Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost, Year A, Proper 13
Matthew 14:13-21
Holy Trinity Parish (Episcopal), Decatur, Ga.
It sounded like a reasonable request:
"This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves."
I mean, wouldn't you have said the same thing? You're standing there looking at a crowd of over five thousand people, realizing that they're going to be getting hungry pretty soon... and all you have is five loaves of bread and two fish... so you figure it's time to wrap up this healing ministry and let them go on their way.
After all, Jesus has already been somewhat "put out" by these people. This morning's gospel reading tells us that when the crowds heard that Jesus had withdrawn to a deserted place by himself, "they followed him on foot from the towns." Although we often see Jesus inviting people to follow him, in this case, he is followed without invitation! Despite his desire for stillness and contemplation, he graciously responds to the crowds and heals their sick. So the disciples must have figured, "Ok, the show's over. We've tended to these people's needs, it's late, Jesus wants to pray already, so let's send these people on back to town."
An entirely reasonable request, right? But Jesus wasn't done yet. "They need not go away," he says. Jesus resists the natural human impulse to leave people to tend to their own needs. "You give them something to eat," he says. In other words, "we will take care of them here." And then he proceeds to take the disciples' small ration of food and somehow make it more than enough to feed the entire crowd.
So why did Jesus do it? The scripture doesn't say that the crowds were starving or unable to afford their own food - in fact, the disciples' comments seem to assume that the people are perfectly capable of going back into town and providing for their own needs. Unlike the stories of Jesus healing people who have been suffering from physical maladies for years that no one else has been able to heal, this miracle is, in practical terms, a bit superfluous. Jesus didn't have to provide food for the entire crowd. So why does he do it?
Some may say that Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes merely as a show of his divine power. The theology of the evangelical youth groups I was a part of in late high school and early college tended to hold this kind of view - always talking about Jesus's miracles as important because of the "proof" they gave that Jesus was divine. These miracles, they said, set Jesus apart from other people who were simply great teachers. But that argument alone was unconvincing to me in encouraging me to place my faith in Jesus. Upon any comparative study of world religions, one can find stories of miraculous happenings surrounding the founders of many religions. And how are we to know for sure whether any of these things really happened, anyway, I wondered?
Simply being told that Jesus's miracles were significant as miracles didn't do much for me. Maybe it should have been impressive -- and I'm sure if we ran out of communion and Fr. Allan started multiplying wafers here at the altar in a few minutes, I'd be pretty darned impressed -- but as an event in the distant past of which I have little to no objective evidence, the feeding of the five thousand as a mere show of divine power has little relevance for me.
And I don't think that's all the early Christian community was trying to say about Jesus in this story, either. In discerning which of the many stories circulating about Jesus's life would be included in what became our sacred scriptures, the early church always rejected stories about Jesus performing miracles simply for miracles' sake. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, for instance, includes stories of Jesus as a child, zapping his friends with lightning when they get into arguments with him, or making birds out of clay and then bringing them to life, just for fun. It is significant that none of these stories that depict Jesus as a reckless superhero were canonized by the church.
In the four accounts of Jesus's life included in our New Testament, the texts the church deemed authoritative for teaching about the life of Jesus to future generations, Jesus's miracles are always more than just showy displays of power. In fact, Jesus is often telling the disciples not to tell anyone about the miracles he performs, especially in the Gospel of Mark. The Jesus of the canonical Gospels is not an exhibitionist, performing miracles and squealing, "Woooo, look what I can do!!!" Jesus's miracles always have a deeper significance, a meaning and implication for how we are to live our lives in faith.
So what are we to make of this story of the feeding of the five thousand - a story which, significantly, is included in all four Gospels in the New Testament? What is the meaning of this "unnecessary" miracle, if not just to show Jesus's power?
