August 6, 2023 Sermon
Sermon title: "The Feeding of the 5000"
Scripture: Matthew 14:13-21
(Other lectionary suggestions include Genesis 32:22-31, Psalm 17, and Romans 9:1-5.)
Matthew 14:13-21
Feeding the Five Thousand
13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "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." 16Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." 17They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." 18And he said, "Bring them here to me." 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. 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, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
The title of the sermon is "The Feeding of the 5000", and you have probably heard many sermons on this topic. But here is something that I did not know: today's Scripture reading follows upon the news that John the Baptist has been beheaded. That's right: our lesson opens up with, "Now when Jesus heard this".... What Jesus heard was that his cousin and fellow preacher John the Baptist had been beheaded. This was serious news, and Jesus wanted to be alone, one would think, to think about this and what it meant for HIM and his ministry. Also, it had to be in Jesus's mind that he might be NEXT. True, Jesus knew that he might have to die, but he wasn't sure when. So, hearing of the death of John by King Herod had to have been disheartening. So, he wants a little peace and quiet. But what does he find when he tries to get away? More people seeking after him. Does he say, "Sorry. This is my day off?" or "Sorry. I'm on vacation?" No. He has COMPASSION on the people because he thinks they are like sheep without a shepherd. So, we need to recognize the COMPASSION of Jesus. He is suffering and grieving over the murder by the state of his cousin - and yet he continues to serve others. He moves through his own fear and pain to be of service to others. That's a good lesson for us all. Are you suffering? Help somebody else. You'll be amazed at what helping someone else does for YOUR pain. I think I have told you I have first-hand experience of this.
Before I continue with more important points, it's almost sad that Jesus forgot his own needs, because so many pastors have looked to this passage to say they cannot take a vacation or cannot take a day off if a member of their congregation needs them. When I felt called into the ministry some twenty-plus years ago, I heard about the Interim Ministry and the Interim Ministry Network, which formed about 1981. I took some Interim Ministry Network courses, and one of its big concerns is clergy NOT taking time off. You don't have to worry about that with me, (A) because I'm selfish, and (B) because I got into the ministry at a rather late age. So, since I had been around the block a few times, working in other jobs before church jobs, I realized the importance of time off and didn't need reminders to take a break. I think some pastors are workaholics, and even in our culture, being called a "workaholic" is almost a badge of honor. The Interim Ministry Network says you can't save the world if you don't save yourself first. So, it urges its members to be sure to take breaks and take vacations. If you are in urgent need, OF COURSE your pastor is available to you. As one minister friend of mine likes to say, when you need a minister, it's like needing a plumber: you need him NOW! And no good minister would want to turn down a parishioner in need. But every minister also needs to take the days off and the vacations that his/her church provides. By the way, I thank the Upland Christian Church for understanding this before I ever got here. You are WAY ahead of most churches in realizing that your minister can't walk on water if he doesn't take a vacation first!
Back to the Scripture for today....The sermon title for today is, of course, "The Feeding of the 5000". Who else fed the masses? If you said "Moses", you would be right. In Exodus, when the children of Israel were hungry, they received manna from Heaven. True, it was God who provided the manna, but it was through Moses. For the Gospel writer Matthew, Jesus is the New Moses. And look what happens at the end of the Feeding today: the leftovers filled.....how many baskets? 11, 13? NO. TWELVE baskets. Is that because there were 12 disciples? Probably not. But there WERE 12 tribes of Israel! Says N. T. Wright, the British scholar, "The twelve baskets left over may point to Jesus' intention to restore God's people, the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus feeding people in the wilderness fits so well with Matthew's theme of Jesus as the new Moses....that we can be sure that Matthew intended us to see this too."
Before all this, the disciples seemed concerned about the crowd, and they urged Jesus to send them away into the villages to get something to eat. But what Jesus said to the disciples was, "YOU give them something to eat." What kind of a challenge was this? Maybe Jesus was saying to his followers, "If you care so much about the crowd, why don't YOU give them something to eat?" They say to Jesus, "All we have is this", meaning 5 loaves and two fish. Jesus says, "Bring what you have to me."
There's the kicker, there's the clue of what this story is about: whatever you have, how big or how small, bring it to God to see what God can do with it.
This story is of course one of the miracles that the Gospels say Jesus performed. But what IS the miracle, really? Maybe Jesus turned 5 loaves and 2 fish into enough food for 5000 people. That would certainly be a miracle. But what if the miracle is that he got 5000 people to sit down and share what food THEY had brought with each other? That would be a miracle, wouldn't it? Don't most of us bring just enough food for ourselves, and if we share, we might not have enough, right? But here 5000 people risked enough of what they had to share with others, and all were satisfied. And remember that there were LEFTOVERS! Just what is the miracle here? Remember "Flower Drum Song", by Rodgers and Hammerstein? There's a song in that musical called "A Hundred million miracles", and it goes on to say, "are happening every day." I think that's what's going on here: not ONE miracle, but MANY miracles.
Let me close with N. T. Wright's words: "This is how it works whenever someone is close enough to Jesus to catch a glimpse of what he's doing and how they could help. We blunder in with our ideas. We offer, uncomprehending, what little we have. Jesus takes ideas, loaves and fishes, money, a sense of humour, time, energy, talents, love, artistic gifts, skill with words, quickness of eye or fingers, whatever we have to offer. He holds them before his father with prayer and blessing. Then, breaking them so they are ready for use, he gives them back to us to give to those who need them. And now they are both ours and not ours. They are both what we had in mind and not what we had in mind. Something greater and different, more powerful and mysterious, yet also our own. It is part of genuine Christian service, at whatever level, that we look on in amazement to see what God has done with the bits and pieces we dug out of our meagre resources to offer to him."
And look what God can do! Amen.
Pastor Skip
