Sermon Preached by The Reverend Timothy J. Patterson
July 31, 2011
The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
Matthew 14:13-21
This story of the feeding of the 5000 is one of the few stories which appears in all four gospels. Indeed, in two of the gospels the same basic story appears twice, for a total of six tellings in the New Testament. Which means that, obviously, this was regarded as a very important story for the earliest followers of Jesus. And you will notice that within this story is a very familiar pattern. Jesus takes the bread, looking up to heaven, he blesses and breaks the loaves and gives them to the disciples, who then begin to distribute them to the crowd. This, of course, is the very same pattern Jesus repeats at the Last Supper with his disciples on the night before he dies - he took the bread, blessed, broke and gave it to his disciples. It is the same pattern which, after his death, on the road to Emmaus, allowed his disciples to recognize him as the now risen Christ, turning their dejected hearts into hearts of blazing joy, as they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. It is the same pattern, of course, that we repeat every Sunday at this table in the Eucharist which is the center of our worship. So, this story of the feeding of the 5000 contains and resonates with something that is at the very heart of our faith and our identity as Christians.
It is generally understood to be a miracle story; but there are a variety of interpretations as to exactly what kind of miracle it is. Some people imagine it as something like a special effect in a Hollywood movie where, as one piece is torn off, the bread miraculously regenerates itself, or the pieces multiply as they are being transferred from one person to another, to another, or the loaves just keep replicating themselves in this bottomless basket until they are literally spilling over.
Other folks, perhaps, more spiritually minded, interpret the event sacramentally. They say that the each of the people there only received a tiny morsel of food, but because of Christ's presence, they received the spiritual sustenance and strength that they needed from the meal. That somehow God's power moved through him to provide the sacramental semblance of an abundant meal for all - that they were filled spiritually, something like our Communion meal today.
Others, of the more conservative, literal reading of the Bible simply take the story at face value. They say that some kind of miracle occurred, that Jesus created new food where there was almost none before, and that we don't have to understand exactly how he did it, we just have to believe that he did do it. That in some miraculous way God's power moved through him to provide an abundant meal for all 5000 plus people with twelve baskets left over.
Now I am not going to argue against any of those interpretations. This story is richly symbolic, with many levels of meaning; but today I want to invite us to be cautious so as not to jump so immediately to "spiritualizing" this story that we ignore the situation in which it happened. Namely, there were many hungry people who needed to be fed. Today, against the background of a very severe famine in East Africa, a growing gap between the rich and the poor around the world and in our own country, a time of economic turmoil in which many, many people are out of work and struggling to put food on the table or even living on the streets, I want to explore another interpretation of this story of the feeding of the 5000. Namely, that this is a miracle of compassion, indeed a miracle of contagious compassion. Seeing the crowds, the scripture says, Jesus had compassion for them. Indeed, Jesus is the embodiment of compassion. And, in embodying compassion, Jesus reveals, to us and to that crowd, the nature of God and the power of God.
The disciples say, "send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." Over five thousand people, five loaves and two fish; do the arithmetic, it cannot possibly work. But Jesus is clearly operating out of a higher arithmetic, he is operating out of a different kind of economy, namely God's economy of abundance and generosity, compassion and grace. He said, "bring them here to me." And notice, he ordered this vast milling crowd to sit down on the grass. In Mark's telling of the story, Jesus has them sit down in smaller groups. Which is to say, he changes the energy of the crowd by bringing them into relationship with one another. Then, "taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples." He brings this small amount of food into this eucharistic pattern of gratitude, into this energy field of divine generosity, abundance, compassion and grace, and, in this spirit, he tells the disciples to give them to the crowds.
And, so according to this interpretation of the story, as the disciples moved out into the crowds, this spirit of divine generosity, abundance, compassion and grace began to move throughout the crowds as well. Hearts began to open, and Jesus' spirit of compassion and trust became contagious. Like those disciples, many people in that crowd had brought along some food with them, a little bit of food. Another few loaves here, two fish there. Enough for themselves, but certainly not enough to share with others. But as that spirit began to move throughout the crowd, people began pulling out of their coats and their knapsacks those little bits of food they had tucked away. And, by the power of the spirit of God, each person, rather than hoarding their little piece for themselves was inspired to share with others. And so, as those baskets made their way through the crowds, some people took food out of the basket, but many others put food into the basket. And by the time those baskets made their way through the crowds now sitting together on the grass, everyone had enough, and apparently more than enough. All 5000 were fed.
Now, some of you are probably saying to yourselves, well, if that is how it really happened, if it was just the release of human generosity and compassion, people no longer just looking out for number one but indeed turning their pockets inside-out for one another without worrying about what is in it for them, then it wasn't really a miracle. That's not a miracle! To which I would say, it isn't?(1)
Let me tell you a true story that happened here in North Carolina.
Back in 1989, after months of hard work and years of saving, the day finally came for Rob and Jackie to open their own restaurant. All that was needed was the final health inspection and the issuing of their business permit. That was scheduled for the first thing that morning; then "Our Place," as they called their restaurant, would finally be in business. But that morning the winds and the rains of Hurricane Hugo hit, unexpectedly making its way 200 miles inland to their North Carolina town. Many of you will remember Hurricane Hugo. Trees were uprooted, power lines were down, homes and stores were destroyed. Rob and Jackie hurried to their restaurant. To their amazement, everything was intact.
A deputy sheriff pulled up and told them that their restaurant, the fire station next door, and a service station down the road were the only ones in town that had electricity. Rob and Jackie called the health inspector to come immediately so they could open, but because of the power outage, he couldn't get into his office to issue the permit. No permit, no business opening. With a refrigerator stocked with 300 pounds of bacon and beef and bushels of tomatoes, lettuce, and bread, there was only one thing to do: give the food away.
