Sermon
4/22/18
Matthew
14:13-21
Strengthen
Your Core: Service
We’re in the midst of our sermon series on strengthening
our core, strengthening our spiritual practices that will help us grow in
faith, grow as disciples, deepening our faith practices so that we have strong
core to rely on as we navigate life. And this week, we’re thinking about how we
can strengthen our core practice of service.
In our baptismal liturgy we say, “As members of the body of Christ and in this
congregation of The United Methodist Church, we will faithfully participate in
the ministries of the church by our service.” How are you, how will you
cultivate your faith and follow Jesus by serving others? What, specifically, will you do to serve God
and neighbor? To help us answer these questions, we turn to our gospel
lesson.
There are very
few events, particularly outside of the death and resurrection of Jesus, that
appear in all four gospels. As similar as Matthew, Mark, and Luke are to each
other, still they each have many of their own stories, and each of them exclude some of the stories for one
reason or another. So when an event occurs in all four gospels, we should stop
and take notice. Clearly, the event must have some particularly strong meaning
and message to be so included. One such event is what we call “The Feeding of
the 5000.” Of the miracles of Jesus, it is the only one recorded in all four
gospels, and in fact, two gospels, Matthew and Mark, include two feeding miracles. There is, of
course, some variation in detail, in specifics, but all four gospels carry the
same essence. Today, we’re looking in particular at Matthew’s account.
When
the text opens, Jesus has just received some bad news. It’s part of your
homework to read the first part of Matthew 14 to see what has happened. But
Jesus is reeling. He’s in pain, he’s grieving, and Matthew tells us that Jesus
takes a boat by himself to try to just get away. He needs some time alone. But
it isn’t to be. The crowds hear that Jesus has taken off by boat, and they
decide to find him, going by foot around the lake, so that by the time Jesus
comes ashore from the boat, a crowd is already to greet him. I’m not sure how
you’d feel in Jesus’ place, but I can imagine how I would feel, being
overwhelmed and just wanting some time to myself, only to find a crowd waiting.
I’d want to turn around and get back
on that boat. I might feel a little cranky, or resentful. I might burst into
tears at the thought of having to deal with a whole crowd. But Jesus, Matthew
tells us, looks at the crowd and is filled with compassion for them, and begins
curing the sick they have brought to see him. Remember, some time ago I shared
with you that the Greek word for compassion, splangchnizomai, is my favorite
Greek word. It means literally that we’re so moved with concern that our
insides are kind of churning with the deepness of our care. And it is in this
way, with gut-churning compassion, that Jesus most often looks at the crowds in
the Bible, and the way he looks when he comes ashore and sees them waiting for
him.
As
the day draws to a close, the disciples come to Jesus and tell him, “Look, this
is a deserted place, and it’s late. Send everyone away so that they can go get
themselves some food.” I don’t know what you hear in their words, but I hear
some disciples who felt like I thought I might upon seeing the unexpected
crowd. They’re done. Jesus has done what he can, and now, they think, he should
just send them away, so that they can get on with their own plans. He’s done
what he can. Let them take care of themselves now.
Jesus
isn’t having that. “They don’t need to go away,” he says bluntly. “You give
them something to eat.” The disciples are flummoxed. “We only have five loaves
and two fish!” they insist. Again, I hear their unspoken sentiments. We have
fives loaves and two fish – and they’re for us.
We have five loaves and two fish – what could they possibly do for a crowd of
thousands? We have five loaves and two fish, and we just want to enjoy our
dinner. Send everyone away. You’ve done enough. Let them take care of
themselves.
But
Jesus just says to them, “Five loaves and two fish? Give it all to me.” He
takes everything they have, gets everyone to sit down. He takes the food,
blesses it, breaks the bread, and gets the disciples to start handing things
out. “And all ate and were filled,” we read, and the disciples gather up the
leftovers, “twelve baskets full.” Biblical scholars disagree about the nature
of the miracle we witness. Some see Jesus multiplying the bread and fish with
his supernatural ability. Others see it as a miracle of sharing – once some
shared what they had, others were more willing to share what they had too, and
suddenly, it was clear that there was really enough after all. I think though,
that these disagreements miss the point. There is plenty that is miraculous
about the text – many miracles for us to see here.
