10 Pentecost

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: 10 Pentecost
PROPER: 13A
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: August 1, 1999

TEXT: Matthew 14:13-21 - Feeding the 5,000
"They need not go away; you give them something to eat."

(The reading may begin with Matt. 14:1-12 for contrast.)

ISSUE: The Feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle story reported in all four of the Gospel accounts. It apparently had important and significant meaning for the early church. It follows and may be in contrast to another banquet story, that of Herod's banquet which results in John the Baptists murder. It is a story then of the new beginning and shifting to Jesus as the messianic hope where feeding and restoring of life and hope to demoralized people is in sharp contrast. The story is reminiscent of the works of Moses and Elisha. The story also calls the discipleship to task as teachers (feeders) with the Healer, Jesus.
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The story of the Feeding of the 5,000 is one of the most significant stories in the Gospels. It is the only miracle to appear in all four accounts: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Obviously the story meant a great deal to the early Christian community. Indeed, I think, it is a story that was then, and is still a story rich in meaning.
I'd like you to notice the setting or placement of the story in Matthew's Gospel account. It follows immediately behind another banquet story, and a tragic one. It may be that Matthew is setting these two banquet stories in contrast to one another. The first is the story of Herod's sumptuous birthday party. At the party his voluptuous daughter dances for him, and in shear delight he offers her anything she wants. In cohoots with her mother who had reason to see John the Baptist as her enemy, Salome asks for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod to save face, knowing full well the implication of this action, orders the murder of John the Baptist. Here's a very worldly sumptuous banquet which ends in the murder of a holy man.
John the Baptist who had been a prophet and preacher in the wilderness, a holy man, who undoubtedly had a significant following, of which Jesus may well have been and was likely to have been a part, is murdered. That event had to have a signficant impact on the peasantry in the area, as holy men in the community would have provided hope and godly presence to many of the poor and desenfranchised peasants. Then, you have a transition of their turning in a very large multitude to Jesus. And here with him another wilderness banquet takes place.
Let me point out that the gathering of 5,000 people in this time was just an enormous gathering of people. Most prominent towns barely had 10,000 people in them. There is no way of counting exactly if it was 5,000 precisely, but it had to be a significant number of people who at this point turn to Jesus. Matthew says that the 5,000 didn't even count the number of women and children. (Women and children in Jesus' time literally did not count.) But the point is that both women and children turned to him as well as the men.
Jesus supposedly went to be alone, which was in these days considered to be deviant behavior. Being alone was suspect, you must be up to something. This culture was very group oriented, although Jesus presumably did have his close disciples with him. The wilderness was also considered to be a place of chaos. It was a place of evil spirits, and only a person who could deal with evil spirits would spend time in the wilderness. But in light of the great tragedy of John's loss it may have had something to do with Jesus departure from the community, or a set up by Matthew in telling the story, because this was a time of loss and chaos for so many peasant people. They follow Jesus into the desert place, the place of chaos.
When this very large community gathers in the wilderness, it becomes of time of great compassion for them. It becomes a time of healing. Remember that healing in Jesus' time was not "cure" as we understand it, but of acceptance and restoration to community. Truly great feeling and concern for these people who have just lost another shepherd in John the Baptist is taking place. As the hour gets late, the disciples come to him and indicate the people are hungry and should go to nearby villages to buy food. But Jesus says to his disciples, " They need not go away, but you give them something to eat." The disciples are a bit frustrated by this because all they have is five loaves (pita bread like loaves), and two small fish. (They are by the sea.) Jesus takes what they have. Again notice the great contrast of 5,000 plus people, and only five tiny loaves and two fish, and the multitude is fed in this banquet of great abundance, where life is given, and not death and murder. Order and hope and feeding is being brought to the chaos of these people's lives. There's more than enough to go around.
