jesus was grieving, tired, perhaps
even tired of running. Perhaps Jesus was realizing in a new light that what
happened to his cousin, John could be his fate as well. Jesus had withdrawn to a
lonely and deserted place, indeed; and the people didn’t leave him alone. Why
did Matthew tell us this? What could be the meaning? Perhaps as it says in our
Eucharistic prayer, it means that Jesus really and truly shares our human
nature. He lived and died as one of us, harried, exhausted, finding it difficult
to find time for himself, pressed in on all sides by the demands of life, no
time to even grieve. He was trying to find a place to be alone and to sort it
all out, and he couldn’t .
Back to the story: And Jesus had compassion for them and cured their sick.
Imagine the crowds, limping from one fishing dock to another, some with fevers,
children with tummy aches, with headaches, women with , well let’s just say they
were crabby and out of sorts. The whole crowd was a sticky, icky bunch of
people, clamoring and wailing, demanding help. Why does Matthew tell us this?
What could it mean? According to the purity laws, the sick, the women and those
with them, they were all unclean, they were all taboo. And the whole crowd,
Jesus and the disciples included, became unclean because of their proximity to
those who were unclean. The crowd contaminated all those with whom they came
into contact. Being unclean meant they shouldn’t be gathered be in a crowd, they
couldn’t go into town; they couldn’t worship God until they had been ritually
cleansed at the temple. Being unclean meant they couldn’t eat with one another;
and Jesus had compassion for them. He made them clean with his touch, with his
word and restored them, by him, with him and in him, reconciling them to God the
Father of all.
Back to the story - were the disciples happy with this? No. The disciples asked
Jesus to send the crowds away so that the crowds themselves could find something
to eat! And Jesus said NO. Bring what you have. And He blessed and He broke and
gave the food to be shared. Why does Matthew tell us this? Perhaps this means
the early church looked back at this feast and saw the last supper, saw the
cosmic, and heavenly banquet; they saw what became Christian worship. It is the
prototype of our own liturgy, is it not? They gathered, they worshiped, they
listened to the teachings the Word of God, they responded, they offered what
they had and they shared it. And there was more than enough for everyone. That’s
a beginning at meaning but there is more, look again. The food they shared, this
was not a heavenly banquet as described by the prophets, fine grains, gorgeous
braided breads, the exotic and tasty fruits, the best wine; it’s not that kind
of feast — it is bread and dried fish . Today, that is like serving peanut
butter and jelly, or tuna fish sandwiches – it’s ordinary food. And 12
baskets-full, after feeding more than 5,000 is not super abundance; it is just
enough. The food shared was not what they dreamed of, was not what they desired
but what was needed. This is a new twist on the idea of the Messianic feast, a
new twist just like the person of Jesus being the Messiah was new. This Messiah
was not born in the castle or the courts, or a fine house, but in a stable. A
new twist like the way Jesus was a king, without geography, without army or
crown, or power. This bread and fish is a new Gospel twist on the great
God-feast in heaven. It is common, ordinary, every day stuff. And the focus on
this supper is not on spiritual needs, not focused on feeding that inner life.
This is the every day type of bread that Jesus taught us to pray for in the
Lord’s Prayer. “Give us this day our daily bread,” real bread, what is needed to
stay alive. Not what is imagined, not desired, but what is needed. And more than
that, and this is the clincher, Jesus involved his disciples in the activity of
the feast. The food was their lunch, the food they carried in their back packs,
their lunch boxes. It was their food, and it was hardly enough just for them.
Jesus did more than take just what the disciples had to offer. He gave it back
to them and told them to share it with the crowds, the very crowds the disciples
wanted to send away, that sticky - icky mass of people. Jesus told them to share
their lunch with people who had not been able to or had not bothered to provide
for themselves. And here is the meaning of sharing; sharing destroys existing
power structures between the haves and the have-nots. If Jesus had told the
disciples to just give it all away, then the disciples would have been the ones
without, and the haves and have-nots merely would have been reversed. Instead,
Jesus destroys the existing power structures of haves and have-nots by inviting
the disciples to share. Jesus came to share our human nature; he shares his life
and spirit with us. Sharing is the ultimate and Godly gesture of love.
Christians rejoice! Here is the Christian joy, the Good News, God blesses what
we bring, and no offering is too common, too small, and too ordinary. Our puny
little offerings of bread and dried fish, not enough to go around, is enough in
Christ. God blesses what we give, no matter how small how ordinary, and makes it
enough. Christians, rejoice! We are told to share what we have, holding nothing
back for ourselves, sharing all that we have been already given. In this story
of loaves and fishes, we have the prototype of Christian love. Jesus asks us as
his disciples to share what we have, to open our lunch boxes, to undo the status
quo of the haves and have-nots, to feed each other, to know Christ in human
flesh, to risk being in the unclean crowd, to see that the heavenly banquet is
made of ordinary bread and that heavenly bread is not what we dream of, not what
we desire, not what we deserve, but what we need. Let us look honestly at what
we are feeding each other, what we are feeding the world. Acknowledge that it is
not enough, nor even very good. And rejoice that the little pieces of ourselves
that do surface, that we do dare to offer are blessed, broken, and shared and
through God’s dynamism, and by grace redeemed, made whole and holy so that there
will always be enough for all.
Amen