Sermon preached at St. Alban's, Spirit Lake, on August 3, 2008
(Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, BCP Lectionary)
by the Rev. Carl D. Mann

Texts:   Nehemiah 9:16-20
Psalm 78:1-29 or 78:14-20, 23-25
Romans 8:35-39
Matthew 14:13-21

In light of this morning’s guests, I was so hoping that the lectionary would have provided lessons today that dealt with music. You know the passages that deal with the timbrel and lyre, and harps and lutes. But such is not the case. Instead we have a Gospel story beginning with a somewhat depressed Jesus who just wants to be alone, followed by a large crowd of what I assume to be physically, mentally, and spiritually sick people, assisted by his disciples who want to squirm out of an awkward social situation because reality has closed in upon them. I mean, this sounds like a real downer! If ever there was a need for a dose of Dixieland Jazz, this has got to be on the top ten list!

But maybe it’s not as bad as it looks. In fact there are several ways of looking at this Gospel passage.

First, we must always look at it in context. It is what it is, and that’s a miracle! Five thousand men and their families were fed when Jesus multiplied five loaves and two fish into a feast with twelve very large doggie bags!

Now there are all sorts of people out there who want to explain this away by saying that what we have here is the first church potluck. Everybody really brought along a little food but they were hiding it or saving it for themselves. And when they saw Jesus offer up five puny rolls and two fish not big enough to even be called bait, they felt ashamed and began divvying up what they had with their neighbor. And of course, what mother worth her salt would leave home with the kids in tow without taking food along because you know darn well that the men would never think about that.

But that’s not what scripture tells us. Scripture tells us that the disciples took what Jesus gave to them and dispensed it to the crowds, and all ate and were filled. Plus the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle manifested by Jesus during his ministry that is recorded in all four Gospels! That alone indicates its veracity and it shows the impact that it had on the disciples who were the original sources of all four Gospels. And the Gospel of Matthew, which is directed to a predominantly Jewish Christian audience, and goes to great lengths to show that Jesus is the Messiah who was prophesied and promised in the Scriptures, is drawing on the obvious correlation to the feeding of the Hebrews with manna in the wilderness during the exodus from Egypt.

The point is that once again, Jesus takes the everyday stuff of life and transforms it into something new that is better than its former status. He takes the makings of a couple of sardine sandwiches and transforms them into a banquet!

Now with that idea in mind, let’s look at this from the perspective of what Jesus does before its even dinner time.

 Jesus has just learned that his cousin and colleague, John the Baptist, has been beheaded by Herod. All he wants is a little time to himself in order to grieve his loss. So he hops into a boat and sails off to a quiet little bay somewhere on the Sea of Galilee. Now, what a great idea! I’m sure there are many folks in these parts who have done just what Jesus is attempting to do; get in a boat, be alone, maybe drop a line in the water, and just think and pray through their problems in the gentle lilting of the waves.

But the people on shore remember that the last time Jesus got in a boat he delivered a series of parables that strangely confused them and also filled their minds with wisdom as they stood on the beach. So not wanting to miss a similar opportunity they followed him on land.

Now when Jesus saw the crowd, instead of doing what we would have done and sail the other direction, he sensed their infirmities, their craving for what he had to offer and he had compassion on them and came ashore not speaking to the crowd this time but curing the sick among them.

So here we are again. Jesus has taken his own grief; that which is causing him to anguish and has transformed it into compassion for others who are hurting in many ways worse than himself. He has channeled God’s grace that was being applied to the one into bringing wholeness to the many. He emptied himself of his own fears and troubles so that he might be filled and overflowing with the Holy Spirit in order to dispense God’s healing power to those in need. By his own example he is foreshadowing what is to come in the near future.

He is also foreshadowing the establishment of the Eucharist. The four basic actions that comprise a valid Eucharist are found in this passage: take, bless, break, and give. Jesus takes what is offered, blesses it, breaks it, and then gives it back transformed and multiplied. And this is what he is able to do with each one of us. He will take whatever it is that we have to offer him; ourselves, our bodies and souls, our strengths and weaknesses, our hurts and sorrows, and then he will bless us by giving thanks to God the Father, sanctifying us as part of creation and one of God’s children, then he will break us by emptying us of anything in our lives which has separated us from God, and then he will transform us, empowering us to do his work according to his will. By this Eucharistic process we will become living sacraments of the kingdom of God being outward and visible signs of the inward and spiritual grace that dwells within us.

Jesus is asking nothing of us that he hasn’t already accomplished himself because he in this passage he is also foreshadowing his own death and resurrection. As God in human flesh, he offered himself to be sacrificed. He was sanctified by the Holy Spirit at his baptism. He was broken on the Cross, emptying himself of all his pre-existing glory and filling that void with the sins of the entire world. And transformed through his resurrection, being the first fruits of those who have died, he has given to everyone who would believe in him an opportunity to be partakers of the heavenly banquet for all eternity. There is the joy in this passage! This is where you begin to hear the wonderful music as we become completely in tune with God just as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are in tune with each other to be just one God in harmonious relationship with each other.

And Paul tells us that there is nothing in all of creation that can separate us from this opportunity of being in a loving relationship with God through Jesus Christ; nothing visible in this world and nothing invisible from the spiritual realm. But the key to his statement are the words, “through Jesus.” It is only through Jesus that we may come to the Father.

Only Jesus can take the mundane and transform it into something out of this world. It is only through Jesus that the ordinary may become the extraordinary. It is only through Jesus that our insignificant lives may be transformed into something worthy of promoting God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

So let us choose to believe in Jesus so that we may be reconciled and restored to harmony with God, and as we live into our new lives, let this be our eternal prayer; “Like the loaves and the fish, take us, bless us, and break us Lord, and give us to thy use in this world and the next.” Gloria Patri