Sermon - 9th Sunday After Pentecost (8/2/2020)
Is. 55:1-5; Ps. 145:8-9, 14-21; Rom. 9:1-5; Mt. 14:13-21
When Jesus hears of the execution of John the Baptist – his cousin and his mentor – the first instinct of Jesus is to go away by himself. You remember how, after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, he went away by himself for 40 days in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil. Where, in solitude and silence and prayer, he wrestled with the meaning of the mission that had been given him, where he overcame temptations to seek his own power and glory and comfort, temptations to – among other things – turn stones into bread to satisfy his own personal hunger.
And now, when Jesus hears that John has been killed, the first thing Jesus does is again to go away by himself. No doubt to grieve, but also to think, to pray, to try to understand what God is doing, what this death means for him and his own mission. But when Jesus arrives at his place of solitude and retreat, he is not alone. The crowd has followed. Thousands of people. And Jesus had compassion on them, so he met with them, prayed with them, healed their sick, took their burdens on himself.
It was a long and stressful day. And frankly a dangerous one. I am sure Jesus and his disciples were quite aware that the day the world learned of the execution of John the Baptist ordered by King Herod was probably not the best day to be gathering thousands of people to speak about a new kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, so different from the kingdoms of Herod and Rome and yet close at hand. The question could not have been far from their minds: Is Jesus next?
And so I imagine the disciples of Jesus, knowing that Jesus needs some quiet time to think things through, fearful for Jesus and for themselves, unsure of where all this was going, seeing the thousands of people and their enormous suffering and needs, as the long day turned to late afternoon, I imagine the disciples got together and said, OK, this is enough. Let’s send these people away – to where, I don’t know, it’s not my problem – I just want everyone to go away, so I can just sit down, enjoy this sandwich that I brought with me in peace and quiet, and have some time to think.
And so the disciples approach Jesus. The hour is late, people are tired and hungry, we all need some space, and we’re all going to get in trouble if this goes on much longer. Let’s tell the crowd to go now and buy some food before it gets dark. And then we can sit down and enjoy our own dinner and evening in peace.
And Jesus looks up, with that very Jesus twinkle in his eye and says, Why don’t you give them something to eat? You’ve got a sandwich there in your pocket, right? Your sandwich, just some bread and fish. The one thing in the world that you’re looking forward to right now. Jesus wants it for all these people, when it won’t possibly be enough. Before you know it your sandwich will be gone, thousands will still be hungry, you will have nothing, and the day will be a complete disaster.
So your choice: you can go off alone with your sandwich, or you can give it to Jesus. And if you give it to Jesus, your friends follow and give him their sandwiches too, five loaves and two fish put together. Jesus takes them, blesses them, breaks them, and gives them back to you to give to the crowds, and you start feeding people, and feeding people, and feeding people, and somehow there is enough for everyone and more than enough left over for you and – somehow, something is happening. Jesus has done something you cannot explain. He did it with your sandwich.
But you had to give it up first.*
When bad news comes, our first instinct is to hold back, to conserve what we have, to be cautious and alert, to protect what we know, not to take risks. When Jesus heard the news about what had happened to John the Baptist, his first instinct was to withdraw, to think things through, not to do something provocative like gather five thousand men, plus the women and children. I think the gospel writers count the crowd in this way not to denigrate the women and children but to stress how this would look to Herod – five thousand men, enough for an army, to whom Jesus is showing that there’s an alternative to the kingdom of this world, where a few live in plenty while so many go hungry. If only they had cable news in those days, imagine what some networks could have done with that video. (Look, an antifa protest!) That’s not what Jesus was planning to do. But the people came to him, and they had needs, and so his plans had to change.
We’ve had a lot of bad news lately. The virus, of course. The inequities in our society that the virus has highlighted and deepened. The rise of anger and fingerpointing and blame. Real crises of children to take care of while schools are closed, and sickness, and loneliness, and economic calamity, and no solutions in sight. The natural and normal reaction is to hold back, to preserve what we have, and if others have needs – what am I supposed to do about it? All I have is five loaves and two fish, and that’s not even a drop in the bucket for so much need? Better to send them away, let them go into the villages and buy their own food – with what? from whom? Who knows, but it’s not my problem. It can’t be my problem. Because I have no answers, I have no solutions. What am I supposed to do about it?
In theory, we have faith that, with God all things are possible. In theory, we confess that God has provided a creation that is very good, with a world that contains enough for everyone. In theory, we believe that God’s love and mercy is an abundant gift, that our cups are overflowing, that love and mercy and God’s gifts are not rare things to be hoarded like hand sanitizer and toilet paper in a pandemic, but things that are freely given and are meant to be freely shared. In theory, we know that if we all could just stop thinking about what is “mine” and what is “yours” but put whatever we have at the service of others, that we would discover that there is more than enough for everyone, more than enough for them and more than enough for me, if only we had the faith and the generosity to create space for a miracle.
In theory, we believe all these things. But when Jesus asks us for our sandwich, it’s very hard to say yes. What if I am generous and nobody else is? Then it would all be for nothing. What if I give up my sandwich, and someone else eats it, and no miracle happens – then what am I going to do? Surely we’re not supposed to tempt God, are we? As Martin Luther pointed out in one of his sermons on the feeding of the five thousand, the people took the time to collect up the leftovers – they didn’t put God to the test and presume God would always miraculously provide. They were grateful, but they weren’t stupid, or careless, with God’s gift.
And yet. Someone took a risk by giving Jesus their sandwich, and that led others to contribute five loaves and two fish, and that’s what opened the space for a miracle. Somebody had to take the first step of generosity, the first step into living as if the kingdom of heaven were already here. And then – if only for one afternoon in one deserted place – the kingdom of heaven in fact became real in the feast that Jesus provided.
But whoever was the first one with enough faith to hand over their sandwich to Jesus, that person was not the first one to take a risk. Jesus wasn’t planning on doing anything that day except to grieve and to pray in solitude, but he decided to set aside his own desire, to take a risk, and to give of himself to people in need. God took a risk in sending the Son into the world, the risk he would be rejected and suffer and die. Heck, God took a risk in creating the universe in the first place.
Jesus came to show us, in flesh and blood, that taking risks in love is who God is. That being people who take risks in love is who, ultimately, we are all created to be. May the God who takes risks in love for each one of us inspire us, strengthen us, empower us, to take risks in love for one another, so that everyone may be fed, made whole, and live at peace.
* - These paragraphs especially inspired by Rev. Anna B. Olson, Claiming Resurrection in the Dying Church, ch. 3 (2015).
** - Martin Luther, Sermon on John 6:5-14 (Church Postil), http://www.lectionarycentral.com/lent4/LutherGospel.html, para. 4.