Making Miracles
Rev. Lee Ann Bryce
Community Christian Church
July 31, 2011
Text: Matthew 14:13-21
Now when Jesus heard this,"
As this passage begins, Jesus has just heard some devastating news. Someone very close to Jesus has been violently killed – John the Baptist, the prophet, the man who had baptized Jesus, the man who had devoted his entire life to preparing the way for Jesus. This passage does not provide the details of John’s death, but elsewhere we learn that John had been beheaded at the whim of a dancing girl, a senseless and sad murder.
"Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns."
It is not only Jesus who is devastated. John’s death is a vivid reminder to Jesus and everyone else that God’s prophets were not immune to death, and if anything, they were more likely to die violently than quietly, sooner rather than later. You can imagine the sorrow and fear they felt. And just as we sometimes do when we are frightened or sad, Jesus withdraws and the crowd who loves Jesus, follows.
"When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick."
Jesus may have needed some alone time, but the crowd had needs of their own. Many were sick and they reached out to Jesus in hope. And Jesus put his own needs aside and responded to them. His heart went out to them and he spent the afternoon walking among them, laying his hands on them and saying the things they needed to hear.
"When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”
The disciples mean no harm. They’re not insensitive jerks. They are simply being practical. Night was falling, they were out in the middle of nowhere and their stomachs were beginning to growl. It was time to call it a day; time to build a campfire and eat the little bit of food they had brought with them. It was time to take care of themselves for a change and suggest that everyone else do the same.
"Jesus said to them, 'They need not go away;'"
Jesus has a better idea. “Don’t send them away.” Maybe he knows that what the crowd needs more than a hot meal is simply to stay together; the nourishment they will receive from each other’s company being more important than the meager meal they might be able to find elsewhere. Sometimes after very bad news, it doesn’t matter what you eat as long as you eat it with someone.
"Jesus said to them, 'They need not go away; you give them something to eat.' They replied, 'We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.'”
Can’t you just picture the looks on their faces when they heard Jesus say, “You give them something to eat.” Us? You are in charge here, you’re the boss. All the food we have is hardly enough for a snack for twelve hungry men, never mind five thousand people out there. No disrespect intended, but you’re nuts.
"And he said, 'Bring the loaves and fish here to me.' Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the 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 they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children."
(Reader seated.)
Before we get started, let me just say that that last part about the women and children not even being counted in the total number irritates me, but that’s a sermon for another day!
Each one of the gospel writers – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – records the life of Jesus differently. Decades after Jesus’ death, each one picked and chose from all the stories that circulated about Jesus and decided which to include, and what to emphasize when they told the story. Only Matthew and Luke write anything at all about Jesus’ birth. Mark and John don’t mention it.
But one story that all four gospel writers included in their Gospels is this story about the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. (This is one of only three stories that can be found in all four gospels.) For whatever reason, this story was too important to the early church to leave out. We can speculate about what made it so important to the early church. It certainly carries echoes of Old Testament stories that the Jews who followed Jesus held dear, such as God providing manna in the desert to the wandering Israelites. Bread was an important symbol to them, a reminder of God’s constant provision. And in the early church, after Jesus had been killed and was no longer tangibly present to them, you can understand why they held onto this story about Jesus’ ability to miraculously provide for their needs.
So this morning’s miracle story is one in a series of bread miracles in the Bible, and an impressive one if we take it at face value. Feeding five thousand men (plus women and children – let’s hope they gave them something to eat too!) with five loaves and two fish is pretty amazing. And some believe that’s exactly what happened – that when someone tore off a bit of bread, the loaf magically grew to compensate or that suddenly new loaves appeared; that Jesus pulled the two little fish out of the bag and tossed it to the ground and when he looked back down suddenly there was a whole pile of fish where the empty bag used to be.
Others understand this story not literally, but metaphorically. In other words, Jesus didn’t do a supernatural magic trick like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Rather, that this was a beloved story that early followers of Jesus told to one another to reinforce their belief that Jesus would always provide.
