February 10, 2008
Matthew 14:13-23

The Rev. David A. Davis

“Food Groups”

As we begin the Lenten journey together in our preaching life, allow me to tag for you the theme that will connect Word and worship each of these five Sundays. The invitation to celebrate the discipline of Lent is an invitation to reconnect to Christ Jesus, to re-examine one’s relationship to the Son of God, to re-acquaint oneself with the Savior of the world, as the heavenly voice at the Transfiguration said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” Our re-connection this Lent will be shaped by what Jesus said about himself.

In Luke’s Gospel, chapter 4, Jesus returns to Nazareth where he had been brought up. Luke tells us he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath which was his custom. He stood up to read and someone handed him the scroll for the day, the reading for the day. Jesus unrolled the scroll and read from the prophet Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. With every eye in the synagogue that morning fixed right on him, Jesus looked back at them and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Each Sunday of Lent we will come back to Jesus and those words, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” and the prophetic themes thus embraced by Jesus. We will look to other scripture, too. We’re not going to slowly build each week as we did in Advent where Sunday by Sunday we proclaimed Jesus, the One who is surely coming, as “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  But we will be guided by the prophet’s words invoked by Jesus. Take your cues from the liturgical banner here and from the front of the bulletin, even from the Call to Worship. This morning, those printed words are from Isaiah’s version, “to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken hearted.”  Next week it will be “to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.” In preparation for our experience of Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, we seek this Lenten season to collectively reacquaint ourselves to the Lord’s teaching, his ministry, and his life. I invite each of you to join us along the Way; the Way of the Cross.

And this morning? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me…to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted.” The Gospel lesson is from Matthew, chapter 14. It is the familiar story of the Loaves and the Fishes. Jesus feeding the 5,000. This is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels. In Matthew’s gospel, the telling of the miracle comes just as Jesus has been told of the death of John the Baptist. John was brutally killed in prison at the command of King Herod. John’s disciples then came and took the body and they buried it and after that they went and told Jesus.

Matthew 14:13-21 

I wonder what it sounded like?  Dinner with 5,000 people, plus women and children. I have tried to see it in my mind for a long time. The feeding of the 5,000. The loaves and the fishes. The twelve baskets of leftovers. I have tried to imagine what it must have looked like, probably since the first time I ever heard the story which I guess was before I can even remember. But I never thought about what it sounded like, until last summer when I was sitting in a communion service at a beautiful spot next to the Sea of Galilee. There was a breeze blowing off the lake. We were in the shade. The Table was set. We enjoyed some singing, but then, as we shared the meal it was amazingly quiet. We were coming forward two at a time to receive the bread and the wine. All of us in prayer. Some with tears. Others in wonder. It was a stunningly beautiful scene not very far at all from where Jesus fed the 5,000.

We were still “communing” when three school busses pulled up just at the top of the hill. The children rushed out and made a bee line for the shore, they passed right in front of our view of the water, they came right through our holy moment, our holy space. They weren’t so much interested in the ancient church that was next door, the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter. They went for the water. Skipping stones, Throwing rocks. In up to their knees. Laughing. Screaming. Yelling in Arabic. It’s what children do along the shore. Not long after the children arrived, one of my fellow ministers, fearing the moment was going to be lost, he stepped out from our gathering to try to appeal for quiet. He couldn’t speak Arabic so all he could do was “shh!” as the kids ran all over. It was rather fruitless, if not downright funny to watch. The person next to me leaned over “You know” he said, nodding toward the kids at the water’s edge, “that’s what it ought it to sound like; this meal. That’s what it is going to sound like in the kingdom of God.”
 Think what it must have sounded like, 5,000 men plus women and children there by the Sea of Galilee. Jesus saw the “great crowd” and according to the gospel, “he had compassion on them and cured their sick.” At the end of the day the disciples had had enough. It was late. Everyone was tired. People needed the time to go find some food. The disciples thought it would be best if “everyone was their own for dinner.” But Jesus said, “They need not go away. You give them something to eat.” The disciples looked around at each other, at the crowd, at the food supply. They did the math and knew that five plus two would never equal 5,000 adequately fed not to mention women and children.

“Bring them here to me” Jesus said. One always assumes he’s talking about the fish and bread: bring them here to me. Maybe he meant the people; the crowds; the men, women, and children. Those for whom he had such compassion. The sick. The hungry. The tired. Bring them here to me, Jesus said. Jesus told the crowds to sit down on the grass and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And everybody ate and was filled. They collected all the leftovers; twelve baskets full. A basket for each disciple. A basket full. 12. A perfect biblical number. A symbolic number, like infinity or Pi or something. The amount of leftovers. It was perfect. Just right. Never-ending. Those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children. Just think of what it all sounded like, that meal. Solitude, peace, and quiet. No way.

