St. Margaret's Sermon Archive
Pentecost VIII - Robert W. Carlson 07/30/06
FEEDING THE 5,000
In our Gospel for today we heard the well known story of Jesus' feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and two fish. The story brings back echoes of other divine "feedings:" God's feeding the Israelites with manna from heaven as they wandered for forty years in the wilderness, God's feeding Elijah in his wilderness journey. Food in each of these cases, and in our lives, is a powerful symbol of hospitality and love. From infancy we associate feeding and being loved. When we invite someone to dinner we are expressing friendship or concern in a special way. Episcopalians, it seems to me, are very fond of eating. Notice also, how easily our conversation turns to restaurants and food. We associate food and companionship, food and love. As infants our first experience of love is that of being held and fed. Food holds much more significance for us than the practical matter of refueling our bodies for our day's work. I am embarrassed to say that when I travel I usually wake to the thought of breakfast, and about mid morning I begin planning where I will stop for lunch, and before mid afternoon my wife and I begin discussing our dinner plans! Food has important meaning for me, and probably for you.
The story of Jesus' hosting a meal in the wilderness for people who just happened to "drop in" because they were curious, or in need of healing or finding meaning for their lives, this story was very important to the gospel writers. In the four gospels it appears six times. It is not just a good story that one of the evangelists slipped in to convince us of Jesus' miraculous powers. It has an important place in each of the gospels.
I must confess, though, that I have had difficulty with this gospel story. In part it is because I am a twenty first century person, steeped in the scientific method, one who avidly reads newspaper stories about space and black holes, cloning and gene research, and the discovery of new atomic particles. I am used to things happening in an orderly way with a scientific explanation. Feeding 5,000 people out of a small lunch box of food doesn't quite fit this view of the universe.
For a time I was helped by a less miraculous interpretation of the story based on today's version of the text from St. John's Gospel. It introduces us to "the lad who has five barley loaves and two fishes" who is willing to share them with the crowd. At least one biblical scholar says "Aha!" to this and goes on to explain that the generous example of this one young man is what caused others to pull out food they had secretly brought along and to share it with their neighbors. That makes for a good moral to the story. Often the example of one brave soul is enough to get the rest of us to share our sandwich or loosen up our purse strings. Many of us have probably had such an experience, or the experience of standing up for a principal because someone else set the good example. I have a vivid childhood memory of hearing my father object strongly to an anti-Semitic remark by one of our neighbors. We influence others when we chose to do the right thing, sometimes our own children! It is something worth remembering when we are tempted to go along with the crowd rather than be witnesses to a higher principal. But is that really what the gospel writers had in mind - that Jesus set up the crowd to be shamed into being generous because of the boy willing to share his lunch? I don't believe so. For the gospel writers there was no question but that such a feeding was fully within the powers of Jesus. Certainly one who by his life, death and resurrection brought about the reconciliation of the whole of fallen humanity could easily provide such a feast from even meager resources.
The deeper question the story raises for those of us who believe the miracle to be fully within Jesus' powers, is that it is not the kind of miracle the gospels picture Jesus as doing. In the beginning of his ministry he rejected Satan's temptation to turn stones to bread, and avoided any spectacular display of power as a way of convincing others to believe. It is true that using his power to feed others was very different from using that power to satisfy his own needs, but the needs of the 5,000 were not life and death issues. Most people can delay a meal, or even go a day without food if they decide a greater good is to be accomplished. What was the urgency here?
The urgency, it seems to me, is that the event in the wilderness said a great deal about who Jesus was, and how he was related to the whole of sacred history. The disciples saw their Lord not as a departure from Jewish history, but intimately related to it. The great memory of God's love and grace for Judaism had to do with God's feeding in the wilderness with the bread they called manna. Christians now had their symbol of God's loving care in the loaves and fishes. Jews also remembered how the prophet Elisha had fed one hundred people with twenty barley loaves and some grain. In fact, the words of that story are strikingly similar to those in today's gospel. Elisha tells his servant, "Give it to the people and let them eat." The servant responds, "How can I set this before a hundred people?" Elisha repeats the order and not only are the people fed, but some is left over. If Jesus is the fulfillment of the law (Moses) and the prophets (Elisha), this story well illustrates that truth and reminds Christians of their debt to their Jewish roots.
The feeding of the five thousand, though, is like a hinge that swings both ways, to the future as well as to the past. For St. John, the feeding of the 5,000 is a "sign" of who Jesus is, a sign of even greater things to come, a prelude to the Easter event. It is also a prelude to the Last Supper. As early Christians celebrated the eucharistic meal of bread and wine and repeated the acts of the Last Supper, they remembered this story and recalled how, as a little had served to satisfy many in the wilderness, so the little amount of bread and wine at the Eucharist, distributed among many, serves their spiritual needs far beyond the size of the "gifts of God for the people of God." The host in the wilderness is the host at the eucharistic meal. The feeding of the five thousand became a symbol for Christians of the unique Christian act of worship. And beyond each act of worship, it became the symbol for the "heavenly banquet", the "messianic meal" at the end of time, when God's Kingdom will be brought to fulfillment, when sin and separation and evil will be overcome for all time. Someone has said that Heaven, the ultimate Kingdom of God, will be "like a great party where everyone likes everyone else very much." The feeding of the five thousand reminds us of that party, and reminds us that it is by God's love that we are and shall be fed, and that he is our past, present and final host.
