August 2, 2020 Sermon Matthew
14: 13-21 “A New Twist on
Loaves and Fishes”
Rev. Peter Hofstra
It was ministry as usual until Jesus
received news that made him withdraw by boat to a deserted place. His cousin had been executed, beheaded, in
prison by King Herod. It was a
conspiracy between Herod’s sister-in-law, Herodias, (his brother’s wife) and
his niece. Salome, because John had spoken out against the affair Herod was
having with his brother’s wife. And
while Herod did not like John, he did not consider killing him. It required a conspiracy, being enchanted by
his niece’s dancing, that led him to make an offer, a promise, that he could
not then refuse. It was murder and
humiliation, as John’s head was then displayed on a platter.
These verses, Matthew 14: 1-12, do
not fall into the preaching cycle of the lectionary. But it impacts Jesus. John had baptized Jesus, their ministries, as
their families, were related. And it was
a painful reminder to Jesus of what lay in store for him.
Jesus is on the Sea of Galilee, his
home turf. He’d been preaching and
popular, as we saw in the number of weeks we just spent in Matthew 13. Now he tried to get away, but it was not to
be. “When the crowds heard it, they
followed him from the towns.”
Which leads to the feeding of the
five thousand, one of Jesus’ most celebrated miracles. To this day, there is a church at the
traditional location dedicated to the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. The
story is straight forward. There were
about five thousand men, plus women and children. It was getting late. The disciples urged Jesus to disperse the
crowds to the surrounding villages for provisions. Jesus said, “You feed them.” They came up with five loaves and two fish
and Jesus did the rest. Everyone ate
their fill and left twelve full baskets of leftovers-one for each
disciple.
But take a closer look at the lead
up to the miracle. I’ve always
understood the story to be that the people following Jesus were fans, after the
show of preaching and deeds of power, wherever he went. His popularity was at a peak. But what Matthew records specifically what Jesus
did next, which I think puts a whole new spin on the story.
Essentially, Jesus set up a field
hospital out in the wilderness or, more accurately, a miracle clinic. Verse 14 tells us, “When he went
ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their
sick.” This
is not something new. Jesus’ ministry was
unified, with various components, preaching, teaching, challenging the
authorities, casting out demons, and curing the sick was a standard component. It is generally a unified ministry. The gospel writers generally outline the
various things that Jesus did, before focusing on the spoken word for
posterity. But this is different. This is not teaching time, Matthew specifies
that he ONLY cured their sick. That
casts a different light on the miracle.
Remember, Jesus was trying to
withdraw from the crowds in a time of family tragedy. This is Sabbath time. And Matthew, the gospel writer, is
particularly good at identifying what Jesus is doing and why. For example, back in chapter 9: 36, Jesus
sees that the crowds coming to him are like sheep without a shepherd, and he
shares the parable that the fields are ripe but the workers are few, just
before he empowers the disciples to go out and so some ministry on their
own. That was a time of unified
ministry, preaching and healing and deeds of power.
But this is different. He had compassion on them because they had
sick to be cured. That is the crowd that
followed him. These are not necessarily
his fan base, the ones coming out to hear him speak. The fans have heard him speak. They know that
Jesus will return to the towns to preach again.
Jesus spends a lot of time communing with God the Father between ‘gigs’,
they have experienced that. Something
else drives the people coming after him out into the wilderness. These are people who are sick and ill or
carrying among them the sick and the ill.
So
the popular image-captured so often in the movies of the life of Jesus-is that
of people so entranced by the preaching style of the Son of God that they would
follow him even into the most barren locations to catch a few more pearls of
wisdom that He might care to pass along, it is not supported by the text. Jesus does not find a boulder to stand on to
preach to these people, he is not preaching from the boat. In light of the family disaster of John’s
death, if this was that crowd, I could imagine Jesus dispersing the fandom,
promising tour dates in Capernaum and Tiberius in the near future. After Jesus, John the Baptist was probably
the best known preacher in the land at that time. They would have understood.
But
this crowd is different, people desperate enough to follow Jesus into the
wilderness, the sick, the injured, the disabled, the lame, the broken, those
today who we would institutionalize, back then would have only family
support. I see these care givers, so
desperate for their sick loved ones, that they will risk a dead end journey
into the wilderness, lending a hand, an arm, a shoulder, a stretcher, whatever
they needed to bring their beloved to Jesus.
Driven by compassion, Jesus sets up a place of healing.
These
are people with no healthcare, there is no infrastructure of care and curing,
they do not have the wonder drugs and the surgeries and procedures that have
extended life so in the modern age. What
they have seen and experienced with Jesus is the miraculous healing power of
God. In normal circumstances, maybe
these were the people waiting in line for Jesus to heal after his
preaching. But even in his grief, they
are not going to throw away their shot at a cure.
