A few weeks ago, I started my year as the pastoral intern at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Dubuque, Iowa. This week, I had the privilege of preaching for the first time in my new position.
This week’s sermon texts were Isaiah 55:1-5 and Matthew 14:13-21. In addition, we celebrated a group of youth and adults who recently returned from a week-long mission trip to Puerto Rico.
Grace and peace from God our Creator and our Lord Jesus Christ.
In our gospel readings for the last few weeks we’ve been hearing a lot about the kingdom of heaven. We’ve heard several of Jesus’ parables, stories where he compares God’s kingdom to a mustard seed, to yeast added to flour, to a farmer sowing seed in a field, and to a treasure hidden in a field.
Well, today’s reading is a little different. Instead of describing God’s kingdom through parables and analogies, Jesus gives a demonstration of what living out the kingdom actually looks like.
One of the things I like about this story is that it’s easy to picture what’s going on.
Jesus is having a rough week. He’d been traveling around, teaching about God’s kingdom, like we heard. Everything was going great!
Then he comes to his home town of Nazareth, and no one wants to listen. After he leaves Nazareth, he gets the terrible news that John the Baptist, his cousin, has just been killed by Herod.
Understandably, Jesus needs a break. So, he goes off in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
That’s where we pick up the story today, with Jesus going out for some alone time.
Well, it doesn’t work.
When he gets to the other side of the lake, the Sea of Galilee, there’s a huge crowd waiting. Matthew records that Jesus had compassion for them and cured their sick.
Everything is going well, and it’s getting to be evening. And the disciples notice a small problem – there’s no food. Remember, they’re out in the middle of nowhere, in a deserted area.
So they go to Jesus and gently suggest that it’s about time to wrap it up and send the people away so they can go buy food.
It’s a perfectly reasonable, logical suggestion. And Jesus says… no, they don’t need to go away. Just give them some food.
Now, put yourselves in the disciple’s place. Give them some food!? What food!?
The disciples are willing to help, but they don’t know what to do. They noticed the problem, but what can they do about it?
I mean, ok, sure they have a little that they can offer. They have these five loaves of bread and two fish, but what good is that? There are thousands of people here!
I can picture what’s going through their heads, because I think it’s similar to how we often react to God’s call to do something, like feed people, or serve others.
We see scarcity, what’s missing, not the abundance of what’s possible.
We point out that we don’t have enough food, or, like in Mark’s version of this story, as the disciples object, “It will cost too much. It’s too expensive.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m really good at coming up with excuses. I’m too busy. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Isn’t that someone else’s job?
The disciples don’t have any idea how they’re going to feed all these people, but they’re willing to try. They’re willing to do what they can with what they have.
And I love this. Jesus takes the little they have, the five loaves of bread and the two fish, and he doesn’t say, “That’s all? What am I supposed to do with so little?”
No, he takes it, and he blesses it. And then, he gives it back to the disciples. Jesus takes what’s offered to him, and it turns out to be enough.
Jesus makes it work; then he gives it back to the disciples to distribute. That’s often how God works, through other people. Through people like you and me.
Are we necessary for God to get things done in the world? If we don’t do our part, will God’s efforts be thwarted? No, of course not. We don’t have the power to limit God that way.
But, God chooses to work through people, through you and me. In some ways, I think that’s as much of a miracle as feeding a huge crowd of people with a few loaves and fish! It’s a miracle that God chooses to work through our efforts!
Even when we don’t think we have much to offer, God takes it, and makes it sufficient, even more than enough. Remember, from the five loaves and two fish, they picked up 12 baskets of leftovers.
Today, we’re celebrating one of the many ways God works through people. We’re celebrating the work of the mission trip team who went to Puerto Rico a few weeks ago.
We’re celebrating how God used the gifts they had to offer and the donations and support from this church, to do God’s work.
Jesus takes what’s offered and does miracles with it. Jesus takes 5 loaves and 2 fish, blesses it, and feeds 5000 people with it. Jesus takes what we offer in service for others, takes our feeble efforts – feeble because, face it, most of us aren’t professionals at serving on mission trips. We don’t know how to solve problems like world hunger, or even eliminate poverty here in Dubuque.
But, even when we don’t know what we’re doing, Jesus calls us to serve, then multiplies our efforts beyond what we can see, or what we expect.
Now, when we hear Bible stories like this, one way to make them come alive is to ask where we see ourselves in the story. So, who are we in this story? Are we the crowd? Are we the disciples?
We’ve just looked at the story as if we’re the disciples, talking about how Jesus worked through them to feed multitudes of people and works through us.
But maybe we can relate to the people in the crowd, too. I wonder how they felt. They’re so wrapped up in following this engaging speaker who is going around healing people and teaching about the kingdom of God, that they forgot to bring any food along. In fact, there’s no mention that they even asked for food. Maybe they’re so engaged that they’ve forgotten they’re hungry!
By the time they realize they’re hungry, Jesus is already providing food. He’s been saying what the kingdom of heaven is like, but now he’s showing them. Jesus is giving away bread and fish for free.
For the crowd, likely subsistence farmers kept in poverty by the Roman occupiers, free food is a big deal. We might just think of this feeding of a crowd as just another story about Jesus, one among many, but it’s one of his most notable miracles.
In fact, it’s the only miracle that all four of the Gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – include in their stories about Jesus.
Jesus just gives food away. There’s no catch. There’s no concern about money, or about what they’ll do with the bread once they have it. He just gives it to the disciples to give out, and there’s more than enough for everyone.
It seems too good to be true. You and I know that nothing is really free. The people in the crowd knew that too. But this, this is free.
That’s what God’s kingdom is like. In God’s kingdom, there is enough for everyone.
Think back to the passage we just heard from Isaiah 55:1-5. Isaiah gives a glimpse of God’s kingdom too. He writes, “Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price.”
Isaiah is speaking this invitation to the people of Israel in exile, but the invitation is for us too.
Sometimes we hear this invitation to God’s banquet, and we think, shouldn’t we do something? Shouldn’t we bring something? A dish to pass, or maybe a dessert? No! God’s invitation is a gift.
Jesus takes that vision of the abundance of God’s kingdom, and for this meal, he makes it a reality.
In a few minutes, we’re going to come to the Lord’s table to eat, and you’re going to hear some words that sound an awful lot like part of this story. You’ll hear once again the story of how Jesus again took bread, broke it, gave thanks, and gave it for all to eat, just like he did here.
When you hear those words from the last supper, be reminded of this story. Be reminded that God provides enough in abundance for everyone, enough that we have extra to share and give away, because God wants all to be filled, to be satisfied.
God’s gift is for you. Be reminded that even when we’re not prepared, when we don’t have anything to bring, God invites us to the table to eat the bread of life.
So who are you and I in this story? The crowd or the disciples?
I think we’re both. We’re the crowd in need of the grace and provision found in God’s kingdom.
And we’re also the means through which God brings that kingdom into reality. We are fed so that we can feed others.
When we serve our neighbors, when we serve the least of these, when we serve those in Puerto Rico, and those next door here in Dubuque, we are doing God’s work.
We get to participate in God’s kingdom. What a blessing!
Amen.