There among the crowds, Jesus took bread, he blessed it, he broke it, and he gave it to his disciples. Take. Bless. Break. Give. The twelve would hear that again, wouldn’t they? Take. Bless. Break. Give. They would observe Jesus again in that action. Take. Bless Break. Give. In chapter 15 Matthew tells the reader that Jesus fed 4,000 with seven loaves and a few small fish and had seven baskets full leftover. There they watched him take the loaves and bless them and break them before he gave it to them. Take. Bless. Break Give. And at the Passover, the Last Supper, when it was just the few of them; he took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it, he broke it, and gave it his disciples, saying “take, eat, this is my body.” Take. Bless. Break. Give.
 That day last summer our communion meal was interrupted by a godly gathering of children there by the water. Here in Matthew’s gospel, a gathering of 5,000 plus of men, women, and children who were hungry, tired, and sick, that godly meal was interrupted by communion and the Lord’s sacramental action; his taking, blessing, breaking, and giving.

On Wednesday evening here in the sanctuary we celebrated the Lord’s Supper by coming forward and receiving, by tearing off a small piece of bread and then dipping it in the chalice of grace juice. After the meal, before I offered the concluding prayer, I asked if everyone had been fed. It was not just a rhetorical question, it wasn’t quite like that outdated no-longer-used inquiry at a marriage service, “does anyone here know of any reason why this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony?” Has every one been fed? It’s not quite like that, I was asking to see if anyone had not received the elements, maybe someone who wasn’t able to come forward, or a musician otherwise attending to worship.

Another pastor was leading a congregation in another church on another Lord’s Day in another celebration of the Lord’s Supper. There were maybe forty or fifty folks gathered in the sanctuary and spread around the room like pepper on a dinner plate. It was a warm summer morning, so all the windows were open and the front doors too. The men had even taken off their suit coats. People could look out on farm land and country roads and the homes dotted all around. This particular morning all the sights and the sounds and the smells of the world were breaking in on the communion celebration. Near the end of the service, after the elders had returned all the trays and everyone had been served, the pastor started to replace the fancy silver tops on the pile of trays that held all the cups and the leftover bread. Just before the hymn started, the pastor stopped with tray in hand, and with a pause that everyone noticed, the pastor looked out the window for a long time, as if looking all around town, as if pondering the dry summer that was hurting all the farmers, as if looking for the children spread all over the county. With an awkward pause, the pastor kept looking out the window, looking out at a congregation somehow differently defined. And then the pastor said, still looking out, “Has every one been fed?”

There’s more than etiquette when the church gathers at this Table. More than etiquette at the Lord’s Table. A lot more than etiquette when it comes to the Lord’s sacramental action. Take. Bless. Break. Give. It comes with an unwavering ethic about feeding the poor and caring for the sick and having compassion for those who suffer. “Bring them here to me!” Jesus said. And he took, and he blessed, and he broke, and he gave, and he fed them.

Last fall Paul Rauschenbausch, one of the associate deans of religious life over at the university engaged in a blogging debate with Bill Hybels, the pastor of the Willow Creek Church in Illinois. Willow Creek is an evangelical megachurch of 20,000 members. Their conversation was posted on Belief.net. They were discussing whether it was more important for the church, or for a Christian to offer spiritual sustenance or physical comfort to those who are suffering. If you had three hours to give on a Saturday morning, would you talk to people about salvation through Jesus or would you serve at the Soup kitchen? Should the church be saving souls or feeding the poor, or in the language of the prophet Isaiah, should God’s people bring good news to the poor or bind up the brokenhearted. Dean Rauschenbausch had heard one evangelical preacher put it this way. “Anyone can give a person a sandwich, we have to give them Jesus.”  It wasn’t much of debate really because both faith leaders agreed that the answer is “yes” or as Rauschenbausch concluded “Jesus is the sandwich and the sandwich is Jesus.”
For those of us who follow Jesus, the disciplines of Lent are more than just spiritual. For whenever we take, and bless, and break, and give, whenever we share in His sacramental action, we look within and recommit, and reacquaint, and reconnect…..that is Lent. But when it comes to Christ Jesus, and the taking and the blessing and the breaking and the giving, you can’t look within, without first looking around. Has everyone been fed?

 

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