So the feeding of the five thousand plus is
not so much going out for lunch after worship as it is a celebration! People who arrived as ‘patients’, as ‘the
sick and ill’ have been cured, they have become parents, siblings, children,
family, and friends once again. To be
fair to the disciples, they saw this healed group of able-bodied folks more
than capable of feeding themselves. I
wonder how much their eyes bulged when they saw between five and twenty
thousand people gathered and Jesus said, “You feed them.”
The
loaves and the fish are the miracle of celebration after the miracles of
cure. “About five thousand men, besides
women and children…” were either cured by Jesus or had their responsibility as
care givers replaced by the restoration of their loved ones. It feels like an earthly prelude to the
heavenly wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation 19.
Imagine if that was us? Who among us have gone to visit loved ones in
the hospital, in the nursing home, in the rehab center, in the half way house,
in the specialist clinic, in whatever institution? Imagine finding their bed empty and being
redirected to a dayroom where your loved one, completely healed, is enjoying
time with Jesus, the Healer? That your
loved one is ready to come home, prayers answered! Not only that, but Jesus, as a good
Presbyterian, feeds them too!
But what about sharing the good news
of the gospel? Nowhere in our passage
today do we hear the good news of the gospel.
Unlike the parables of Matthew 13, Jesus does not tell them what the
kingdom of heaven in like. Instead,
Jesus shows us. The kingdom of heaven is
like healing every person of whatever illness and malady and disability they
might have. The kingdom of heaven is
like feeding the crowd in celebration till they are satisfied.
This plugs into Matthew 25,
beginning at verse 31, where Jesus elaborates on the end times, when people
will be separated for heaven and hell, for good and evil. You know the passage, the good people are not
the preachers of the word, but those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
visit the imprisoned, care for the sick.
Nowhere in that passage, nor in our passage today, is the ticket to
heaven to be found in responding to the question, “Do you know Jesus as Lord
and Savior?” People are not talking
about what the kingdom of heaven is.
People are doing what the kingdom of heaven is.
Jesus had every reason to be wrapped
up in his own stuff. His cousin was
dead, executed on a whim, because the king had the hots for his niece. His beheading became public humiliation, his
head being carried out and displayed for Herod and his guests. They were hunting Preachers of the Word. How could Jesus not see this as a foreshadowing
of God’s plan for his own coming death-even though it would end in
resurrection.
Could we really have blamed him if
he kept his emotional blinders on and told the disciples to keep sailing? If he told the crowd ‘not today’? If he’d listened to the disciples and sent
the people away after their cures, because he was done?
Yet every person who came to Jesus
out in the wilderness, who invoked Jesus’ compassion, who were part of the
miracle clinic that he set up ‘out there’, they all came to Jesus with the same
request we share every Sunday at the First Presbyterian Church of Perth Amboy,
for those who are seeking Jesus. It is
as simple as this, “Jesus, I need you.
Please come into my life today.”
And Jesus did.
But
here’s where the evil one has stepped in.
We think Jesus had stuff to think about in that moment. How about our own stuff? He could have kept the blinders up and been
so focused on his cousin, on his own grief and fear, that the compassion could
have slid, for the day. How much more
has the evil one built up the blinders in our own lives so that we love Jesus
with our hearts and minds, but we can so effectively blind ourselves from those
who need our compassion? We convince
ourselves that even if we wanted to be compassionate, what real change could we
bring? We have institutions for that-for
healing and healthcare. We know they are
too far away, immigrants on the borders.
We know the government provides things like Food Stamps and like jobless
benefits. We get bogged down with “where
do we even start?” Or when we can make a
difference, like the concrete steps we know lowers infection rates in the Covid
pandemic, suddenly masks and six feet of distance become threats to our basic Constitutional
rights, and how do we muster compassion for humans who insist on exercising
their rights to be stupid?
How about focusing our compassion
into one place? Who in our community does
not has a son or daughter, a grandchild, a nephew or niece, a husband or wife, extended
family or dear friends or loved ones that are in education? The push is to go back. Everyone who can sit safely on the sidelines
seems to be so bound and determined to push them all back into the classroom. What is the teacher going to need to follow
CDC protocols after every class, after every interaction in class? What is the student, at every grade level,
going to need each day because nothing can go back and forth from home to
school?
How about an all call to everyone in
education in our church family to what they are going to need to support their
efforts? How about a compassionate
response to gather those resources and make them available? Jesus saw those people coming to him in the
wilderness and he had compassion on them.
Let that be our rallying point.
We see people in our community going into an infectious-rich
atmosphere. How then shall we have
compassion on them? Let the month of
August be the month where we let our faith live as we care for our own in this
time of pandemic.
