Preached on August 6, 2023, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Matthew 14:13-21.
Let me set the scene. The passage right before this one is about Herod Antipas and John the Baptist. John had been critical of Herod and his wife Herodias, so they both wanted rid of him. Herod arrested him but was afraid to do anything more. At a lavish banquet, Herodias uses her daughter to force his hand, and as a result, Herod had John the Baptist killed.
Jesus and his disciples hear of this. I think it’s safe to say that all of them were at least peripherally involved with John the Baptist’s movement, and were probably all baptized by him or his followers. Jesus is particularly grieved, so he withdraws to be by himself. Yet he cannot escape the crowds.
Put yourself in the place of a disciple. You are grieving, and you know that Jesus is grieving, too. You thought that being far away from towns and villages, in a wild desert, would give you the space you needed to be with your close friends and commiserate. But here come the crowds. Not a handful of people, not a hundred people, but 5000 men, plus some women and children, who knows how many. We’re talking about the entire student population at Missouri S&T plus all of the faculty and staff. We’re talking about four times the population of Capernaum. Like, can’t you please leave us alone?
So then, the hour starts getting late. You’re hungry, everyone is getting hungry. It’s a big crowd of hungry people. That’s not just unpleasant; it’s dangerous. People are getting grouchy. They’re hot and tired on top of it, and so are you. You’ve just spent hours walking to this deserted place for some solace, then helping people who can’t hear what Jesus is saying or can’t understand his teachings, and you’re hot and tired and hungry and oh LORD can this day just end.
So, you grab a couple of the other disciples and go over to Jesus and say, “Look, it’s been a long day. Everyone is getting hungry. If we let them go now, maybe they’ll be able to scrounge up food in the villages before nightfall. Don’t you want a break? We sure do.” You figure that Jesus has no choice, but you’ve forgotten just who you are talking to.
Jesus responds, “No, don’t send them away—feed them!” What? Feed them with what? We barely have enough food for ourselves. How are we going to feed a whole city’s worth of people? A good-sized city’s worth of people? If we tell them we’re going to feed them, and then we run out, that will be even worse than not promising anything in the first place!
And yet, Jesus convinces the disciples that he has things under control. The disciples go along with it, because they don’t really have a better plan. The people sit down, and Jesus provides for them. The disciples experience the only miracle that is reported in all four Gospels, one so outrageous that everyone remembered it, even though somehow people forgot about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
They all sit down, and Jesus does something totally ordinary. He blesses bread and breaks it. We invoke this same formula when we celebrate the Eucharist, so we treat it as sacred, but in reality, this was just convention. Last weekend, I was at a retreat at a Jesuit retreat center. The Catholic tradition is to genuflect, then say a particular prayer that you would probably recognize, and then start their meal. The formula here is basically the same kind of thing except in the culture and religion of first-century Galilee. Before they ate, the host of the meal would bless the bread and break it.
But in Jesus’s hands, the ordinary becomes sacred. He is given some ordinary bread, and he performs an ordinary act, and suddenly, the veil is lifted. God’s realm peeks through. Instead of a meager meal of crumbs, the crowd has enough. They eat and are satisfied. And there’s some leftover for tomorrow—not a lot, but enough. Enough that the disciples will be able to move on to the next task, the next place, the next miracle.
What is the difference between the sacred and the profane? In Acts, Peter is shown and told, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” In that time and place, certain foods and certain actions and certain places and even certain people were considered unclean, profane. In our time, we have a different understanding and draw different boundaries, but still there’s a sense that some things are unclean, profane. But Jesus demonstrates that it is not the bread, or the person, or the place that is profane or sacred. Rather, it is the presence or absence of God and God’s realm. And wherever Jesus is, God’s realm breaks through. The ordinary and profane suddenly becomes sacred.
