Proper 13-A (8/3/08) Gen 32:22-51; Rom 9:15; Mt 14:13-21
Trinity, Three Rivers Fr. Joseph Neiman
Theme: “You give them something to eat….” (Mt 14:16)
There is nothing vague about this saying of Jesus: “You give them something to eat!” It is both a comforting saying and a challenging one. It is comforting to the “crowd” on whom Jesus has compassion, and it is challenging to us who in North America who are saturated with food.
The Gospel narrative we just heard began with the phrase, “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself” (Mt 14:13). Did that raise a question in your mind: what did He hear?
In the verses immediately prior to today’s reading, Matthew recalls how King Herod had arrested John the Baptist for his preaching about the immorality of Herod’s actions, put him in prison, and, as the result of Herod’s salacious arousal by the dancing of “the daughter of Herodias,” promised her anything she asked. She asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter, and Herod complied with her request. John’s disciples came and told Jesus and the crowd following him about this horrendous murder of a very popular prophet, one whom the people thought might help restore the Kingdom of David and improve their destitute lives.
If we can read between the lines, I suspect Jesus withdrew in order to pray and to process what to do about this terrible news. Tragedy always throws us. We have to process such news, as terrorist attacks or the sudden death of a loved one or the destruction of one’s home by a storm or fire. That takes time, but more importantly, it requires that we withdraw from our immediate concerns and turn to our most basic beliefs and values so we can cope with the news and plan an appropriate response.
The scene Matthew describes takes place on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Gennesaret, or Lake Tiberius. It is some 8 miles wide, and so the crowd could watch Jesus in the boat. Matthew tells us they followed him along the shoreline until he came to shore to join them. “When Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and cured their sick” (Mt 14:14).
What does this have to do with us? Let’s recall the rest of the narrative before addressing that question.
In the evening of that day, the disciples came to Jesus and told him he should send the crowd away so they could “go into the villages and buy food for themselves” (Mt 14:15). Jesus’ response was startling, as we heard a moment ago: “They need not go away, you give them something to eat” (Mt. 14:16).
We then hear how Jesus took the five loaves and two fish offered, as John’s Gospel tells us, by a young boy, and Jesus “looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the crowds.” And we are told remarkably, “all ate and were filled” and there was even baskets of “broken pieces” left over (Mt 14:17-20)!
I would like to take the event described today in the Gospel according to Matthew, where Jesus takes scarce resources and feeds a large multitude, and speak of this as an analogy, a symbolic event pointing to the Eucharist wherein our human souls are nourished by eating the bread and drinking the wine which have become the Body and the Blood of the risen Lord. The words used by Matthew are similar to what is said at the Lord’s Supper and at our Eucharist: take, bless, break, and share.
To do only this, however, would be an avoidance on my part of what I believe is the essential Word which the Lord wants communicated here today, to you and to me.
The literal impact of the Gospel narrative this morning cannot be ignored. We are told how Jesus had great compassion for the needs of the people around him, how he healed the sick, and how on one occasion he took scarce resources and fed a large multitude of people.
Now there is symbolic language here as well as historical. The five loaves and two fish add up to "seven," and in the Scriptures the number, "seven," always means "the right amount," "the proper amount," or "the perfect amount." Numbers seldom should be taken literally in the Scripture. They are usually symbolic, expressive of some other concept.
Again in this narrative, after the crowd had finished eating, "and were satisfied," the twelve Apostles gathered up twelve baskets of fragments left over.
The number, "twelve," was symbolic of the whole House of Israel, the whole nation; and so the twelve Apostles, the pillars of the new Israel, the new nation founded upon the new covenant established in Jesus, these twelve do what Jesus commands them to do, and soon discover His Word brings results. The cup - or in this case - the baskets, "runneth over." The scarce resources are more than enough to feed those who are hungry.
The dialogue between Jesus and His disciples is the clue here. Matthew tells us Jesus had compassion on crowds, and tried to meet their needs. He healed the sick, and in this incident, he fed the hungry.
The disciples, who are so very much like us, do not have the same type of compassion. They see the hungry crowd and advise Jesus to send them away to take care of themselves. The avoidance syndrome. Push the problem away and let those who have it solve it for themselves.