They told the deputy, "Tell your coworkers and any other emergency people you see that we'll have free BLT's and coffee for anybody who wants to drop by." Soon firemen, policemen, power company linemen, and other workers were filing into Our Place. When the couple heard that another restaurant in a nearby town was scalping people – taking advantage of the situation by charging ten dollars for two eggs, toast and bacon, they placed a sign in their window. FREE BLTS - FREE COFFEE. Families, travelers, and street people were welcomed.
Then something began to happen. People began to stay around to clean the counters and sweep the floors. Volunteers took over the dish washing from Jackie and others helped Rob at the grill. Hearing about what was going on at Our Place from the local radio station, people from a neighboring town that had not been too badly hit by the storm brought food from their freezers. Stores and dairies sent over chicken, eggs, milk, and foodstuffs of all kinds. And so the long day went. Those first cups of coffee and BLT's somehow stretched to 16,000 meals. The restaurant's small stock increased by 500 loaves of bread, cases of mayonnaise, 350 pounds of coffee and bushels of produce.(2) True story.
In our gospel story, which I also believe is true, the disciples' reaction to the crowd was one of anxiety. Henry Ward Beecher said, "Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or we can take hold of it with the handle of faith." Jesus took hold of his day with the handle of radical faith. And once he did, confidently telling the disciples to start handing out the five loaves and two fishes, saying "you give them something to eat," the disciples and it seems everyone else, caught his contagious spirit of living compassion and began to share with one another. In this interpretation, it was not just a miracle of feeding, it was a miracle of sharing. Perhaps even more astounding than the miracle of Jesus feeding the crowds with a few pieces of bread and fish was the miracle of Jesus transforming the crowd into a community, a community united in their need for one another, in the bread they share, in the love and compassion of Christ who has brought them together.
We, as members of this church, are called to be just such a community and to participate in the same ongoing miracle of compassion. And we do in many, many ways. We collect food virtually every month for various ministries and agencies to feed people in our community who are hungry. Week after week, people faithfully bring in their little bags until our collection boxes are literally overflowing. Through our community garden and through Muriel=s Servant Garden we grow literally thousands of pounds of food to feed people in need. Last month we purchased and put together more than 22,000 meals for the Stop Hunger Now project to feed people in some of the poorest parts of the world. In a multitude of ways, we help to feed the hungry and in doing so we are giving witness to the love and compassion of Christ.
And just this last Sunday we involved hundreds of our members in the Sharing Bread project. As a community, we baked nearly 300 loaves of beautiful, fresh bread in our kitchen, and we invited each family to go forth from church with a loaf to give to someone who might be hungry, lonely, in some form of need, or just as a gesture of love. Of course, last Sunday I, along with many of you, was so shocked and anguished after receiving the Bishop's letter, that it was probably a little hard for us to really focus on and take in the full significance of this Sharing Bread project. But, as people went forth from church, most discovered that this was indeed a powerful witness and something like "parable in action" about what it means to be a Christian and a living member of the Body of Christ.
A number of people drove down to Lee St. near the Urban Ministry shelter where people received their loaves with great gladness. One man carefully read the label on the bag, saying it was from Holy Trinity Church and listing all the ingredients, he smiled, broke off a huge chunk and ate it right there on the spot. Another man was standing on Elm St. A parishioner stopped to offer him a loaf, but he said 'no thanks, I've already got three.' We also sent quite a few loaves with our mission team up to Glory Ridge to give to the families we were serving this year, families we have served in years past and all of the people up in Madison County who have helped us over the 25 years of our work in that place, social workers who help us find people whose homes are in need of repair but do not have the resources to pay for those repairs, the people at the downtown hardware store who help equip us with our supplies, people at the dump where we bring all the stuff from our construction sites. The guys at the landfill said, 'no one has ever brought us something to eat. They only bring us their garbage. This is a first.' It created quite a buzz up in Madison County; everyone was talking about Glory Ridge and Holy Trinity and this bread they were giving away and, interestingly, the place where they seemed to get most excited was at Lowe's, which is a big, corporate organization, but we have gotten to know a lot of the employees there by name over the years. Dave Pokela, one of our Vestry members, told me that the first day up there, they stopped at Lowe's and presented a loaf to the person at the manager's desk and to a cashier named Gloria who had been so friendly and so helpful over the years. They came back the next day for more supplies and left a few more loaves in the employee's break room. Dave explained to them that last Sunday members of our church from ages 5 through 80 had baked this bread to be given as a gesture of appreciation and a sign of God's love. People were really touched and they were all talking about it. No one has ever done anything like this for us before. Early on Friday, the last work-day, Dave had to go back to Lowe's to return a broken sink. Just as the store was opening, he went up to the return desk carrying not bread this time but just this broken sink, and he accidentally walked in on the weekly meeting of all of the store employees, all of those people who wear the red vests. The manager recognized him - that's one of the guys from Glory Ridge - and the manager actually invited Dave into the meeting and asked him to address the whole group, to tell them about Holy Trinity, Glory Ridge and this whole sharing bread thing.
Dave told them the whole story – about who we are, what we do and why we do it; he made a beautiful testimony. But if it had been me, I would have added something like this. Sharing bread is one way of expressing what it truly means to be a Christian, to receive bread at God's table and then go out into the world to share with others, to answer Jesus' call, to move from an economy of anxiety, greed, self-interest and hoarding to a divine economy of faith, compassion, generosity and sharing, from a closed fist to an open hand, to be part of a movement of God's people to transform the "crowd" of this world into a community, to transform the human race into the human family. And this is one way of responding to Jesus' invitation to his disciples today: "You give them something to eat."
1. Barbara Brown Taylor, "The Problem With Miracles"
2. Fr. Jerry Fuller at rockies.net