Now, let’s imagine the scene from the perspective of someone in the crowd. You were at home, toiling away, and someone said, “Hey, you know that guy we’ve been hearing so much about, Jesus of Nazareth? My buddy said he’s out in the wilderness that direction and a bunch of people are listening to him preach. Let’s go!” You grab your spouse and your kids, and start walking. You’re in a hurry because you don’t want to miss it, since you’re not sure how far you’ll have to walk. You get there and it’s just as amazing as you expected. Jesus is a great orator. The way he says things just cuts you right to the heart sometimes, and other times fills you with joy, and other times inspires you to change your life. You see one of his disciples and ask him to clarify something, some parable that Jesus taught, and the disciple is almost as inspiring as Jesus is. Even your kids are enthralled. This goes on for hours, though, and eventually your kids start nagging you for a snack. You rushed out into the wilderness, so you only have whatever was in your pockets at the time, which wasn’t much. You start thinking, “Uh-oh. It’s getting late, I’m hungry, they’re hungry, and we’re a long way from home. We passed a little village on the way, but there’s an awful lot of people here. If we all went to that village, we would be like a horde of locusts! I should have brought more with me.”
Just as you’re about to give up and tell your family that you all need to hurry home to get something to eat, a disciple comes around again. He says, “Have a seat. Jesus is working on something. I’ll be right back.” Huh, how strange. Well, this Jesus guy seems so wise, so surely he knows that we’re all hungry. Oh look, the disciple is coming back. He hands around a basket that has bread in it—so full! Where did he get all this bread? You grab a hunk of bread, and so does everyone else in your family, and the neighbor who walked out to the wilderness with you. At first, you’re hesitant, because you don’t want to be a glutton, but there seems to be plenty, so you grab a big hunk. Oh, and here comes the fish! You think, I haven’t had fish in a while. I’ll just have a little piece. Wait—that basket is full, too, so I might as well have a big hunk! What a great meal!
So, the meal is over, the disciples circulate around gathering up the leftovers, and then they go get in their boat while Jesus gives a brief after-dinner talk. What an inspiration! Your family leaves for home, filled with joy, filled with anticipation of a glorious future, convinced that the time is coming when God’s kingdom will be established.
Now, what do you think: Who provided the bread and fish? Was it Jesus? Was it the disciples? The disciple said that Jesus was working on something, so maybe Jesus had someone deliver it. But the disciples were the ones gathering up the leftovers and taking it on their boat, so maybe they brought it in their boat and Jesus just had to figure out how much of it they could spare or how he would distribute it to the large crowd.
I don’t know what the original crowd thought. Was it Jesus? Was it the disciples? Was it the other people in the crowd? Who knows? But here’s what I do know: the disciples knew exactly what happened and who was their source of strength. Whatever the crowd thought, the disciples left knowing that Jesus could do almost anything. Jesus could take whatever meager offering they made and multiply it in their hands. His miraculous actions would have inspired the disciples to keep working for the glory of God’s kingdom. They would have known that they could always rely on Jesus to work through them, so they would have been encouraged to rely even more on Jesus.
In the same way, Jesus will multiply our efforts. Whenever we are working for the glory of His kingdom, Jesus will work alongside us, if we only ask. Imagine if the disciples had just tried to feed the crowd on their own without asking Jesus for help. How far would their five loaves and two fishes have gone? Not very. But instead of relying on their own efforts and their own resources, they dedicated all that they had and all that they were to service for God’s kingdom. In return, Jesus transformed them and transformed the gathering from just a random crowd listening to an inspirational speaker into a glimpse of the messianic banquet that will come at the end of the age.
Christ offers us the same help. We are Christ’s body in the world. That means we can rely on Christ’s presence with us, by the Holy Spirit, acting through us and multiplying our efforts. You may think, I can’t do as much as I used to. Or, I don’t have the time and energy to do ONE MORE THING. Or, I don’t know where to start. Well, same here, but almost exactly three years ago, I did SOMETHING. One chapter of my life was over. We were settled into a new house, and my youngest kid had gone off to college, so I was looking for whatever would be next. So I started a social organization in the middle of a pandemic when social gathering was impossible. And yet, because I gave a little bit of myself for the glory of God’s kingdom, God multiplied my efforts, and now the organization has taken on a life of its own.
I don’t know what your personal calling is, or if you have found your partners in ministry yet. I do know, though, that if you seek God’s guidance and commit your work to God’s glory and not your own, God’s kingdom will peek through. Maybe not immediately, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even next year, but someday. And meanwhile, Christ will be right there beside you each step of the way, guiding you and amplifying your voice and multiplying your efforts and impact. When you think there is nothing more to give, Christ invites you to His Table to get replenished. So we turn now towards that Table, where our small offering of bread and juice will transform into a foretaste of the banquet that comes at the end of the age, the bread of life and the cup of salvation that sustain us on our journey. Amen.
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