In today’s gospel the parables that Jesus has been teaching are brought to life as the disciples and the crowd witness an abundance that satisfies everyone’s needs,
appearing out of the smallest of beginnings.
Between the last parables we heard and this passage, Herod has murdered John the Baptist, and Jesus has just learned of his cousin’s death. Matthew tells us that he retreats to a deserted place, alone, leaving his disciples and escaping the crowds that had been with them.
appearing out of the smallest of beginnings.
Between the last parables we heard and this passage, Herod has murdered John the Baptist, and Jesus has just learned of his cousin’s death. Matthew tells us that he retreats to a deserted place, alone, leaving his disciples and escaping the crowds that had been with them.
When the crowds follow him from the city, Jesus sees them and has compassion for them and Matthew says that he goes to them and heals their sick.
While there are other healing and feeding stories included in each of the gospels, this is the only story that appears in all four, which demands that we ask, “What does this story say about God?”
First of all, I think it challenges us to see God in the barren and desert places in our lives. Sometimes we talk about that barrenness as the stark places in our lives where we feel alone or isolated, stripped of faith and cut off from the world and from God’s love.
But when we recall the temptations of Jesus and the wilderness where he journeyed for forty days, like we do during Lent, we reflect on how emptying ourselves can make room for God to act in new ways in our lives. God is in the desert with us.
This story reminds us what Jesus and the ancient desert fathers and mothers, after him, knew: that in finding solitude, we create a space where God can act, where we can,
as the priest Henri Nouwen says, “shake off our compulsions and dwell in the gentle healing presence of our Lord.”[i]
In that same space “Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us.”[ii] And, following Jesus, we are able to imitate his own compassion, “go[ing] with others into the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken.”[iii]
Jesus wasn’t the first person to be called a Messiah in those times, but uniquely, he responded with compassion to the people he encountered. When he saw that they were hurting and in pain, wracked by illness, he healed them. When he saw they were hungry, he didn’t send them away; he fed them.
While there are other healing and feeding stories included in each of the gospels, this is the only story that appears in all four, which demands that we ask, “What does this story say about God?”
First of all, I think it challenges us to see God in the barren and desert places in our lives. Sometimes we talk about that barrenness as the stark places in our lives where we feel alone or isolated, stripped of faith and cut off from the world and from God’s love.
But when we recall the temptations of Jesus and the wilderness where he journeyed for forty days, like we do during Lent, we reflect on how emptying ourselves can make room for God to act in new ways in our lives. God is in the desert with us.
This story reminds us what Jesus and the ancient desert fathers and mothers, after him, knew: that in finding solitude, we create a space where God can act, where we can,
as the priest Henri Nouwen says, “shake off our compulsions and dwell in the gentle healing presence of our Lord.”[i]
In that same space “Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us.”[ii] And, following Jesus, we are able to imitate his own compassion, “go[ing] with others into the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken.”[iii]
Jesus wasn’t the first person to be called a Messiah in those times, but uniquely, he responded with compassion to the people he encountered. When he saw that they were hurting and in pain, wracked by illness, he healed them. When he saw they were hungry, he didn’t send them away; he fed them.
Or perhaps, more accurately, he told his disciples to feed them.
This story demonstrates to us how God calls us to participate in God’s work on earth. Next month we’ll again celebrate our churchwide day of service on what is called “God’s Work. Our Hands.” Sunday.
God enacts grace and mercy through us!
As disconcerting as that may be sometimes, it is also a sign of God’s grace that God works through each one of us to meet the human needs that present all around us.
The disciples were surprised by God’s invitation, too. When they ask Jesus to send the crowds away, he tells them there’s no need. (v. 16) Looking out at the vast crowd of men and women and children, they despair, telling Jesus, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." (v. 17)
In the face of overwhelming need, the disciples have forgotten Jesus’ instructions to them about how to pray and to trust in God for their daily bread. They have forgotten his admonition not to worry about what they will eat or drink. (Matt. 6)
Like them, when we witness suffering in our neighbors and community, or in our nation and the world, it is easy to forget what we already know about God and God’s promises.
It is easy to become overwhelmed, to look at the resources we have readily available and to feel hopeless.
It is easy to send people away and tell them to look for help someplace else, to hope others will step in and meet their needs.
But God doesn’t promise us that discipleship is easy.
Instead, this story offers us another promise:
that God prepares us and equips us, that God provides for us.
In his compassion, then and now, Jesus offers presence and healing; we experience those benefits at this holy table where we receive bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus, given for us for the forgiveness of sin, and it is at this table where we are made whole, nourished and fed and sent out into the world as God’s people, equipped with the transforming knowledge of God’s love for all.
Lutheran preacher David Lose suggests that “instead of [worrying that we do not have enough – not enough children, not enough people, not enough choir members – that] we give thanks for what we have, put it to use for those [in need] and see just how far God might
stretch, and indeed, multiply it.”[iv]
Here at Ascension, we have an abundance of physical space and land that is used by Lutheran Men in Mission, Lutheran Services Carolinas, and local quilters;
we have rich relationships where people know each other’s stories and notice when someone is hurting; and,
we have ministries where we feed hungry neighbors, honor military veterans, and generously give to meet needs throughout our community and the Church.
We are encouraged this morning to give thanks for the ways God has already equipped us to meet the needs that surround us, to rely on God, and to witness God’s surprising grace in our life together.
Let us pray…
Nourishing and nurturing God,
We give thanks for your Son, our Lord and Savior whose life teaches us how much You love us.
Lead us by Your Spirit to the places where people’s needs are greatest.
Teach us to empty ourselves and make room for You to act in our lives.
Feed us that we will have strength for the journey and to answer your call to serve others.
We pray in Jesus’ name,
Amen.
[i] Henri Nouwen. The Way of the Heart. 30.
[ii] ibid, 32.
[iii] ibid, 34.
[iv] David Lose, In the Meantime.
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