Here
are some of the miracles I see: First, Jesus’s compassion is a miracle. To be able
to turn our pain into care for others is a gift. Two of my favorite books are
the Eight Cousins/Rose in Bloom set
by Louisa May Alcott. They never gained the popularity of her Little Women series, but they are worth
a read if you’re a fan of her writing. In the books Rose is a young woman
trying to find her place in the world, trying to live as a thoughtful, ethical
young woman, although she has a large fortune at her disposal, and although she
is often tempted to spend her days attending parties and spend her money on the
latest fashions. At one point in the story, she is feeling distraught and
upset. The adults in her life have made some decisions that leave her feeling
heartbroken. And in the midst of her anger and sadness, Rose remembers that her
great aunt has always told her that when you’re feeling like this, the best way
to move beyond your pain is to start serving others. So Rose decides to turn
her pain into helping others. Through serving others, Rose is able to gain some
perspective, and transform her own feelings into making a positive impact on
her community. The pain and sorrow we experience in life is real, and hard. And
we can’t always just “snap out of it.” Healing is important. But I believe
serving others, loving others, showing compassion to others can be part of that
healing. A miracle: we heal better when we love others than when we are
thinking only of our own needs.
Another
miracle: God works with what seems like very little to make something that
reaches a crowd of thousands. The disciples didn’t think that they had much to
offer, and what they did have, they didn’t seem too keen on sharing. Their
strategy was: everyone should just take care of themselves. But in God’s
economy, in God’s world, we’re meant to take care of each other. And God can
take even what you consider to be hardly worth sharing and make it into
abundance. How often have you looked at your gifts, your talents, your assets,
your life and thought that you couldn’t make a difference in the world? How
often have you thought that hunger was too big a problem for you to confront,
that poverty was too overwhelming to change, that the “isms” of the world were
too hard to tackle? Jesus wants to feed the crowds, and he says to us, “You give them something to eat.” He
believes that we have the capacity, the resources, the ability, when we offer
what we have to God for blessing and sharing, to change everything. What are
you holding back from God, afraid that you won’t have for yourself if you
share, or afraid that it simply isn’t “enough” to be of much good?
David Lose
says that one of the miracles of the story is that Jesus is able to use a bunch
of people who would really prefer to just take care of themselves, to care for
the need of thousands of people. “And that miracle continues,” he writes. “When
a college-grad eschews a high-paying job in order to teach disadvantaged kids,
God’s miracles continue. When a parent puts dreams of an academic career to the
side to care for a special-needs child, God is working that same kind of
miracle. When a church makes the wrenchingly difficult decision to celebrate
its century of faithful service and close its doors after significant decline
in order that another ministry might flourish, miracles abound. When one
student stands up against bullies in defense of another student, the God of
compassion is again miraculously revealed. When a fledgling community of faith
makes a promise that no one that comes to its doors will be turned away hungry,
God is still at work performing miracles through disciples eager, reluctant,
and everything in between, miracles that easily rival those reported in today’s
reading.”[1]
What would we add
to Lose’s list of miracles? I would add, when a congregation in a small town
decides that they can feed the community, for free, feed anyone really who
wants to come and eat, or anyone who wants a meal delivered to them, and that
they can continue doing this year after year, and when they decide they can
serve hundreds of meals every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, then, God’s
miracles continue. I’m not sure that all the folks who have been and who are
involved in Friday Lunch imagined how the ministry might grow and unfold
through the years. How could they have? But what they didn’t doubt was the they
had something to give, something to
offer, something to share, and that God could use what they would offer, bless
what they offered, grow what they offered. A miracle indeed. What other
miracles might unfold, right here in Gouverneur, when we trust God, when we
look with compassion like Jesus does, and when we offer up all we have to be
used in service? What do you have that God can use, even if you can’t quite
imagine how it could amount to much, because you remember that God is a giving
God, and has given you so much? What are you willing to share, even if it feels
like all you have, even if it means you have to give a little more of what you
have than you think you can spare, because you remember God is a God of
abundance? How can you look on God’s people with eyes of compassion, not
wondering why folks don’t just help themselves, take care of themselves, but
instead seeing an opportunity to demonstrate your love and God’s love through
serving? How can you work in the world to build your relationship through
service, remembering that we can only truly love and serve God when we love and
serve one another?
Today, we give
thanks for one of many of God’s miracles. We celebrate and give thanks for our
Friday Lunch ministry, and think of all who have been reached in God’s name
over twenty years, and all who will be reached with God’s love and ours in the
years to come. That’s one miracle, a precious one. What miracles does God have
in store in your life? What do you have that God can put to use in ways you
will hardly believe? I can’t wait to see what God will do among us! Amen.
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