Matthew 14.13-21 14 September 2008
“RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW”
The story starts like some glamorous political candidate making an unscheduled campaign stop. Weary Jesus and his retinue arrive at an isolated place seeking refuge to regroup. A throng of thousands was suddenly there clamoring for him.
Answering the tough surprise of their many deep needs, Jesus has compassion on the people. He doesn’t say, “That’s not my area. Talk to someone else.” He doesn’t say, “Let’s get back on the campaign bus and find an easier crowd so we can film a more elevating sound bite.” Jesus immediately begins to heal them. He faces into the real needs of the broken and hurting with the balm of God’s mercy.
In fact, Jesus was so intent in his healing, like many preachers, he lost track of the time. His disciples had to remind him how late it was getting, that there was no food. It’s almost as though the disciples are being more compassionate than Mr. Compassion himself. “Send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves,” (14.15) the disciples prudently tell Jesus. Jesus is immersed in the experience of reaching out, but his followers do the mental math in their heads: such a large crowd, so many hungry mouths, the ad-vancing hour, here in the middle of nowhere. Jesus, you must send them away.
How does Jesus hear them? He answers, “You give them something to eat.” The disciples protest their meager resources, five loaves and two fish, are not enough. He takes what they have, blesses it, offers it and it’s more than enough. “And they all ate and were filled.” (14.20) If that sounds to you like what we did here last week at this table, where I recalled Jesus taking, blessing, breaking, and giving bread, then you are paying close attention to what is happening here. For every time we come to this table, we repeat Jesus’ same fourfold action that happened in the feeding of the five thousand. Every time we move from being weary disciples to recognizing human need, from noting vast demands and find-ing gifts that are more than enough, we bring the Lord’s Supper into the world.
The disciples advised Jesus to send away those many hungry people. I wonder what Jesus’ tone was like when he said, “You give them something to eat. It’s a message the contemporary church can stand hearing. For it is too easy to say, “Those people look troubled. Send them away to the local mental health care center.” It is too easy to say, “Wow, the numbers of hungry or homeless are too great for the church to handle. We can’t do much ourselves. We had better start by lobbying the
What we have in Matthew is not only a miracle story, but also a parable for today’s church to empower a personal response in ministry. What we have is a model for ministry that is too easily lost in layers of officialdom and bureaucracy.
Hearing this, perhaps I should first thank you for the Pastor’s Discretionary Fund. Not all of you know that periodically we put the word out through the Steeple Bell or written announcements to replenish this fund to help the hungry or the needy. And you always respond so generously. So as the hungry come to our door, you put us in a position to “give them something to eat” rather than send them away.
“You give them something to eat…You give them a bed to rest…You offer them the healing they need.” While Jesus’ compassion for the hurting masses is clear, my guess is his disciples didn’t experience much kindness in his charge. Think of it, such great crowds, such meager resources, the late hour, the lonely place.
”How could Jesus feel such empathy for strangers and be so insensitive to the stressful demands that he is placing us under?” the twelve doubtless pondered.
We modern disciples react much like the first disciples at being directly pressed into service to answer massive needs we feel unprepared to address. We look in our baskets or our food banks or our checkbooks. All we can see is “not enough”, a few paltry loaves, a couple skinny fish. “We can’t do it with so little,” we protest. “We just can’t.” Of course, in truth, we feel so intimidated, we haven’t even tried. Jesus handles it today as he did then. He takes charge in this command he has issued us. “Bring your resources to me.” He blesses what we do have, offers it up for the many, and wonder of wonders, to our surprise it is more than enough.
This story reminds us that our first calling as the church in the face of need, before referring them on to other agencies, instrumentalities, and councils with “more resources”, is to make our best effort ourselves right here and right now with what we have. This story is a summons to personal and direct discipleship. Why is our first impulse often to pass the needy on to others whom we assume are more fully endowed or better equipped or more properly designated to help? If we want the authority of being the body of Jesus Christ in the world, then we must accept responsibility of loving the same people whom he generously loved.
