Feeding of the 5,000 | August 2, 2020 Sermon

Sometimes, even Jesus needed a break. But in today’s Gospel reading, his attempt at a day off turns instead into one of his greatest miracles, the feeding of the 5,000. In God’s kingdom, there is enough for everyone.

Speaking of breaks, I took one the week before this, so there’s no sermon for July 26.

Today’s scripture readings are Matthew 14:13-21 and Isaiah 55:1-5. Here’s my sermon for Sunday, August 2.

I found helpful this week Rolf Jacobsen’s reflection at Working Preacher, this blog post from Rachel Held Evans, and Ann Dieterle’s commentary at Modern Metanoia.

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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

On a scale of one to five, how are you doing? How’s your day going? What’s your mood right now? Think about it for a second, and then hold up a hand with one to five fingers.

Five means you’re in a great mood, today is a good day. One finger means I’m barely holding on, this is a terrible day, we should probably talk after service.

So, where are you?

Ok, some variety. By the way, this is a great trick for assessing the mood of a group – I like to use it to take the temperature of the group on mission trips.

I’m probably at a three, maybe four today. We haven’t gotten much sleep this week because Micah has decided that 2:00 to 4:00 am is a good time to play, and I’m feeling a lot of stress from the pandemic and thinking about schools and what the fall looks like at church.

But, I’m in good health, I had some time with family last week, and we have a Zoom call on Sunday afternoon to celebrate my grandparents’ 65th anniversary. So, I’m a three or four today, and that’s ok.

I don’t know what Jesus and his disciples did for their group check-in time, but if they did a 1-5 scale at the beginning of today’s Gospel story, I’m pretty sure Jesus would be at a 1. Maybe a 2.

Listen to the first line: “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” This story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 is familiar, but we don’t usually think about how it starts.

The story right before this—the “this” that Jesus heard—is John the Baptist getting his head cut off by King Herod. John’s disciples have just come to Jesus and given him the news that his cousin, the one who’d baptized him, the one who had sort of been acting as a buffer for Jesus by drawing the attention of his enemies, he’s been killed.

Not only that, but in the previous chapter, Jesus himself has just been rejected by the people in his hometown of Nazareth.

Poet Robert Frost once called “home” “the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.” Not so for Jesus—his hometown takes offense at him and sends him away.

So Jesus is having a rough stretch of ministry. As today’s story starts, he’s ready for a break, a day off. Matthew makes that very clear: “When Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” Jesus needs some alone time.

If your number right now is a 1 or a 2, Jesus gives a good example to follow. It’s ok to pause and go off by yourself and pray. Spend some time with God. Take a breath.

Of course, if you’re not at that point, it’s just as important to take intentional time with God, and it might even help you not get overwhelmed and get to that low point.

For Jesus, though, his plan to take a day off is a miserable failure. Instead, when he gets to the deserted place, he finds it’s not so deserted. Instead, a huge crowd of people has gathered to wait for him. And when Jesus sees them, Matthew tells us he had compassion on them and cured their sick.

It wasn’t his plan, but I don’t know that he really had much of a choice. It’s in Jesus’ nature to care about people, and not just about their spiritual needs, but about their physical needs as well. He gives up his own needs to care for others.

In fact, notice that Matthew doesn’t mention anything about Jesus teaching them great spiritual truths. As we’ve heard for the last few weeks, Jesus has been teaching about what the kingdom of God is like.

This time, though, instead of describing God’s kingdom through parables and analogies, Jesus demonstrates what living out the kingdom of God actually looks like. Sometimes I think we as the body of Christ could do a little more living out the kingdom of God and a little less of the trying to explain it.

After a few hours, the disciples notice they’re about to run into a problem. Remember, they’re in this deserted area, and of course, there’s no food out there in the middle of nowhere.

They’re obviously concerned about the crowd getting supper, but I wonder if they’re also a bit concerned about Jesus. They know how tired he is, and this is as good of an excuse as any to try to get him some space. So they go up to Jesus and say, “Ok, Jesus. That’s enough healing for today. Time to send the people home for supper.”

Jesus listens to their concerns, but instead of following their good advice and calling it a day, he says, “Ok, they’re hungry? Well, give them something to eat.”

It’s kind of fun to imagine the disciples’ reaction and how they have basically nothing to work with but it turns out to be more than enough for Jesus, but that’s a different sermon and this story comes up again next summer, so instead of focusing on the disciples, I want to keep focusing on Jesus, because there’s more to his miracle than just conjuring up some extra fish sandwiches. This miracle is a picture for us of God’s character.

Again, Jesus tends to the crowds’ physical needs, this time by providing food for them. He provides enough food for the whole crowd, for every single person.

He doesn’t care if they deserve it. He doesn’t look at their occupations, or family lineage, or criminal record, or citizenship, or what they’ve contributed. He doesn’t even put out a free-will donation basket.

Working through the disciples—that’s important too; Jesus has his followers do the actual distributing of the food—he just provides food for everyone who shows up, and there is enough for everyone.

That’s what God’s kingdom is like. In God’s kingdom, there is enough for everyone. Jesus is enacting the promise we heard from the prophet Isaiah. “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.”

This is the invitation God has not just for the people in that deserted place 2,000 years ago, not just for the people of Israel in exile to whom Isaiah was speaking, but for us too. This invitation to life in God’s kingdom is for you and me.

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.

As the body of Christ, we get to receive this undeserved grace. We get to be welcomed at Christ’s table to receive his own body and blood given for us.

And we get to participate in the work God is doing, in building God’s kingdom. We get to proclaim the good news of this God who gives God’s own self for us, this God who cares about both our spiritual and our physical needs.

Next week’s Gospel lesson, by the way, begins with Jesus finally getting his alone time to pray.
Amen