Matthew 14:13-21
Jesus had been teaching in Galilee. But when he heard that his cousin, John the Baptist, had been beheaded on order of King Herod, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But crowds from the towns heard of it, so they followed him on foot. As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. (Matthew 14:14)
We profess our belief in the Living God, yet often wonder … like the Israelites: “Can God set a table in the wilderness?” Jesus thought so. When his disciples came to him late in the day and asked him to send the gathered crowd into neighboring villages to get something to eat, he replied: They need not go away; you give them something to eat. (Matthew 14:16)
The disciples are dumbfounded. We have only five loaves here and two fish. But Jesus orders the crowd to sit down, takes the tiny offering, looks to heaven, and blesses it and breaks the loaves. He gives them to the disciples, who then distribute them to the crowd. Scripture records: They all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. (Matthew 14:20-21)
The miraculous feeding of the five thousand was clearly important to the early church. It is featured in all four Gospels (Mark 6, Luke 9, John 6) … the scarcity of man compared to the abundance of God. How do we unlock that abundance? The needs of the hungry crowd were enormous. The disciples had so little to offer. There was nothing but five loaves and two fish. Be real!
It’s still true. A cloud of anxiety covers the faithful. Our resources are woefully small. Children go hungry every day in the United States, and around the world … Mexico, Brazil, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Sudan, Nigeria, Afghanistan. And that’s not counting the growing global needs for shelter, medicine, clothing, and education among the young, the sick, the jobless, the elderly, the prisoner, and the refugee. Some is natural disaster, but most is man-made.
Yet, never despair of small beginnings. They are what God works with … and so does Jesus, His son … five loaves and two fish.
Holy Scripture tells us that God not only creates, but He creates abundantly. In the beginning, God said: Let the waters bring forth abundantly … and the waters did swarm with living creatures. (Genesis 1:20) And His abundance goes beyond plants and animals. The Lord passed before Moses, and proclaimed: “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Exodus 34:6) God’s nature is abundance in all things, not scarcity.
“You feed them.” The challenge of Jesus stung the ears of his disciples … our ears too! How Lord? Well, here is one example. You may know others.
H. King Oehmig was editor-in-chief of Synthesis, a weekly resource for preaching and worship in the Episcopal Church. Several years ago he wrote:
In 1984, a group from our small Church of the Ascension in Cartersville, Georgia, decided we wanted to start an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity – what would be the 28th in the country. The church group went to visit the Habitat headquarters in Americus, Georgia … toured the facility, saw videos, and spoke with directors.
They were impressed by the vision of the founder, Millard Fuller, that people’s lives could be changed forever by having decent housing provided, with no interest and at no profit. At the end of the day, the small group met with the founder … who had taken time out from a frantic schedule to answer questions and offer encouragement.
After some small talk, one member asked THE question: “Millard, level with us. How much money do we need before we can launch an affiliate in Cartersville?”
The writer remembers: Fuller became very serious. He leaned forward in his chair, and spoke barely above a whisper. He said: “It would be wholly irresponsible, completely negligent, totally feather-brained if you started an affiliate without at least one dollar. But, you have to have one dollar. Don’t dare make a move without it.”
The group laughed … nervously, preposterously. He was dead serious.
The group from Cartersville discovered that day what the disciples of Jesus had discovered two thousand years earlier. Faced with a Gospel imperative, they were searching for a reasonable alternative to faith. The group, looking only at their own strengths and qualifications – which to them seemed all-important – made Jesus become unimportant. They were trying to be adequate without Jesus.
Oehmig observes: What Jesus is telling the disciples, and what Millard Fuller was telling us, is that the Gospel’s power to feed can only be explained in terms of Jesus,
not us.
If we try to explain the Christian life in terms of our talent and treasure, then we have little to offer anyone for very long. Our limited amount of the “milk of human kindness” gets used up in a hurry … about as fast as five thousand men can put away five loaves and two fish!
Oehmig concludes: That’s why Fuller suggested only one dollar. If we had twenty-five thousand dollars in the bank, Jesus would be irrelevant. Fuller scoffed: “Pagans needed money in the bank before they did something. Not Christians.”
That afternoon the group heard how to live miraculously each day … making the miracle of the loaves and fishes a principle for living the Christian life.
We begin. God finishes. It only takes faith as small as a mustard seed. Recalling manna in the wilderness, the Psalmist exults: So mortals ate the bread of angels; he provided for them food enough. (Psalm 78:25)
The founder of Habitat counseled: Don’t moan or whine or carp about insufficiency. Give it to Jesus. Turn it over. Surrender it. Jesus will take our offering and bless it. Our ‘reasonable’ offering becomes His ‘consecrated’ offering. Our limited resources become God’s unlimited grace. Possibilities beyond our wildest dreams occur. Habitat affiliates get started. Lives get changed.
What we bemoan, God can bless … and miraculous feedings occur beyond human explanation. A Gospel moment has two recurring signs: the people are fed, and others are baffled by it. It begins when disciples step out in faith. When we give God the glory, offer what little we have in Jesus’ name, miracles happen … and the world is baffled. The feedings defy “reasonable” resources.
Another example comes to mind: Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is an international mutual aid fellowship founded in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, by Bill Wilson … known as
Bill W … and Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith … known as Dr. Bob. Sobriety had eluded
both men.
Their meeting at Dr. Bob’s home in Akron began a life-long, painfully honest, journey … that would eventually touch millions of drinkers around the world. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. (James 2:18)
For more than ten years I served as rector of Christ Church Episcopal in Hudson, Ohio, just twenty miles from Akron. I remember attending a clergy seminar on alcoholism in Akron led by the Rev. Vernon Johnson, an Episcopal priest. The bottle had cost him his marriage and his rectorship.
During detox in Minneapolis, he struggled how treatment might be offered to the alcoholic before he hit rock bottom … like himself … and had lost everything. The result was the founding of the Johnson Institute in Minneapolis pioneering in the technique of “intervention,” now standard procedure (one sinner’s dream; millions given hope).
Rev. Johnson told us: “I really don’t need to hear your particulars. All I need to know is that you’re an alcoholic, and I can tell you how it will end. It is a condition that is addictive, progressive, and fatal.”
The journey of a thousand miles begins with the next step. The battle with the bottle begins with the next drink … or non-drink … the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next month … a small beginning. It can last a lifetime.
Dr. Bob and Bill W discovered they could stay sober and help others stay sober by meeting anonymously with other alcoholics, by believing in each other and in the strength of this group. They appealed to “a higher power” to undergird their twelve steps of recovery.
Jesus said: Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20) Addiction is powerful, and our will is a puny thing. But Jesus looks at us and says: With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. (Matthew 19:26) Then let us gather the sheepfold, and the Good Shepherd will lead us.
We are not baptized in Jesus’ name, and adopted as heirs by his Father in heaven,
to become spiritual spectators. We are not called to be “reasonable” Christians. We are baptized, adopted, and called to be faith-filled disciples. It is not a timid calling.
Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:18)
Preach the Gospel, feed the hungry, comfort the afflicted, forgive the penitent, and baptize the faithful … all in Jesus’ name!
For Jesus said: Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
(John 14:12-13)
Change lives and save souls. Miracles are our daily bread. St. Paul reminds us:
What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who is against us? (Romans 8:31)
And all God’s children cry, “Amen!”
Sermon preached by the Rev. Read Heydt
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota, Florida
The 8th Sunday after Pentecost
August 3 2014