In our Gospel for today we heard the well known story of Jesus' feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and two fish. The story brings back echoes of other divine "feedings:" God's feeding the Israelites with manna from heaven as they wandered for forty years in the wilderness, God's feeding Elijah in his wilderness journey. Food in each of these cases, and in our lives, is a powerful symbol of hospitality and love. From infancy we associate feeding and being loved. When we invite someone to dinner we are expressing friendship or concern in a special way. Episcopalians, it seems to me, are very fond of eating. Notice also, how easily our conversation turns to restaurants and food. We associate food and companionship, food and love. As infants our first experience of love is that of being held and fed. Food holds much more significance for us than the practical matter of refueling our bodies for our day's work. I am embarrassed to say that when I travel I usually wake to the thought of breakfast, and about mid morning I begin planning where I will stop for lunch, and before mid afternoon my wife and I begin discussing our dinner plans! Food has important meaning for me, and probably for you.
The story of Jesus' hosting a meal in the wilderness for people who just happened to "drop in" because they were curious, or in need of healing or finding meaning for their lives, this story was very important to the gospel writers. In the four gospels it appears six times. It is not just a good story that one of the evangelists slipped in to convince us of Jesus' miraculous powers. It has an important place in each of the gospels.
I must confess, though, that I have had difficulty with this gospel story. In part it is because I am a twenty first century person, steeped in the scientific method, one who avidly reads newspaper stories about space and black holes, cloning and gene research, and the discovery of new atomic particles. I am used to things happening in an orderly way with a scientific explanation. Feeding 5,000 people out of a small lunch box of food doesn't quite fit this view of the universe.
For a time I was helped by a less miraculous interpretation of the story based on today's version of the text from St. John's Gospel. It introduces us to "the lad who has five barley loaves and two fishes" who is willing to share them with the crowd. At least one biblical scholar says "Aha!" to this and goes on to explain that the generous example of this one young man is what caused others to pull out food they had secretly brought along and to share it with their neighbors. That makes for a good moral to the story. Often the example of one brave soul is enough to get the rest of us to share our sandwich or loosen up our purse strings. Many of us have probably had such an experience, or the experience of standing up for a principal because someone else set the good example. I have a vivid childhood memory of hearing my father object strongly to an anti-Semitic remark by one of our neighbors. We influence others when we chose to do the right thing, sometimes our own children! It is something worth remembering when we are tempted to go along with the crowd rather than be witnesses to a higher principal. But is that really what the gospel writers had in mind - that Jesus set up the crowd to be shamed into being generous because of the boy willing to share his lunch? I don't believe so. For the gospel writers there was no question but that such a feeding was fully within the powers of Jesus. Certainly one who by his life, death and resurrection brought about the reconciliation of the whole of fallen humanity could easily provide such a feast from even meager resources.
The deeper question the story raises for those of us who believe the miracle to be fully within Jesus' powers, is that it is not the kind of miracle the gospels picture Jesus as doing. In the beginning of his ministry he rejected Satan's temptation to turn stones to bread, and avoided any spectacular display of power as a way of convincing others to believe. It is true that using his power to feed others was very different from using that power to satisfy his own needs, but the needs of the 5,000 were not life and death issues. Most people can delay a meal, or even go a day without food if they decide a greater good is to be accomplished. What was the urgency here?
The urgency, it seems to me, is that the event in the wilderness said a great deal about who Jesus was, and how he was related to the whole of sacred history. The disciples saw their Lord not as a departure from Jewish history, but intimately related to it. The great memory of God's love and grace for Judaism had to do with God's feeding in the wilderness with the bread they called manna. Christians now had their symbol of God's loving care in the loaves and fishes. Jews also remembered how the prophet Elisha had fed one hundred people with twenty barley loaves and some grain. In fact, the words of that story are strikingly similar to those in today's gospel. Elisha tells his servant, "Give it to the people and let them eat." The servant responds, "How can I set this before a hundred people?" Elisha repeats the order and not only are the people fed, but some is left over. If Jesus is the fulfillment of the law (Moses) and the prophets (Elisha), this story well illustrates that truth and reminds Christians of their debt to their Jewish roots.
The feeding of the five thousand, though, is like a hinge that swings both ways, to the future as well as to the past. For St. John, the feeding of the 5,000 is a "sign" of who Jesus is, a sign of even greater things to come, a prelude to the Easter event. It is also a prelude to the Last Supper. As early Christians celebrated the eucharistic meal of bread and wine and repeated the acts of the Last Supper, they remembered this story and recalled how, as a little had served to satisfy many in the wilderness, so the little amount of bread and wine at the Eucharist, distributed among many, serves their spiritual needs far beyond the size of the "gifts of God for the people of God." The host in the wilderness is the host at the eucharistic meal. The feeding of the five thousand became a symbol for Christians of the unique Christian act of worship. And beyond each act of worship, it became the symbol for the "heavenly banquet", the "messianic meal" at the end of time, when God's Kingdom will be brought to fulfillment, when sin and separation and evil will be overcome for all time. Someone has said that Heaven, the ultimate Kingdom of God, will be "like a great party where everyone likes everyone else very much." The feeding of the five thousand reminds us of that party, and reminds us that it is by God's love that we are and shall be fed, and that he is our past, present and final host.