Sermon for August 2, 2020 9th Sunday after Pentecost House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Matthew 14:13-21 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
The feeding of the 5,000, the miracle of the loaves and fishes--it’s probably one of the most famous and familiar stories about Jesus, even for people who are unfamiliar with the bible or going to church. There are a couple of common ways this miracle has been interpreted. One is to look at the details and say, the disciples gave Jesus 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, he blessed them and multiplied them himself in a miraculous way, and then the disciples had enough food to distribute to a crowd of over 5,000 people.
Another way to look at it is to say that after the disciples gave Jesus the 5 loaves and 2 fish, and after he blessed and broke them, then the people in the crowd saw what was happening, and began to stop holding so tightly onto whatever provisions they had brought with themselves--so as the disciples started sharing the 5 loaves and 2 fish Jesus had blessed, then the people in the crowd started sharing their own loaves and fishes and anything else they may have brought with them, til everyone had enough.
Either way you look at it, it’s still a miracle! 5 loaves and 2 fish became enough food for a whole crowd. People shared with one another--they overcame the disciples’ mindset of scarcity, thinking there just wasn’t enough and they should just leave every person to fend for themselves to see what they could scrounge up. When it was all said and done, the crowd and the disciples had changed course; they had embraced Jesus’s mindset of abundance: God will provide. Jesus was teaching them that the crowd didn’t need to be sent away to fend for themselves, because God had already provided--everything they needed was already there. “So,” Jesus told the disciples, “you give them something to eat.” It’s not every person for themself; it’s every person for each other.
The disciples needed to gain this new mindset. They started out telling Jesus “we have nothing”. But Jesus helped them look a little deeper: “we have nothing...oh, yeah, except these 5 loaves and 2 fish.” They turned away from looking at what they lacked, and turned toward looking for what God had provided. We might say they began to literally “count their blessings”....1, 2, 3, 4, 5 loaves. 1, 2 fish. And that’s when they were able to use what God had provided so they could care for each other, to have compassion for others who were suffering in some way, to focus on what they could do to make things right. They stopped looking at the situation as disciples vs. crowd; us vs. them; finally it became, there is no “them”, it’s “only us”--all together, being the church together right where we are.
I recently came across a quote from a devotional writing by Henry Drummond, from way back in 1893 over in Scotland. It’s called The City Without a Church. This title refers to the imagery of heaven we find in the book of Revelation, chapter 21, with “the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. And there was no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” In other words, Revelation is telling us that there’s no temple in heaven, there’s no church in heaven, because the glory of God and the presence of Christ fills everything. So Henry Drummond was applying this vision of heaven to how Christians might serve God here on earth. This is what he wrote: “Nine men are striving to get people to go to church for each one who is striving to make people realize that they themselves are the church.”
That really struck me, because it is such a powerful reminder that wherever you are, Christ is already present with you in faith. Wherever you are, you can be the church right where you are! Now, this doesn’t mean that a church building is unimportant, or that going to church is unimportant. But it is to say that these things aren’t the end goal. It’s to remember where the church’s power comes from. It comes from Christ alone--he is the goal. And he lives and works within us through the Holy Spirit. Because of Christ’s power--a power that has triumphed over sin and death forever through the cross and resurrection--because of his power, the church can be found anywhere and within anyone. This is what Jesus was teaching in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. As Henry Drummond wrote, “Nine people are striving to get others to go to church for each one who is striving to make people realize that they themselves are the church.” You are the church. You are the church for others. Others are the church for you.
The faith, the grace, the love we receive from God and our fellow Christians? The mercy, the forgiveness, the peace we receive from God and our fellow Christians? The strength, the compassion, the hope, the joy we receive from God and our fellow Christians? All of these are the spiritual gifts we take with us when we are living our lives in the world. Like loaves and fishes enough to feed a crowd of 5,000 people with 12 baskets to spare--these are the gifts--abundantly given to us by God--that the Holy Spirit uses to empower us to be the church wherever we are! This is evangelism which makes faith and hope and love come alive for people in the real world.
In this time of pandemic, this time of health crises, this time of economic challenges, this time of loneliness, this time of reckoning with how racism poisons our society, this time of contingency planning for everything from education, to sports, to workplaces, to you name it--it just becomes more and more clear how we need to keep our eyes on this vision of heaven that we find in Revelation, and put this into practice here on earth--to be the church where you are. For us to have compassion for people, just as Christ had compassion for the crowd of over 5,000 hungry souls, and just as Christ continues to have compassion for each of us in our own difficulties and struggles.
Because Christ has compassion for us, he is able to kindle within our hearts compassion for others, when we put our faith in him. Being the church wherever you are means it’s not every person for themselves. Instead it’s every person for each other. It’s having compassion for people who are struggling. Think of a time when you’ve been at your lowest. What was it like to know that there was even just one other person to have an idea of what you were going through? If you had even one other person to help carry your burden, I bet it made a world of difference. And that’s how the kingdom of heaven comes among us; how the the presence of Christ fills everything when we be the church wherever we are.
Even if all you have is 5 loaves and 2 fish among a crowd of 5,000 hungry souls--even that small bit is enough for our God of abundance to do something with. So what we can keep doing is don’t focus on the things we lack. Instead focus on what God has provided, even if it’s just a little bit. Then you hand that over to Jesus and ask for his blessing upon it. You look for how God is going to multiply it. And you ask God: How do you want me to use this for your purposes in the world?
I think we’ll find--just like those disciples who ended up collecting 12 baskets of leftovers after everyone ate their fill--I think we’ll find that the results will end up being a lot bigger than we can imagine. Amen.