Anybody Hungry? What – all 5000 of you?? Breaking Boundaries
Luke 9:10-17, March 29, 2009 Lent #5
Intro:
Last Sunday we began to study chapter 9 of Luke. Who remembers what that story/sermon was about? Please… I hope someone does!! I can summarize it thusly: Jesus calls the disciples together and says to them: “Go. Tell AND Show.” (or Show and Tell if you prefer that order). We have to do both: tell (proclaim) and show (demonstrate) so that people encounter the living God and are free to choose how to respond. The disciples obey, Luke tells us that they do in fact preach and heal, and that leads us into Luke 9:10-17.
Luke 9:10-17:
10 When the apostles returned, they told Jesus everything they had done. Then he slipped quietly away with them toward the town of Bethsaida. 11 But the crowds found out where he was going, and they followed him. He welcomed them and taught them about the Kingdom of God, and he healed those who were sick.
12 Late in the afternoon the twelve disciples came to him and said, “Send the crowds away to the nearby villages and farms, so they can find food and lodging for the night. There is nothing to eat here in this remote place.”
13 But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Or are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd?” 14 For there were about 5,000 men there.
Jesus replied, “Tell them to sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 So the people all sat down. 16 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. 17 They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers!
The Report:
So last week we saw Jesus sending his disciples out to minister, by telling the message and showing the power, and they did so because Jesus sent them with “power and authority”, and they went and they did. Put simply, it worked! They healed diseases and proclaimed the message. Verse 10 begins with the report: “they told Jesus everything they had done.” A simple summary statement; can you imagine the stories and the excitement of the story-tellers? Try to imagine being a “fly on the wall” as Andrew and his partner (whoever it was) return to Jesus and begin to tell Him all the places they went, the stories of the people they met who were sick, how it felt to say a word or a prayer and see those people healed, how it felt to tell the stories of Jesus and how Jesus had sent them to tell them about this new incredible Kingdom of God. Try to imagine that happening 6 times over, as each of the pairs return with stories of the incredible power of God and the way that people responded… I love hearing even one story like that, imagine all 12 disciples returning eager to talk about all that had happened, and eager to hear about the experiences of the others.
The Retreat
It is little wonder then that Jesus’ next step is to take them off on a little retreat. “Then he slipped quietly away with them toward the town of Bethsaida”. This, I’m sure from my own years in ministry, is designed for three things: first, just a much needed break. A need to get away and just plain recuperate from a time of really intensive ministry. They were undoubtedly excited, but they would also have been somewhat drained from these experiences of ministry. Second, it would have been a time to de-brief – to have the time and space to tell all the stories, reflect on them, enjoy them, and learn from them. And third, it would have been an excellent opportunity for Jesus to build on what they have experienced and teach them even more.
The Interruption and Response:
But this great plan of Jesus’ gets interrupted. “the crowds found out where he was going, and they followed him.” Oh, those crowds… following, wanting more, expecting Jesus and His disciples to meet more needs, teach more things, be more available. There is an opportunity for disappointment and frustration on the part of Jesus and His disciples – their “alone time” has been compromised. But there is something about genuine people with real needs that often tempers that disappointment and frustration, and Jesus reflects that by engaging these crowds rather than sending them away. “He welcomed them and taught them about the Kingdom of God, and he healed those who were sick.” There are 3 things there: first the “welcome”. An important word. Notice the other two things? – exactly the same things He told the disciples to do on that last short-term mission trip, telling and showing.
The “teachable moment”:
I absolutely love what happens next. The disciples slip back into the role of passive hearers and watchers, while Jesus does the ministry. They fall right back into the old pattern – Jesus does, they watch. And they notice a very simple logistical concern, and come up with a very reasonable, human plan. “Hey, Jesus!! A moment, if you please… umm, this is really great, love what you’re doing, it’s awesome as always… just noticing, though, that the day is getting on… there are a lot of people here, which is amazing, really great… but we are here in the middle of nowhere and they are all going to need some food and some beds real quick. So we’ve talked, and we think it would be great for you to send them all away to whatever nearby villages there are so they can get some food and some rest.” I can see it in my imagination – them all standing around in a circle, nodding, agreeing, “yup, great day, but time to wrap it up…”. And then Jesus says this great thing, these comical three words: “You feed them.”
Can you imagine it?? It’s awesome! I think Jesus has a glint in His eye, maybe a little smirk, and He turns the tables on them with this incredible surprise, and incredible opportunity. What do you think is racing through their minds, as their perfect solution gets dumped on its head? Thoughts?? We don’t know what they thought but we know what they did and said: they checked around to see what resources they had available – 5 loaves and 2 fishes – came quickly to the conclusion that this was laughable, so threw in a little bit of sarcasm “should we go buy enough food to feed this massive crowd??”, as if they had either the money or a Costco or a kitchen or even enough time to do anything that could feed 5000 people.
And in so doing, they completely and totally missed the point. They fail miserably, and honestly, although I like to think I’d be completely different, the truth is that I would probably have reacted exactly the same way as the disciples and you probably would have also. Because, just like them, I still live in the physical world first, I am a reasonable and logical person first, and though I might have liked the challenge of cooking for 5000, it was simply and completely impossible with no money/time/kitchen/food. Jesus, however, refused to accept that the laws of nature were higher than the laws of the new Kingdom of God which He came to announce.
