Pentecost 11

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

SEASON: Pentecost 11
PROPER: 13A
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: August 4, 2002


TEXT: Matthew 14:13-21 - Suggest reading Matthew 14:1-21, for the contrast of the Herod’s Banquet & Jesus’ Banquet of the 5,000.
“And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides woman and children.”

ISSUE: There is a contrast here between Herod’s banquet and the banquet of Jesus. Herod’s is based on intrigue, shame, murder, and violence. Jesus’ banquet is based on love and compassion. These events dramatize the difference between the world that rejects God, and the world with God’s abiding presence and the importance of feeding upon God through Jesus Christ. The story also emphasizes the importance of our feeding one another with Christ, and our call to be in the service of the Lord.
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The story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand is one of the most important miracle stories of the Christian Scripture. It appears in all four accounts of the Gospel: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Counting two similar stories of the feeding of four thousand, the basic story of a miraculous distribution of bread and fish appears six times. It was obviously a story and miracle of great importance to the early Christian Community and has had a great influence upon the church down through the centuries.
It is thought that one of the important aspects of the story is how it associates Jesus with Moses and Elisha from the Hebrew Scriptures. During the Exodus, when Moses is leading the Hebrews out of Egypt, the people complain for lack of food. Moses with God’s help provides for them the manna from heaven, the quail for meat, and even water flows from a rock. There is a miracle that Elisha the prophet performs (2 Kings 4:42-44) where Elisha feeds a 100 hundred prophets with just twenty small barley loaves, “and they all ate, and there was still some left over.” The story highlights the Jesus as truly a prophet of God like the greatest prophets and leaders, Moses and Elisha. Jesus is able to feed a multitude with 5,000 and more with just five small barley loaves and two small fish. The story heightens the importance of Jesus’ ministry.
There is also the thought that Jesus was able to accomplish this miracle, because all the people there may well have had some of their own food in baskets they carried with them, and that it was a great moment of sharing. Maybe so? But keep in mind that the people of this time would have naturally shared their food with one another because of the poverty. Only we individualistic Americans see great sharing as unusual. The story of Jesus’ miraculous feeding was more than just sharing for the impact it had for the early church. It provided something more bountiful.
One of the interesting aspects of this story is how it is set in a position of contrast in the Gospel accounts of Mark, and Luke with the Banquet of King Herod. Herod has a grand banquet for a selected group of worthy friends in the court. It is a sumptuous banquet and Herod drinks too much. His step-daughter dances for the crowd, which would have been considered to be shameful behavior in the common ranks of the people. So taken by her loveliness and dancing, Herod offers her half of his Kingdom. Instead, in consultation with her mother Herodias, she asks for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Herod, unable to renege on his offer to save his honor, beheads John the Baptist, and has his head delivered on a platter.
Jesus, on hearing of John’s death, withdraws by boat to the wilderness across the lake. The crowds of people follow him. Now notice the great contrast of the banquets. The multitude of 5,000 may well be a Middle Eastern cultural exaggeration. In all of Palestine there were only 250,000 people. Five thousand people would have been an enormous crowd of at least half the population of the larger cities. Mathew also says that it was 5,000 men not counting the women and children. They sit in groups, men separated from women. The sick are healed, and they must have been nourished with the teachings of God’s love and hope. When the disciples suggest sending the people to buy food, Jesus determines that they shall feed them. Taking their only available supply of a modest five small barley loaves and two fish, the enormous crowd of 5,000 men and an uncounted number of women and children. Twelve baskets are left over of the gathered up crumbs.
Notice the contrast: The banquet of Herod, a symbol of power and of the political oppression and evil of the world has a banquet where there is scheming, debauchery, and murder. What is served up in the end is death. The banquet of Jesus, modest as it is, brings healing, nourishment and hope to a multitude of destitute people in an oppressive crushing world. What is more is that Jesus says to the disciples when they are ready to send the people away. “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Bringing their very small offering to Jesus, 5 little barley loaves and two sardines, to Jesus, together they feed a multitude with food left over, when Jesus takes the offering, blesses and breaks it, and gives it back to the disciples for distribution.
People today often get disturbed over the Bible’s miracles. How did Jesus do such a thing? The issue is not how Jesus did it; it is more what does it mean that Jesus did this? We have contrasted the way of the world with the mission of the church and hope of the church. In the world there is often scheming, mischievousness, murder, lack of respect for human life, incivility. It is a world where we often try to kill our rivals: gangs, politics, governments, and even the prophets of our time are condemned. Even when the church and its clergy and members lose their focus as to what the task of the church is, the church becomes as distorted as the rest of the world. The recent scandals of the wider church attest to that fact.
However, we have also seen in the modest giving that took place in our parish over the past few weeks, how quickly and entire apartment could be furnished for a Sudanese family taking flight from political oppression and persecution could begin a new life with hope in this country.
Jesus intended to provide for this people a banquet where people would find great compassion, sensitivity to their need, and mercy. Jesus gathers with not a select few, but with a multitude of all kinds of people. He calls his closest followers to be the servants of the gathering, and to bring into being a great servant community, where in the giving of their modest talents and abilities, broken, blessed, and shared, they bring nourishment and hope to the disenfranchised and the chaos of the world. The wilderness where Jesus performed this great miracle was a symbol of chaos, a place of evil spirits, and yet it becomes in Christ a place of peace, healing, nourishment and hope.
The miracle and the event are cherished by the church, and are regularly re-enacted by our worship. Each time we celebrate the Eucharist, we are called to bring our offerings, small though they may be, to Christ. He takes our offering, breaks and blesses them and they are given back to us that we may be strengthened for service, and partners in that ministry. The offering of our bread and wine represents the offering of all our human industry. It is broken and blessed and returned to us time and again. The bounty of Christ’s mercy and nourishment continue and has never, and will never run out.