Saturday, May 17, 2014
SERMON FOR PENTECOST 7 PROPER 13 A ~ Feeding the Multitude
SERMON FOR PENTECOST 7
PROPER 13 A
Christ Church, Bayfield
So they ate and were well filled, *
for he gave them what they craved.
for he gave them what they craved.
+ In the Name of God,
the Holy and Undivided Trinity
The miraculous of the
Feeding of the Five Thousand is an obvious reference the Holy Eucharist. The
same sacerdotal actions – the very same verbs – are used to describe the Last
Supper: He Took, Blessed, Broke, and Gave the bread. The lectionary today points us in
this mystical direction by including the Psalm about manna from heaven, since
ancient times seen as a prefiguration of the Sacrament:
He rained down manna
upon them to eat *
and gave them grain from heaven.
and gave them grain from heaven.
So mortals ate the bread
of angels; *
he provided for them food enough
he provided for them food enough
I don’t know about you,
but I have always thought that the miracle here was a supernatural
multiplication five loaves turning into enough to feed five thousand with
twelve baskets left over, showing the power and abundance and mercy of God. I
am entirely comfortable with that. I am not persuaded of the necessity to
demythologize everything. If God could become human, the Godman could certainly
turn the five loaves into food for the multitude. But let us look at the text
more closely, and consider it in the context of the rest of the Gospel, which
we have been reading for the past few weeks.
The disciples want Jesus
to dismiss the crowd to go off individually and fend for themselves. But the
Lord instead commands the disciples to feed them; “YOU give them something to
eat.” The disciples protest that they have only five small loaves and two fish.
(By the way, of all the miracles of Jesus, this is the only one that is
attested in all four Gospels. And one of the parallel accounts has the loaves
and fish brought forward by a young boy – his own dinner, presumably.) That is
what Jesus Took and Blessed andBroke and Gave to the disciples to give to the crowd. This food did not rain down
from heaven. A little boy brought it – and gave it away. Jesus didn’t give the
crowd anything. He simply passed on, through the ministry of the disciples, what
the boy had provided. The boy, who was so generous that he was willing to give
up all he had.
“All he had.” A “small
boy.” This rings a bell doesn’t it? Last week the lucky man who stumbled on the
treasure hidden in the field and the merchant who found the superb pearl both
went quickly to give up “all THEY had.” The pearl was a SMALL thing. So was the
mustard seed that grows into a tree big enough for all the birds to build nests
in it. And ALL the birds get shelter, not just a lucky few. All the five
thousand are fed, not counting all the women and children, and there are twelve
baskets left over. This story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand is related to
the parables of the Kingdom. In fact, the miracle of the loaves and fishes IS
the Kingdom come on earth: an example of God’s will being “done on earth as in
heaven.” And that is the sense in which it is a figure of the Eucharist, since
the Eucharist, too, is the Kingdom come on earth – the eschatological banquet
of the Wedding feast of the Lamb. For the past three weeks we have heard Jesus
tell us what the Kingdom ofGod is LIKE. Today, the disciples and the crowd beside the lake
experience Kingdom of Godfirsthand, without parables, similes or allegories.
The characteristics of
the Kingdom we noticed last week are all here: small, hidden, unnoticed by the
big important machers of the day; extremely valuable but obtainable only by work and
sacrifice of “ALL ONE HAS.” A transformation wrought by God through the agency
of human beings, working with creation, working with what is already there.
That is the Reign of God, which Jesus said is already “among you.” And the
Feeding of the Five Thousand is the material, visible sign of that Reign. And
not just a sign, but the reality itself. A small boy comes up with a small
amount of food that turns into more than enough for a large crowd.
As I said, I am
comfortable with the supernatural. But what if the Feeding of the Five
Thousand, which prefigures the Holy Eucharist, was not the same kind of miracle
as changing water into wine up the road at Cana, which Jesus did and the
“disciples believed in Him”? Jesus did not say to the disciples: “Watch, I am
going to give them something to eat that they won’t soon forget, and you will
see the glory of God.” He did say things like that on some occasions, but not
this time. This time He said “YOU give them something to eat.” The Reign of God
that was about to appear in that deserted place would come as a result of the
small boy’s gift of all he had, and the disciples’ work. All Jesus did was Take, Bless,Break, and Give back the food. What if
the miracle was something even more stupendous that a supernatural
multiplication? Jesus certainly could have done that, and usually I am very
happy to argue for the reality of Divine Wonders – the testimony to His
glory. But that hungry, frightened, selfish people should become thankful,
self-forgetful and generous were even more wonderous.
Imagine it. Here was a
hungry crowd. It could easily turn into a frightened mob in which each
individual fends for himself, the war of each against all, the polar opposite
of the society Jesus called the Reign of God. (If you want to see a depiction
of that side of our fallen human nature, just go toWar of the Worlds.)
People tearing and devouring each other in survival panic. But the people in the
remote place by the lake saw the boy offer his small dinner. They saw his
generosity. They saw that Jesus wasn’t keeping the food for Himself either, but
directing the disciples to pass it out to them. And they were thankful.
Thankful people are self-forgetful people. Thankful people – in the moment if
their thankfulness – are in theKingdom of Heaven. A society of thankful people is not just LIKEthe Reign of God, it IS the Reign of God. Maybe
the loaves multiplied by supernatural power, but on the other hand, maybe
something else even more deeply miraculous and transfiguring took place. Jesus
turned the crowd that might have become a violent mob into a EUCHARISTIC SOCIETY – a society of the
thankful. And thankful people are generous people, open-handed people.
Did pockets empty? Did a
loaf appear from under a cloak here, a flask of wine from a satchel there, some
figs and olives in the next row? A bit of cheese from up the hill? Some more
fish? All hidden theretofore, all too small and insignificant to bother with by
themselves, but together…? Was everyone suddenly busy passing food from unknown
donors, food which had previously been hoarded? After everyone had eaten their
fill, twelve baskets could not contain the fragments left over. The abundance
of God? To be sure. But God’s abundance is found in human generosity. THAT
is the Kingdom of God – which is to say that is how God chooses to govern the world.
God’s Reign – the rule or principle of it – is that generosity brings abundance. Andthat is why the feeding of
the Five Thousand is a figure of the Holy Eucharist: not the divine gift of
manna from heaven, exactly, but the thankful, self-forgetful offering of
grateful people – the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving.
“It is more blessed to
give than to receive.” “He who would save life will lose it.” “It is easier for
a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the
Reign of God.” Of course, because the Reign of God is self-forgetful generosity
on a mass, reciprocal scale, and what rich man can stand that? Only the one who
can let it go – and some can – those who cannot may be rich, but our word for
them means poor:miser. Such creatures really aremiserable. Just
as the five thousand would have been, if they had followed the disciples’
initial advice to Jesus to fend for themselves.
By the way, that is
exactly what the wayward Israelites did in the wilderness, isn’t it? God gave
them manna, and then they tried to fendfor themselves by hoarding it! “Get
away, this is MY manna, not yours, and I’m keeping it for me and my family.”
Remember what happened then? The MANNA SPOILED ON THE SPOT! Without human
generosity, even miraculous bread from heaven is worthless.
This is the paradox –
the Divine Mystery – of the Holy Eucharist: the small provides for the great;
we get the incomparable treasure only by giving up all we have. St. Francis put
it best:
It is in giving that we
receive
In pardoning that we are
pardoned
And in dying that we are
born to eternal life
AMEN
MARANATHA
COME, LORD JESUS!