Jesus's feeding of the five thousand says something deeply profound about the way we are to approach others in our Christian ministry. We are called not just to respond to immediate needs but to go the extra mile in creating a space for community. In a culture where who you ate with was of utmost importance to your place in the society, Jesus resists what would have been the natural inclination of the people to go about their separate ways, eating only with those who were considered socially appropriate, and instead creates a space for a radically open community, right there on the hillside. Before the disciples knew what was happening, strangers were breaking bread with strangers, probably sharing stories about how grateful they were that their friend or relative had finally been healed of such-and-such disease, and beginning to form a community together over a shared meal.
The deeper miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is in Jesus's rejection of the patterns of disconnection in society that say "let them go off and buy food for themselves" and insisting instead,"they need not go away. We will provide for them here." And the miracle is in the disciples' discovery of the simple but profound truth that if we share what little we have in faith, it will be more than enough.
The story is also a powerful foreshadowing of the Eucharist: "Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples." Matthew's account of Jesus's last supper with the disciples echoes this language almost exactly: "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat, this is my body'..." (Matthew 26:26). And in John's Gospel, not too long after the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus makes the link even more explicit: "I am the bread of life," he tells the disciples. "I am the living bread that comes down from heaven" (John 6:48, 51). Each week, in our celebration of the Eucharist, we hear these same words -
"He took the bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples..."
"The body of Christ, the bread of heaven."
And in our Eucharistic celebration, we recall not just the death and resurrection of Jesus, but his entire healing and feeding ministry. Last week I was in San Francisco for the annual conference of the North American Interfaith Network, a conference that brings together grassroots interfaith organizations and initiatives across North America. While in San Francisco, I had an opportunity to visit Grace Cathedral, the seat of the Episcopal Diocese of California, perhaps most famous for the replica of the Chartes Cathedral labyrinth that is found on the floor of its nave. While browsing in the Cathedral bookstore, I came across a bookmark with a quote written on it that stopped me in my tracks. It said:
Be what you see.
Receive who you are.
These words, the back of the bookmark explained, are often used when the consecrated bread is offered to the people during the Eucharist at Grace Cathedral. I was struck by the deep power of those simple words.
Be what you see.
Receive who you are.
In the Eucharist, we both see and become the body of Christ. We see and receive the body of Christ both in the bread and wine and in the powerful sense of community we experience as we share this holy meal with our brothers and sisters. As on that first-century Galilean hillside, the miracle is not complete until we have broken bread together as a community.
Let me ask you all to do something for me for a minute. If you would, please close your eyes. Now imagine that you are sitting on a dusty hillside by a large lake, in the midst of thousands of people. Maybe it's like an open-air music festival you've been to, or a large football game. There are blankets, chairs, makeshift sun shade structures all over the hillside. Imagine that you've been working there all day, perhaps on a medical mission trip like the Holy Trinity parishioners who just returned from Honduras on Saturday. You've been distributing medications, hearing story after story of suffering. You're tired and dirty. You're getting hungry. You're ready to call it a day. So you say to the leader of your group, "Ok, that's enough, let's let these people go and find some dinner for themselves back in town." Our work here is done, you think, or at least as done as it's going to be for today.
But the leader of your group looks at you and says calmly, "They need not go away." And as you watch, he takes the few granola bars and dried fruit trail mix you had packed away in your backpack and begins to distribute it to the people around you. You watch as people look up in amazement as the food keeps coming, somehow enough to feed the entire crowd. You watch the suffering in their eyes lessen a little as they receive this gesture of hospitality. You watch as they begin to smile and greet one another and share what they have with each other. Soak in the feeling of that community, of the connection you feel with the others on the hill in that moment. As you look on this scene, you hear a voice that says to you:
Be what you see.
Receive who you are.
Now open your eyes and look around. Seriously, I mean it, look around at each other, look into the faces of your neighbors. Look at this community who will eat and be filled by Jesus at this altar today, and remember also the community who ate and were filled by Jesus on that hillside in the first century - and receive who you are - receive who you are called to be by virtue of your baptism - the body of Christ. The body of Christ, a community who says unreservedly to all - "You need not go away. We will feed you here."
Amen.