Let me tell you a story of the personal evolution of my mission outlook along these lines. Before my first sabbatical in 1990, I was packing for a family of four. We took our preschool daughters to
From my calendar of prayer, I knew the UCC had a mission presence in
I was surprised at the vigor of the rejection. Who did I think I was to represent the complex deliberations of a national church? What did I really know about global missions? Why, we can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry running around down there in the name of the UCC! Who did I think that I was? Just a disciple. At that point, I decided to channel my hands-on mission work through Habitat for Humanity, where getting a little dirty and making a personal difference is part of the guiding logic. Today the UCBWM no longer exists as it once did. Habitat for Humanity has completed building 250,000 homes for God’s people in need.
“You give them something to eat…You give them a bed to rest…You offer them the healing they need.” As soon as the church in mission distances itself from immediate acts of doing outreach ourselves and insulates itself with layers of administration and ecumenical agencies sent in our stead, we are less Christlike.
We talked about this at staff meeting last Wednesday. Cindy has plans for our Social Concern Committee. Thinking along the same lines, she wants to move the committee meeting night to Tuesday when we also have our Overnight of Hospitality for homeless women. Getting involved in ways like that sounds more exciting to me than only reading last month’s minutes and passing a few motions.
Notice when Jesus said, “You give them something to eat,” they didn’t form a board or committee. No, they formed a team of disciples to get it done. They dis-cerned how Jesus’ charge translated into a task. They put the task at their center and ordered all things around it. This took precedence over appointing officers, learning Robert’s Rules of Order, and adopting a budget. Let us recall that the church was a movement of disciples long before it became an institution. Ministry teams is one way to regain this sense of movement and receive the same vitality.
This is true not only for our mission and outreach. It is true for much of our work. As we create more ministry teams where we had boards and committees before, we will make it easier to get and keep people involved in the work of the church. Think of it, would you rather be a disciple sent by Christ and engaged in ministry? That has the ring of adventure, doesn’t it? Or would you rather hold down an office, be an administrator and chair a subcommittee to seek answers elsewhere.
When Jesus said, “You give them something to eat,” it wasn’t so much a harsh demand as a vote of confidence in Peter, James, and John, in you and me. He was saying, go ahead, I know you can do it. I promise, I’ll bless it. And it will be ample, enough. Likewise, forming teams around our essential ministries—as we already do in areas like Caring Visitors, Church Choirs or Sunday School—we give permission to do ministry. And this trust fires our dreams for what’s possible.
I close with a story. Not long ago a man new to the faith began attending a large seeker church. He sat up in the balcony in a hall full of people. He heard the praise music and the sermons with visual images projected behind. The Biblical texts were texts of power: restoring the lame, healing the infirmed, raising the dead, feeding the 5,000. After a few weeks of this, the visitor got the attention of an usher after worship. “Sir, when do we get to do some of these things?” The usher’s puzzlement lasted only a moment. Then he said, “Oh, we don’t do any of those things. We just talk about them.” I can’t imagine that that seeker stayed in that church. We want a church where we don’t just talk about God’s mighty acts, but where they happen. We want a church where ordinary people defy the im-possible, skirting the miraculous. It begins right here, right now, with you and me. Amen.
How often, O God, we have felt overwhelmed by the demands of the world in the moment and our meager resources for meeting the demands. You call us to such incredible places, O God, unimaginable tasks: feeding the hungry, bringing peace to the warring, healing the sick, uplifting the downtrodden, loving the poor.
Yet we give thanks that rarely have you called us to serve without giving us what we needed to be your servants. You take what we have, you take who we are, meager and ordinary though they may seem, and bless us, using us for your purposes. You touch the world through us, using our lives to fulfill your purposes.
That you’ve called us to be your disciples, we give thanks. Show us ways to or-ganize ourselves that reflect your confidence and trust, your urgency and power. As we pray for new and vital structures, we thank you that you give us what we need to be faithful to our call.
