You Give Them Something to Eat

"They need not go away; you give them something to eat."   - Matthew 14:16

A significant part of the repeating rhythm of a pastor’s life is a phone call or a conversation, when I am made aware of a person in need. Many times it’s accompanied by a specific set of instructions about what I should do or how I should respond.

I wonder what would happen if for one month, every time someone contacted me with an expectation of this nature I would simply say, "Why don’t you take care of it this time." Of course, I really don’t have to speculate much about what would happen.

"Pastor, someone is at the door that needs help with..."  "Why don’t you take care of them?"

"Pastor, did you hear about? I think you should…" "Why don’t you take care of it?"

It wouldn’t take many instances like that and the phone of the council president would ring off the hook about the pastor’s irresponsible behavior. "What’s with the pastor? Have you heard what he’s been doing? He’s been telling people to take care of the needs of others themselves?

If you think my scenario is a little far fetched then reread the gospel for this morning because that’s exactly how this story unfolds. It was late, the disciples were tired, and the crowds who had followed Jesus were hungry, so the disciples went to Jesus with their agenda and said, "(Lord) …send them away so they may go to the villages and find something to eat." Jesus shocked their sensibilities by saying, "No, no, they need not go away; you give them something to eat."

"You say what?" - "You heard me. You give them something to eat." Jesus doesn't let them off the hook by easily allowing them to abdicate by transferring their agenda over to him. His pointed command, "…you give them something to eat," forced them to confront their deepest fear; that they would be found out; that their inadequacies would be exposed.  Perhaps there is little we fear more than being found inadequate.

So naturally, when a need arises in the community of faith, in the face our personal inadequacies, the temptation is enormous to abdicate or to turn to the professional to minister to the person in need.  But this can have two negative implications.   First, it allows you to not really deal with your sense of inadequacy, getting you off the hook, transferring your agenda to someone else.  Second, it weakens the community of faith; hinders the strengthening and building up of this community of faith of which we all are a part.

Jesus said, "You give them something to eat."   "Are you kidding? We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish. What are they in the face of so many who are hungry?"

If you have ever surrendered to your inadequacies causing you to withhold yourself, you are in esteemed biblical company:

- When God told Abraham and Sarah they were going to have a baby, they insisted they were inadequate – too old they said.

- When God called Moses to be a liberator of the slaves in Egypt Moses insisted he was inadequate – offering four reasons why he was unqualified to fill the position.

- When God called Isaiah to be his representative Isaiah insisted he was inadequate – too sinful.

- When God put the finger on Jeremiah he said he was inadequate – too young.

I wonder how many opportunities for the love of God to touch someone’s life have been forfeited (just by those of us represented in this room this morning) because we caved to our sense of inadequacy.

I will make a confession. One of the situations with which I have always felt a pervasive sense of inadequacy is in the face of untimely and unexpected death; a tragic accident; a sudden fatal illness.

Three years ago this weekend a friend of mine from Alaska was one of four scout leaders electrocuted setting up a tent at the Nat’l Boy Scout Jamboree in Williamsburg, Virginia. I baptized his four boys. He was deeply involved in church life, and we spent many hours discussing issues of faith together. When I received the tragic news, I called his wife. As the phone was ringing, I suddenly felt that profound sense of inadequacy well up within me: "What do I say in the face of such a terrible and profound loss?"  When Kris came to the phone, she said to me through her tears, "Joe, it is just a miracle that you would call right at this minute. The boys and I were going through a box of photos, and we just pinned the photo of their baptism on a bulletin board we are making. I thought of how I needed to hear from you and then the phone rang, and it was you!"  For her that little episode was not coincidence, but a sign that God’s presence was very much with them in the midst of their profound loss.  For me that little episode was not coincidence, but once again for the umpteenth time, a sign that God works through me (and you) even with our sense of  inadequacy.

"We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish," answered the disciples when Jesus told them to feed the great throng of people. "Bring them here to me," Jesus commanded. “Taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up, blessed and broke the loaves, gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to all the crowds.” 

It’s exactly at this point, that the story that takes on a powerful metaphorical meaning, that is, a more than literal meaning and implicitly connects us with another meal story in Matthew’s gospel; a meal story that we are celebrating today right here in this place.   In this other meal story Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it, he broke it and gave it to his disciples and said, “This is my body.”   

Matthew included this feeding story in his gospel not because he merely wanted to recount a dazzling miracle that impressed the crowds. The story has far greater meaning that goes far beyond the literal.  Both of these feeding stories are ultimately about empowerment; the empowerment of his disciples; the empowerment of you and me.  Jesus didn’t feed the crowds that day, the disciples did with the bread Jesus blessed and put in their hands.  The truth of this story is that when Jesus told the disciples, “You give them something to eat,” he saw to it that that they did and the same is true for us.    

The early Christian Community experienced something incredible in Jesus, an astounding abundance that alleviated their personal hunger pangs of fear, nourished them beyond their pervasive sense of inadequacy, and propelled them into the world to be bold and daring disciples for Jesus.

This morning we gather around the banquet table of God and re-enact elements of these great feeding stories.  Once again Jesus is handing out bread that he has blessed: “The body of Christ.”   The blessed bread is placed into our hands by one of his disciples, and we take it into our bodies – the whole ritual becoming a powerful living metaphor that points to the gospel truth that God will not allow us to stay trapped in our fear and confined by our sense of inadequacy, but empowers us out of his amazing abundance with grace and compassion to be his body in the world – on fire with is love – equipped with his compassion – taking the abundance we’ve experienced in Jesus out to feed a hungry and needy world. 

The real miracle then ends up being not the multiplication of loaves and fishes so long ago, but multiplication of love in your soul and mine and in this community that turns us inside out, away from ourselves and toward others.     

“They need not go away.  You give them something to eat.”