Jesus not only does not accept their advice, he gives them advice, or what might be better described as a mandate: "You give them something to eat!" Then he shows them how. He takes the resources which are available and which the disciples say are totally inadequate, he views them according to God's way of seeing them, that is, he blesses them, and then he gives them to the disciples to distribute - and there is more than enough!
The obvious message from this Word of God for us today is the mandate to do something about hunger in the world. I don't need to quote statistics to you, the need is obvious to anyone who will look, who has eyes to see.
Vast numbers of men, women, and children are dying daily of famine and malnutrition in many parts of the earth. How we should respond to that need is a political question better discussed outside the pulpit.
But the question of whether we should respond or not is a religious question, a moral issue, and it seems overwhelmingly clear to me from this narrative in the Gospel according to Matthew that we have no choice.
"You give them something to eat...."
This is an uncomfortable word for me to preach to you this morning, and it is an uncomfortable word for me to hear. Like you, I consume entirely too many resources of the earth. I eat more than I need. I drink more than I need, and even when I am not thirsty. I have more possessions than I know what to do with, and I find it increasingly more costly to house and heat and care for the things I own and choose to incorporate into my life style.
Because I have become addicted to consumption, because I know I am overweight, wasteful, and possessive, and because I, like the disciples, would rather have the problem of world hunger go away or send the people out to solve it for themselves, the Word of God this morning makes me very uncomfortable.
St. Paul tells us so eloquently in a passage from the Epistle
to the Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, not persecution, not famine, not distress, not even the sword or war (Rom 8:35)! That's a comforting word until we realize that nothing outside ourselves can separate us from the love of Christ, but we ourselves can! We can cut ourselves off from God just as truly as our ancestors in faith did in ancient Israel when they "acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey" God's Word as the prophet Nehemiah said (Neh 9:16).
The problems of overcoming famine, in other words, cannot separate us from the love of Christ, but we ourselves can choose to let hunger and poverty separate us from the love of Christ if we refuse to obey the command of Christ in our own day. "You give them something to eat...."
That's a tough saying. It hits right between the eyes. But it cannot be set aside, for I tell you most solemnly, I am convinced by all that I know of the Gospel and of the Lord, that this is precisely what the risen Lord is telling us today. We must have compassion on the hungry, as Jesus did. We must become personally involved in the massive problem of world hunger, both by examining our own habits of consumption and by participating in some form of action which will bring food to those who need it.
Some of us need also to become involved on a political basis, perhaps with the advocacy group, Bread for the World. The United States influences the distribution of food worldwide just as the nations of the Middle East influence the distribution of oil around the world. Do we tie food aid to political goals or the people’s needs? What about food stamps, food programs in our schools, and the host of other issues related to hunger in this country?
Again, the ways and the means, the long-range solutions are all questions of politics, and in that realm I claim no certainty of faith nor any special revelation. But as a priest disciple of Jesus in the midst of this Christian Community, as one who has studied the Bible prayerfully for over forty years, I must tell you and myself this morning that the Words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel narrative according to Matthew are a direct mandate to us today as we face the reality of world hunger:
"You give them something to eat...."
For our homework this week (I give homework and let the good Lord to the testing), let us take a look at our life style and our addiction to consumption. Try one of the following:
1) See if you can go three days without buying something this week.
2) Fast one day to get in touch with hunger and the many thousands of persons in this land and around the world who have that hungry feeling tearing up their stomachs each and every day.
3) Buy an extra can or package of food items and put them in the food collection efforts around you in church and elsewhere.
4) Go online and become familiar with Episcopal Relief and Development, our Church’s alms fund on the national and international level. Check out Bread for the World also.
5) Finally, let us review what we eat and drink and see if we can consume less – which will generally have health benefits for us as well.
May God open our eyes that we may see, and our ears that we may hear, our minds that we may understand, and our hearts that we may have the courage to receive God's Word today and to act upon it. Amen.
God bless you and keep you this day and always. And remember that the good Lord loves you more that you can ask for or even imagine. Do you believe that?