Matthew 14:13-21
Presented August 3, 2008, by J.D. Kline
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
In his book The Mustard Seed Conspiracy Tom Sine tells the story of a Scandinavian couple, now living in California, who brought with them a love for gathering wild mushrooms. One weekend they went to the foothills near their home in the Bay area and came home with overflowing baskets of mushrooms. So bountiful was the crop they collected that the couple decided to host a dinner party for a houseful of friends, serving a host of mushroom dishes including crepes, soufflés, and omelets. The guests ate until they could eat no more, and the couple scraped the leftover mushrooms into the cat’s bowl.
Later that night, as the guests were preparing to leave, they heard a sudden scream from the kitchen: “The cat!” All the guests rushed into the kitchen, and there was the cat—thrashing, kicking, crying, her sides heaving—having what looked to be a seizure. A doctor was called, who informed the couple that this was “nothing to mess around with,” and instructed all the guests to head to the emergency room. Stretched out on tables in emergency, now well after midnight, the guests had their stomachs pumped. It was miserable end to what had begun as a delightful party.
The guests returned to the house, collecting their possessions, when someone thought to ask what had happened to the poor cat. Together they tiptoed toward the kitchen, quietly inching open the door, anticipating the worst, and there, on the floor, was the poor cat, lying silently . . . surrounded by eight new kittens!
The message of this story, says Tom Sine, is check your signals! As people of faith you and I are urged to discern God’s vision for the future. And in order to discern rightly, we need to get our facts straight; we need to check our signals. We need to be aware of the kind of world in which we live—the challenges, the hurts, the struggles, and the hopes of human life—and we need to sense the kind of life God is calling us to live. We Brethren are celebrating our 300th anniversary, and this weekend hundreds who trace their heritage back to that initial baptism in the Eder River signaling the formation of the Brethren have gathered in Schwarzenau, Germany. Our spiritual forerunners emerged out of a time of deep disillusionment with the state of the church in that day—a church they discerned to be sterile, unbending, and stagnant in its expression of faith. Checking their signals, our spiritual forerunners felt compelled to count the cost of discipleship, to move in a markedly new direction that focused on walking in the footsteps of Jesus and seeking to reflect the life and faithfulness of the initial Christian community.
Early Brethren leader Alexander Mack, you will recall, was asked early on how the new community of Brethren should be known, and his response was simply, by the manner of their living. Not by a series of doctrinal beliefs, not by dogma or church structure, but by the quality of our living. This morning’s Gospel lesson in the lectionary is the familiar story of Jesus feeding a crowd of thousands, and it seems a wholly appropriate text for this Sunday as we figuratively gather at the Eder River, for the dominant quality displayed in the familiar story is that of compassion. And here’s the gist of what I want to say this morning—that if there’s one quality that will carry us forth for another 300 years of faithful living, it is the quality of compassion. If we take it as our passion to continue walking in the footsteps of Jesus, if we are to take it as our mission to continue to be known by the manner of our living, compassion will be a central feature of our life and witness. For compassion, as Henri Nouwen makes clear in his book Here and Now: Living in the Spirit, is a matter of “be[ing] with others when and where they suffer” and “willingly enter[ing] into a fellowship of the weak.” Such compassion, asserts Nouwen, “is God’s way to justice and peace among people,” and surely this is our calling—to be bearers of God’s justice and peace in today’s world.
After sharing this description of compassion, Nouwen questions if such a lifestyle is possible, and then provides his own affirmation, “Yes, it is, but only when we dare to live with the radical faith that we do not have to compete for love, but that love is freely given by the One who calls us to compassion.” Radical faith—is that not an apt description of the early Brethren who, in embracing a love freely given, felt compelled to count the cost of discipleship? Those early brethren heard the call to embrace and model a compassionate faith, a faith that went against the grain of life around them, a faith that demanded a conversion of heart and soul.