What did Jesus want from His disciples? He definitely wanted to push them. He definitely refused to let them just slip back into a passive role. And I think He desperately wanted one of them to say, “hey… what do we have, and what could God do with it??”, rather than just seeing what they didn’t have. I think Jesus desperately wanted someone to meet His eye and say, “ok… how should we do it Jesus? Let’s feed them… but we’ll only be able to with a miracle like Moses and the manna or Elisha with the 20 loaves in 2 Kings 4:42-44…”
But Jesus doesn’t get that, and yet the need is still there (now a need not just for the physical provision of food but a spiritual need for the disciples to see again what Jesus can do), and so Jesus does a miracle. He puts the disciples to work in crowd management, blesses the food, they pass it out, and collect 12 baskets of leftovers.
About that meal…
I’ve titled this sermon series “breaking boundaries”, and at first read I didn’t really see how that would apply to this story. But then I read my commentary and was reminded of the many, many rules that applied to the eating of a meal in Jesus day. This was a huge deal. The rules for meals established and maintained boundaries in profound and powerful ways to the Jews of Jesus’ day, and the extent to which those boundaries were accepted and maintained became a critical evidence of one’s status in the earthly kingdom of the Jews. Listen to this:
…once the boundary-setting and boundary-maintaining function of meals is recalled, the failure of Jesus and his disciples either to observe this role or otherwise to encourage the crowds to observe practices affiliated with it is startling. Here are thousands of people, an undifferentiated mass of people, some undoubtedly unclean, others clean, some more faithful regarding the law, others less so. The food itself – is it clean? Has it been properly prepared? Have tithes been paid on it? Where is the water for washing in preparation for the table? Such concerns are so lacking from this scene that we might miss the extraordinary character of this meal, extraordinary precisely because these concerns are so completely absent. No attempt has been made by Jesus and the twelve, this representation of the renewal of Israel, to preserve the social boundaries that characterize first-century Jewish life. Again, Luke’s narration underscores the degree to which God’s benefaction is without limits. (Joel Green, Luke, NICNT, p. 365).
Once again, all are equal in the new Kingdom of God, grace and sustenance are available to all, not by works or status or privilege, but only by the grace of God.
Application:
Ok, so a great old familiar story we learn in Sunday school about the day Jesus did a miracle and fed 5000 people. What does it have to do with us today? Two things:
First, I find it extremely encouraging that the disciples had this great ministry high and then totally blew it, but Jesus still did what needed to be done and still loved the disciples and continued to teach them. They certainly blew it, but Jesus didn’t give up on them. I think there may be some of us here that need that encouragement. Maybe you can look back at a time in the past when you felt God work through you in powerful ways that made a difference in the lives of other people, and maybe you remember how alive you were and how full of purpose and significance and joy. But maybe that is in the past… and at the moment, for a whole variety of reasons – some maybe valid and lots probably invalid and more along the lines of “excuse” instead of “reason” – you are like the disciples in Luke 9:10-17 rather than the disciples in Luke 9:1-6. The encouragement from the passage is that Jesus doesn’t give up on us like He didn’t give up on the disciples. He gives us a chance to get back into the ministry of actively telling and actively showing the truth of the Kingdom of God. And maybe some of you need to hear that message and have a chance to repent and reengage. Maybe you’ve been in a time of life where things have gotten busy and hectic, and the thing you’ve given up is the using of your spiritual gifts for the Kingdom of God (and please hear me carefully – I’m not talking about doing jobs around the church here, ok? Remember our overarching theme of joining the mission Jesus sent us on of “going” and hear me from that perspective). Or maybe you are a senior who has felt like as you’ve aged you’ve lost some of your ability to “do” things like teach Sunday school or go with teenagers on crazy couch photo rally nights, and so you’ve backed away and withdrawn. Or maybe something else is true for your story, but the result is the same: doing what Jesus has called us to do in our world has gone on the back burner. If that is true for you, I invite you today to repent and reengage. And that makes me smile as I imagine what experiences God might have for you, and how full your life will be as you follow Him.
Conclusion:
For the second application, I’m going to ask Pastor Sue to come. It was an insight she had that I related to the story, so it is better said in her words than in my words. She is going to make the point and then lead us in our time of reflection and benediction.
(The second application from the passage for us this morning, especially as we think of how we could possibly reengage in mission, goes back to a powerful observation Pastor Sue made after experiencing our partners in Bolivia. I’ll paraphrase her: “It seems like the Bolivians do some things the opposite way we do – if we feel like God is asking us to do something, we look around at what resources we have and if we don’t have them we either try to get them so we can obey or we just don’t do it because we don’t have the resources. Our partners in Bolivia, on the other hand, hear God asking them to do something and they just start to do it and trust God to provide the resources they need.” That is, of course, my oversimplification – our partners are aware and concerned and work hard for the resources needed, but they don’t seem to make that the main issue like we do, and like the disciples did in the story where they say “but we have ONLY…”. Instead they start to obey, and God provides. So in our lives, what I think the Spirit is saying to us through the story is to stop looking at what little resources we have and instead imagine what God could do with what little we have. Five loaves and two fish in my hands is lunch for a little boy, but in Jesus’ hands that is food for 5000 people, with leftovers beside.)
