August 6, 2023
Pentecost 10
Lectionary 18
Epiphany, Winnipeg
Matthew 14:13-21
A small detail that needs to get cleared up. What’s the catchy title we usually give to this story? Yes, the feeding of the five thousand. The small detail is that the story reads that “those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.” So if there are at least five thousand men and a more women than that because statistically women are about fifty one percent of the population, and who knows how many children but likely at least five thousand more….then this story that we come to call the feeding of the five thousand should really be called the feeding of the fifteen thousand. Because women and children matter too, you know.
Last week we heard Jesus tell all those parables, those little “The reign of heaven is like this” sayings. The reign of heaven is like a seed that grows into a tree, it’s like a priceless treasure, it’s like a merchant looking for fine pearls – that’s you – it’s like yeast mixed in with flour that becomes bread, all kinds of bread. It’s little, it’s nothing, but it grows.
And now, just one chapter later in Matthew’s gospel, we hear this story about Jesus, twelve disciples, fifteen thousand or more people, and five loaves of bread and two fish. And when all the people are fed twelve baskets of crumbs are left over. Twelve like the twelve disciples, twelve like the twelve tribes of Israel, twelve, like the perfect number of crumbs. Just enough. If the reign of Heaven is like a tiny seed that’s planted and it becomes a shrub and a shelter, and if the reign of heaven is like some yeast mixed with flour that becomes all kinds of bread and food for so many, then this feeding of fifteen thousand is a story of the reign of God coming to a crowd of fifteen thousand. The reign of heaven is like five loaves and two fish that become a feast for so many, with leftovers and more; it’s more than enough. The reign of God is more than enough. Right now.
Just for fun, open up the ELW – Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the red book in front of you, to page 1163. There, wasn’t that fun? You might or might not have known that Luther’s Small Catechism, a little book he wrote for parents to use to teach the faith to their children, is included in our book of hymns and liturgies. About halfway down the page Luther quotes the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer – “Your kingdom come” – and the third petition – “your will be done” – “on earth as in heaven.” Luther asks, “What does this mean?” and he answers his own question: “In fact, God’s reign comes on its own without our prayer, but we ask in this prayer that it may also come to us.” And a little later, “In fact, God’s gracious will comes about without our prayer, but in this prayer we ask also that it may come about in and among us.”
I don’t know what Luther was reading while he sipped his coffee the morning that he wrote this or sipped his beer later that evening, but he could well have read these stories of Jesus before he sat down to write. Because this story of the feeding of fifteen thousand is a story about how the reign of God comes to us and the will of God is done among us. Not in a far away place or time, but here, in our life in this world, in this place.
Back in the previous century when I was young and in university a few friends and I would go out to a local place for coffee and pie late at night because, well, there was pie. Since we were mostly broke, and in those days nobody had a credit card until they were old like their parents, it happened more than a few times that we sat down to order and we emptied our wallets and our pockets on the table and found that we only had a bill or two and some change, not enough for coffee and pie for four but maybe enough for coffee for three and pie for one. So we’d figure it out, order coffee, a piece of pie and four forks, and when the pie came we shared it around and it tasted really good. The coffee was probably awful, but the pie was great, and we were satisfied. We could have counted our not enough cash and gotten up and gone home hungry, but the not enough was enough for that time.
The reign of heaven is like four students counting their change and having some pie.
Another friend of mine tells a story of being on a trip to El Salvador several years ago, and he and the group of the that he was with visited a family on their farm one afternoon. The farm was barely if at all what we might call a farm – a tiny house, a tiny garden, just enough land to grow just enough for themselves, and no livestock to speak of, except one chicken. When their guests arrived, one of the farm kids chased down the chicken, their mom killed it, plucked it, and cooked it, and they sat down and shared chicken with their ten guests from North America. And it was enough. Now that story isn’t about how poverty is noble or good. It’s not. The story as my friend told it was about generosity and hospitality, and it was a story about people saying to themselves, “What have we got?” “A chicken.” “Well, bring it here, and let’s get started.” The reign of heaven is like a Salvadoran farm and a chicken and ten guests.
The feeding of the fifteen thousand…. Think back over the story, or listen again and hear it again, and listen for the part where a little bit of something turns into a whole lot of something, and listen for the part where Jesus goes and feeds everyone: “The disciples said “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” We really care about this crowd and we wish we could do something but we’ve only got this and it’s not enough. “And Jesus said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then he told the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled, and there were twelve baskets of broken bread left over.”
OK, it was a trick. We never actually hear that five loaves of bread and two pieces of fish are miraculously transformed into a gigantic pile of food. It’s just that that little bit of not-enough turns out to be more than enough. The miracle is not that a little bit of food becomes a whole lot of food; the miracle is that Jesus takes a little bit of not enough, and God blesses a little bit of not enough, and it turns out to be more than enough.
Think about that – let’s think about that together – the next time we’re tempted to say that we don’t have enough members, or enough money, or even enough young people or old people or any kind of people. Jesus doesn’t ask the disciples or us whether we have enough. He just says, “OK, what have you got?” And we say, oh, about this many here today, just this many of this kind and that many of that kind. And Jesus says, “OK, bring them to me.” And what we might be tempted to call not enough Jesus takes, and prays over, and blesses, and then he sends us out into the world and we are enough. What we have is always a gift from God, whether it’s a little or a lot, and it’s always enough.
We can get so caught up in stories about how scarce everything is, can’t we? And when we’re taught to repeat to ourselves that we don’t have enough, it’s so easy to get caught up in thinking only that we need more, we need more, we need more, before we can do anything. But this story of this feeding of the fifteen thousand changes something; Jesus changes something. When we tell a story of scarcity Jesus says, “OK, give me what you’ve got.” And it turns out that all along the way we’ve already had more than enough.
I also asked you to listen for the part where Jesus goes and hands out the food to the people, and that was a trick too. Because he doesn’t do that. He takes the little bit of not enough that the disciples have and he prays over it and gives it to them. And they give it to the crowd. And I guess the crowd figures out what to do with it.
Maybe that’s the other real miracle of the story. It’s not a picture of the expert or the wealthy or the ones with the power handing out something to the weak or the hungry or the helpless. It’s a story about a crowd of fifteen thousand or more, some disciples, and Jesus, and a bit of food that we all figure out together how to use for the good of us all. The story isn’t about transforming loaves and fish. The story is about transforming people, transforming us, into a people who are not frightened by stories about scarcity but are filled with gratitude for the more than enough we are given. It’s a story about transforming people, transforming us from people who are not paralyzed by “not enough” but are given the gift of figuring it all out together.
And finally, it’s a story that promises us the gift of faith, the simple trust that the God who calls us together – who calls together fifteen thousand on a hillside or forty some in a church with 40 or so views on YouTube – is the God who gives life, sustains life, and will always give enough, and more than enough, for us and for all.
AMEN.