Turn with me to the story of Jesus feeding the crowd of thousands, the only “miracle” story that appears in all four Gospels. Indeed, there are a total of six tellings of this feeding story, with both Matthew and Mark including multiple feedings—the feeding of the 5000 followed, a brief time later, by the feeding of the 4000. Each telling carries unique details, but the frequency with which the story is related suggests that the early church considered this to be a key story. Matthew’s account of the feeding of the 5000 follows on the heels of Jesus learning of the cruel death of John the Baptist. The two stories draw a vivid contrast between the values and priorities of the empires of this world and the kingdom of God. In the empires of this world, self-preservation is key; in the kingdom of God, self-giving love and servanthood are key. A feast stands at the center of both stories, but Herod’s feast celebrates self-indulgence, while the feast Jesus offers the crowd in the wilderness is a feast of compassion. Herod offers suspicion, fear, and intrigue, while Jesus offers the bread of life—a life-sustaining, life-affirming, life-giving presence of compassion, grace, mercy and peace beyond measure.
In the aftermath of John the Baptist’s death, Matthew tells us, Jesus withdraws to a quiet and deserted place, a place where he might experience much-needed time for reflection and rest. No doubt Jesus was seeking a time to grieve, and even more, a time to ponder what may well lie ahead for him as well. But the crowds allow Jesus little time for personal rest and reflection, quickly locating Jesus. Rather than turning the people away, rather than responding with impatience and frustration, Jesus responds with compassion. Writes Tom Wright in his commentary Matthew for Everyone, Jesus “translates his sorrow over John, and perhaps his sorrow over himself, into sorrow for [the people]. Before the outward and visible works of power, healing the sick, comes the inward and invisible work of power, in which Jesus transforms his own feelings into love for those in need.”
Jesus offers a healing touch to a broken and bruised people, so much so that the disciples eventually urge Jesus to send the people away, that they might go into neighboring villages and find something to eat. But Jesus turns the request around. “They need not go away,” says Jesus. “You give them something to eat.” Though the disciples have only five meager loaves and two fish, the crowd of thousands is fed, with twelve baskets left over.
In the previous story, the only noted leftover from Herod’s feast is the head of John the Baptist, but the feast of Jesus is markedly different. Instead of grief and pain, an abundance of God’s blessings remains. The twelve baskets surely represent the twelve tribes of Israel, affirming that Jesus sees his mission as one of restoring life and hope for the people of God. And one chapter later, in the subsequent story of 4000 being fed, seven baskets remain filled, seemingly reversing the Old Testament notion that God is in the business of destroying competing nations, instead offering the counter proclamation that God’s kingdom is ever expanding, ever welcoming, ever including new peoples.
In Deuteronomy 7, providing some of the most gruesome instructions in all of scripture, Moses tells Joshua, when preparing to lead the people into the promised land, to utterly destroy the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. But now, Jesus offers a radically new perspective—what Brian McLaren describes in his book Everything Must Change as “a new kind of conquest—not with swords and spears, but with bread and fish; not to destroy, but to serve and heal. Jesus seizes the old narrative, shakes it, turns it inside out, and offers a new story that reframes a future radically different from the past.”
That new future is life in the kingdom of God—a life of compassion and justice, a life of peace and nonviolence, a life of generosity and mutual concern. Indeed, this may well be the most remarkable quality of the story of Jesus feeding the thousands—not that Jesus performs some super-human feat, creating food out of thin air, but rather that Jesus inspires a remarkable spirit of generosity. Perhaps many in the crowd who had been hoarding their small stash of food now chose to follow Jesus’ model of generosity and compassion.
However the feeding occurred, the story urges you and me to be generous and compassionate bearers of Christ’s love, pointing by the manner of our living to Christ’s new vision. It is this vision of life in the realm of God that the first Brethren grasped hold of some 300 years ago, and it is that same vision that will lead us forward with purposeful conviction into the future. As we check our signals, we find ourselves hearing afresh the centuries-old call, to live as proclaimers of Christ’s good news.
Jesus journeyed to the wilderness for a time of rest, but in the face of pressing human need, Jesus sets aside, for a spell, his own needs. Jesus extends hands of healing, a heart of compassion, an alternative vision of justice and peace and new life. And while there are certain times when each of us needs to find rest for our souls, there are myriad other times when the challenges of life confront us and we too must set aside our own needs and offer the bread of life—sustaining, life-giving, life-affirming bread to those in need.
Is this not our challenge as Brethren face the next 300 years? Could it be that we will have little time for rest, so great are the challenges set before us? Our faith continues to prod us to check our signals, to embrace anew the ongoing task of denying self, taking up the cross, and following in the footsteps of the strong, righteous One who calls us to compassionate living.