12 PENTECOST, PROPER 13

SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE

THE REV. ANNE STANLEY

3 AUGUST 2008

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Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 17:1-7, 16; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

The Feeding of the Five Thousand. Five thousand men were fed that day, says Matthew, not counting the women and children. Do women and children count?  Maybe we chuckle at Matthew’s telling of this story. Maybe Matthew gave up counting, before the women and children ate, who most likely would have eaten last, after the men had finished. But maybe we should think of it this way: What if Matthew is really saying something like, “And those who ate were about five thousand men, and that doesn’t even take into account for all the women and children who also ate!!”  So maybe we should call this the Feeding of the 5000-plus!  Just a thought.  You decide.

What really matters in this gospel story is the feeding that happened that day, as in the blessing that took place in the first reading from Genesis. Feeding and blessing. Twin acts of God. In the Hebrew scripture story, Jacob, grandson of Abraham, son of Isaac, had a mighty and lonely struggle one dark night (a struggle with God, as it turned out), and in the end Jacob made it through and God blessed him….In the gospel, Jesus had just gone through his own struggle in the part of the story we don’t hear today. His cousin John the Baptist had just been beheaded by Herod. That’s why Jesus withdrew to a lonely place to be by himself, his own solitary and mighty struggle with grief.

After his struggle, Jacob was blessed, and God changed Jacob’s name to Israel, and he returned to his family and continued the work God gave to do, of creating a great nation.

After his struggle, Jesus returned to his own work of taking care of his people, of feeding them. In fact, it was the very first thing he did, literally. The people were hungry, it was getting late, they needed their supper, and Jesus had compassion for them. So he fed them.  

What is the first thing that happens after a funeral? The first thing, after we have withdrawn apart, perhaps for our own struggle and then to the church for mourning and remembering and commending the deceased to God’s merciful care? What then? Don’t we all troop off downstairs or down the hall for a feast? To the reception, called there because someone has had compassion for us and wants to feed us?  Compassion as a calling, not a ho-hum duty?  A yearning to reach out and feed the gathered community. Like the disciples who pointed out to Jesus that the people were hungry and needed a meal, although at first they had no intention of actually doing anything about it, so too do hospitality teams in the church remember the post-funeral reception. But I have noticed that it is often the mourners themselves who speak to me about making sure that the feeding takes place.  Where will it be? They ask. What will we serve? Just as Jesus himself, mourning that day for his cousin, made sure that the people were fed.

This is so important that all four gospels tell about Jesus feeding. Matthew and Mark even have two separate stories about Jesus’ making sure the crowds were fed.

Did you happen to notice that in this miracle, unlike some of the other miracles in scripture, there is no dramatic reaction from anybody? Even the gospel writers simply tell the story. A story about Jesus’ own compassion, perhaps heightened by his own grief over the death of John the Baptist. A story about the feeding that took place that day and continues to this day in the Eucharist.

 Jesus took the bread and the fish, he blessed them, broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, who passed them out to the crowds. And behold, there was enough to go around, and then some.

There is always enough of Jesus to go around. Enough and then some. Forever.

Did you also notice in this story that Jesus does not act alone? “The people are hungry,” the disciples reported to him, “and they need their supper, so, Jesus, it’s time you dismissed them to away to the villages.”  But Jesus looked them in the eye and told THEM to give the people something to eat, now. “You go and do it.”

In the end, of course, Jesus and the disciples worked together. The disciples carried the available food to Jesus. Jesus took it and blessed it, broke it and made sure there was enough, and he gave it to the disciples to give out to the people.

The miracle in this story is that, with Jesus, there is always enough. The miracle also, for me, is that Jesus not only blesses the food, the food that we know now to be his own self, but that we are blessed as well. As Jacob-Israel was blessed by God. In the Eucharistic feast, we present ourselves, our souls and bodies, to God and we present also the gifts from our lives that God has given us: bread, wine.  And God returns them to us with a blessing, that we may be filled with Jesus and with a blessing, so that we may go, then, and feed and be a blessing to others.