Let's pick up on what seems to be going on and what Matthew is attempting to convey when he tells this story. There is the world of Herod the King, and there is the Domain of God. People did not picnic in chaos or in the wilderness. But surely, they may well have felt that their lives were in great distress and poverty, and their rulers were cruel, if not evil bufoons, and perhaps that's where the real chaos lay. Jesus is quite deviant, different from the world, and enters the wilderness to heal, restore the lost, the least, and the last. He is there to feed them. For the people of this time, the story was very reminiscent of Moses in the chaotic wilderness with the people of God who had attempted to escape oppression in Egypt. Frightened for their lives, through Moses leadership they received the Manna of God, or Bread of God from heaven, the bread in the wilderness. (Ex.16:4-8) It recalls the prophet Elisha (2Kings 4:42-44) who had 100 prophets with him, and Baal Shalishah brings him 20 loaves of bread. Elisha tells him to feed the prophets, but the servant replies< "Do you think this is enough for a hundred men?" Elisha replies, "Give it to them to eat, because the Lord says that they will eat and still have some left over." And it was so. Moses and Elisha were messianic figures, deliverers of the people. Matthew like the other evangelists is reporting that Jesus is like this, and more so. He can feed a multitude and there is still an abundance left over.
Who is eating? Everyone. Women and children, men. A whole crowd of people from every walk of life are present with Jesus, the pure and the impure, the outcasts, they're likely to all have been there eating together with Jesus in a world where people did not do that. People were often separated by gender, class, status, honor. You have a community of people who are in chaos coming for healing and hope, and for feeding. It is in a sense the foererunning messianic banquet referred to in Isaiah 25:6 "Here on Mount Zion the Lord Almighty will prepare a banquet for the nations of the world - a banquet of the riches food and the finest wine. Here he will remove the clous of sorrow that has been hanging over all the nations." The Feeding of the 5,000 may not have been a sumptuous as that, but it did feed a multitude.
In the feeding experience, Jesus takes the bread, blesses, and distributes it. This action was obviously related to the Last Supper. It is the Eucharistic action of the Liturgy as it comes down to us today, where people are fed with spiritual food. It is not all of this is so much miraculous as it tells who Jesus is. He is the Messiah. He is the Christ. He is the hope and revelation of God in the world of chaos. As the poor peasants gathered in the pasture, sitting in the grass. We are reminded, as was Matthew's people: He leadeth me into green pastures, where my cup runs over. They eat fish, and of course the other place in the New Testament where there is a mention of eating fish is when Jesus eats fish with his disciples after his resurrection. Fish is the food of resurrection and hope.
In this wonderful and cherished scene of Jesus in the midst of these hurting people is healing and feeding, and the feeding is teaching. That's still what we gather for at the Eucharist is healing, restoration in the brokeness and alienation of our lives, and the teaching of God's redeeming love and acceptance, and the faith that helps us live in the world. In a world of chaos and where goodness often seems to be in short supply, it is faith in Christ Jesus that brings healing, food for thought and nourishment of God, and hope of resurrection in great abundance. Jesus is the great bountiful host.
In Jesus' time to eat a meal was a special experience. It was a ceremonial ritualistic experience. People lingered over their meal. They tell me that business meals even today by middle Eastern business men are quite lengthy. It is a time of getting to know one another, a time for discussion, debate, a time of learning. You get more that what you bargain for. It is bountiful experience. I think that this is what is being conveyed in this imporant story of the life of the church. Lingering in the presence of Christ in a harsh cruel chaotic world brought about an healing abundance of love, acceptance, and hope. God was abundantly in the midst of them, in a place where they may least have expected to find it. John the Baptist was gone. That's what the cruelty of the world sometimes does. But God goes on healing, feeding, teaching in Christ, and the world could not over come him.
We still live in the world of the "Herods" of various sorts and condition. There is a lot of cruelty, face-saving antics, dishonorable people in corporate America and in politics. Evil and injustice is a fact of our lives.. We are all sometimes the victims of that world, and sometimes we are the willing participants in that world. We all know some pain suffering, shame, brokeness and spiritual poverty at various times in our lives. Herod's world can at times be so frightening, so cruel. We need the healing and teaching, the hope, the feeding for our spiritual poverty. We need at times to be with God in the wilderness that is turn to greener pasture where the cup of love, mercy and compassion overflows. The passage tells us today that Jesus is the way to God. He provides what we need.
Sometimes people think and preachers teach that the great miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 is that Jesus really got everybody there to share their lunch. That's really typical American thinking: It is really a miracle if you can get people to share. In Jesus time people naturally shared. It was the honorable thing to do and a pre-industrial world of limited supplies. The real wonder of this story is that people found Jesus Christ to be their hope and their Lord, their way to God. So the story is told over and over and over again, and cherished by the church community. Now the disciples know they don't have to send people home hungry. . . they can feed the starving. . . . and may we can too.