Matthew 14:13-21
Now when Jesus heard [about the death of John the Baptist], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
This is one of our sacred stories, Thanks be to God.
Sermon
I could tell you a story of miracles
of two fish and a few loaves of bread
how the people were awed
and they gave thanks to God
and everyone went away fed
I could tell you that story,
the miracle story,
a tale of supernatural provision,
of a God who steps in
when our reserves are growing thin
and makes a way,
who meets our needs beyond measure.
And that story would do something for us.
It would cultivate wonder and awe.
It might call us toward mystery,
call us toward faith
that there are things beyond our control.
Or…it might do more harm than it helps,
create a sense that our hope is misspent,
that what happened back then
could never happen again,
that for one reason or other,
the God who was willing
to bend laws of nature
at one time in history
has updated policy since then.
That story might create disillusionment
with a God who would choose to withdraw
who would look at those suffering now
and choose not to intervene
despite their pain.
Or, worse yet, it might beckon the question
of why our faith is still so small,
as if the one thing that stands
in the way of a miracle
is our willingness to believe.
God doesn’t put that pressure on you.
So, that story doesn’t seem to suit us,
it’s not where our time is best spent.
Perhaps we could go
in the other direction,
tell a story with a different bent.
I could tell you a sensible story, a tale that
begins with two fish and some bread,
but this isn’t a story
of magic multiplication, as much as it is
one of learning to share.
Perhaps in this story the boy
with his fish and his loaves in hand
inspires the people
to share what they’ve brought
‘til everyone there goes home fed.
And that story would be easier to swallow,
it appeals to our logical minds.
It stirs us to think
that the actions of one
could have such great effect for the good.
And it’s not that we can’t engage it at this level,
there’s certainly truth to be mined
from a story of contagious generosity
if that’s what we find
here in these lines.
But I want to offer a third way
to read this story today,
to enter the story
somewhere between
the miracle and the mundane
to simply hear it
for the truth that is always true
the truth in it that lives in me and in you
because this story
of too much need
and not enough
is already our story, is it not?
I’m already living a story
where there’s not enough
justice,
where five thousand and more
gather en masse
to listen for good news,
to seek God’s shalom,
and too often,
they’re sent home
still hungering for righteousness to be done.
I’m already living a story
where the ones in leadership,
like the disciples,
act as if there’s nothing they can do,
abdicate responsibility,
deflect and defer.
I’m already living a story where people –
a whole nation, it seems –
are looking for things that are in short supply:
first masks,
then swabs,
now testing and tracing
and comprehensive plans for safely getting the kids back to school...
but also:
hope,
and trust in one another,
and hours in the day,
and patience with our loved ones.
There’s not enough. There’s never enough.
So what if, in this season of never-enough,
I told you a story of abundance,
a story of full bellies and baskets full of leftovers?
What would it do to our sense of what’s possible
to ground ourselves in a story of
the Christ who looks at the one crying,
“There’s not enough!”
and replies,
“Of course, there is. Let me take a look.”
Most of us here aren’t hurting for food,
most of us have the physical things that we need.
It’s these intangibles,
these things that sustain us
emotionally, psychologically,
that we’re struggling to find.
It’s not about denying that we have these real needs,
and it’s not about believing blindly
that if we want them bad enough
or display more trust in God
they’ll magically appear.
It’s about knowing what we have is what we have
and it is enough.
We feel like we don’t have enough time
now that everything is different
and the world seems to require more of us
or
we feel like we don’t have enough to do to fill the time
that we’re swimming in
not enough purpose
not enough drive
when the truth is
we have the time that we have
it isn’t too much,
it isn’t not enough,
it just is.
We feel like we don’t have enough creativity
to meet this moment
the new demands that it brings,
not enough ability to think outside the box
to keep from getting stuck
when the truth is
we have what creativity we have,
we aren’t stuck
we’re just here
in this moment,
and soon it will pass
and we’ll be in another one
and that one will be
just as this one is,
and it is enough,
and more than enough.
There is so much more that we feel
and where we feel that we don’t have enough
It’s different for each of us,
for me it’s quiet
there’s never enough of,
during the day
in my house that’s not full,
but feels full of children
never enough quiet to think a full thought
or not enough patience with my toddler
when he’s out of bed for the thousandth time
(does he not know that we’re in a pandemic
and I need my evenings??)
and yet
the truth is
I have what quiet I have.
I have what patience I have.
And we’re still here.
And it is enough.
And if I look closely
I might even find
that, in fact, there are baskets full
of leftover patience
waiting, just over there
So much of our pain
is born of resistance to suffering.
We suffer most
not when we have great pain
but when we have any pain
and spend our time
wishing we didn’t have it,
when we wish we were not suffering,
when we wish things were somehow
other than they are.
That saying that circulates,
“God won’t give us more than we can handle,”
I believe it’s so often repeated
not because it tells us something true about God,
as if God were doling out suffering
based on our stamina,
but because it tells us something true about ourselves.
We keep saying,
“God won’t give us more than we can handle,”
because deep down we know this truth:
we can handle just about anything.
Throw whatever suffering you will at a person,
tribulation, famine or sword,
and unless they die,
they’ll live.
How many times do we have to say,
“You know, the truth is, I’ll survive” before we believe it
the next time fear shows up?
Far too often we behave as if
the thing we fear –
being depleted,
running out of resources,
being wounded or ill,
physically or emotionally –
we behave as if that thing that we fear
is real, right now,
rather than what it is
which is a fear.
The fear is real, it’s real here and now.
The thing that we fear is not.
Unless we’re in immediate danger,
as Nadia Bolz-Weber likes to say:
Unless you’re being chased by a bear,
right now,
or asked to do the chicken dance at a wedding,
or under some other imminent threat,
your fear is a liar, a thief of love, of joy, of generosity;
it convinces us that it is more real
than what is actually happening around us.
And so what if I told you the story
of those two fish and a few loaves of bread
that somehow were enough
to sustain a whole crowd
not as a miracle tale
or a reasonable anecdote
but rather
a story of this truth:
that what we have is more than enough.
What if this story is, for us,
the manifestation of that message of hope
so often on the lips of Christ himself,
of the messengers of God
in the scriptures:
Be not afraid.
Would it give us permission to believe
that what we have is actually enough?
The time that we have
the relationships we have
the courage we have
the energy we have
the patience we have
the wisdom we have
the love we have
the hope that we have
is actually enough,
and so much more than enough.
Would that this story of abundance
might open us up to grounding in our senses
to using our sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell,
to sense what is real,
to sense past our fear –
our bodies know what’s real –
and to learn to remember
what it feels like to trust
that this moment
is more than enough.
Amen.