Maybe you are someone who believes that Jesus performed supernatural miracles, acts that do not conform to the laws of science as we understand them. Or maybe Jesus’ miracles have scientific explanations that the gospel writers just didn’t understand. Or maybe you’re someone who is completely skeptical about such things. Sure, you’d like to believe, but all these stories of Jesus’ miracles sound like a bunch of hooey to you.
No matter where you fall on that continuum of understanding, I believe profound truth is found in this story. And that truth is not dependent on its literal interpretation. It is our loss if we discount the power of this story just because we don’t believe in miracles.
Consider this possibility: When Jesus told the disciples to feed the masses five loaves and two fish, could he have had a sense of the situation that went beyond the disciples’ common sense? They were, after all, operating out of a sense of scarcity. They looked at the crowd, saw no picnic baskets or backpacks, and assumed that no one had anything to eat. They looked at their own meager resources and assumed that it was not enough to go around their own circle, much less to feed the whole crowd.
But Jesus operated on a different set of assumptions. If the disciples operated out of a sense of scarcity, Jesus embodied a sense of plenty. He looked at the same things the disciples looked at, but where they saw not enough, he saw plenty: plenty of time, plenty of food, and plenty of possibilities with the resources at hand. Not that he knew how it was all going to work out exactly, but what Jesus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that wherever there was plenty of God, there would be plenty of everything needed.
And though it seemed like Jesus was promising so much with so little, the bewildered disciples handed over all they had, touched by Jesus’ simple confidence that it would be enough. And after they’d laid out the loaves and fish, they remembered the bits of food they carried in their pockets. You know they had something, had tucked away a bit of food before they left on their journey to a lonely place, apart. They knew they would need to eat at some point, and so isn’t it likely that they brought a few raisins, a chunk of bread left over from breakfast, that little piece of goat jerky. Wouldn’t you have done that? It wouldn’t have been enough for everyone, so you’d keep it hidden in your pocket.
Perhaps the disciples did just that. And as the basket of bread came by, wanting, as they did for the people to be fed, instead of taking something out, they laid their food in the basket. And seeing the disciples emptying their pockets, the crowd followed suit and offered what they had, so that the meal grew and grew.
But that’s not a miracle! Is that what you’re thinking? That’s just people being generous, sharing what they have, even when it’s not much, even when it’s not enough to go around. That’s not a miracle. That’s just a whole crowd of people moving from a sense of scarcity to a sense of plenty – overcoming their fear of going hungry, giving up their need to protect themselves. That’s not a miracle. That’s just people refusing to play the age old game of what-is-mine-is –mine and what’s-your-is-yours, people turning their pockets inside out for one another without worrying about what’s in it for them. That’s not a miracle! Or is it?
As Barbara Brown Taylor says, the problem with miracles is that we tend to get mesmerized by God’s part of things and forget about our own. Miracles let us off the hook. They become Bible stories that we’ve heard but we don’t really believe anymore. They appeal to the part of us that is all too happy to let God feed the crowd, save the world, do it all. We can’t do it, after all. We don’t have what it takes, the small things we can offer are not enough to make any difference at all. So we sit back and wait for a miracle, looking after our own needs and looking at God to help those who cannot help themselves. All those needy people? Send them away so they can take care of themselves!
“They need not go away,” Jesus says. “You give them something to eat.” Not me, but you. Not my bread but yours. Not sometime or somewhere else, but right here, right now. Stop looking for someone else to solve your problem and solve it yourself. Stop waiting for a miracle and participate in one instead.
And that challenge continues through the ages from Jesus to us. However much you have, just bring it and trust that it is enough to begin with, enough to start a trend. Be the first in the crowd to turn your pockets inside out. Be the first to start a miracle.
Amen. So-be-it.
Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon “The Problem with Miracles” was used as a resource for this sermon.
No comments:
Post a Comment