Feeding More than the 5,000
Ps. 78:1-7, 12-25, Neh. 9:16-20; Rom. 8:35-39, Matt. 14:13-21
The feeding of the 5,000 is the only miracle of Christ that appears in all four gospels. It gets its name from the fact that Jesus fed people and from the mention of the number 5,000. However, this is somewhat unfortunate, since in the gospel lesson for today, Matthew says that there were about 5,000 besides women and children. But, everyone ate, not just the men. And, so the number of people who were fed was minimally 10,000, and perhaps as high as 20,000.
Was this a miracle? Popular liberal scholarship has always treated this account as an object lesson in the power of a virtuous example. By their reading, when the crowd saw Jesus and his disciples sharing all that they had with others, they were moved (or, perhaps in some instances, shamed) into following their example. And, certainly, a virtuous example can have that kind of effect.
But, that’s not how the gospel writers portray this event. For one thing, the disciples come to Jesus with the news that it is late in the day, that the people have no food, and that they are in a deserted place – there are no fast food vendors conveniently placed within easy walking distance. No, the villages are far off, and so the disciples want Jesus to dismiss the people while there is still time for them to get into the villages – which are some distance away – and to purchase something for themselves to eat.
After the feeding is completed, you cannot tell me that the DISCIPLES missed the point that a miracle had occurred. Nor did the PEOPLE who had eaten miss the point. In John’s account, we read this: “Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” And John further records that when “Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.” (John 6:15). Do you suppose that the crowds wanted to make Jesus a king because he had inspired them to share their sack lunches?
If you believe that, you should also believe that there should be crowds of people trying to make a King out of Mr. Rogers, or Captain Kangaroo. No, no. Rome was big, and nasty, and powerful. The Jews of Jesus’ day were eager for a Messiah who would knock the snot out of the Roman oppressors. Yes, they were filled; but what enthralled them was the display of miraculous power.
And, you know, the people did see what happened. Jesus first told his disciples to make the people sit down. Mark and Luke record that they were seated in groups of fifty, in ranks. None of the gospel writes make the connection, but as I was reading these accounts in the gospels, the first thing that came to my mind was the arrangement of the tribes around the tabernacle in the wilderness. They, too, were arranged in ranks around the presence of the Lord.
And, once the people were all seated, Jesus and his disciples would be visible to all of them, particularly if they were standing on a place either higher or lower than the surrounding people. The point of this is simple: from that place – where Jesus stood, the place from which the disciples came and went – from that place came food enough for everyone to eat their fill and to be satisfied.
No, everyone knew they had witnessed a bona fide miracle.
Now, Jesus didn’t do miracles just to enthrall the crowds. Miracles were one of the ways Jesus used to make a point with those who saw the miracle – a point about himself, his mission, his identity. The people who were there got a full belly from this miracle. What are we supposed to get? What do we conclude from it?
I think there are two very large points which Jesus makes by this miracle, one point for the crowds, and another point for his own disciples.
First, the crowds. I think the Psalm appointed for today – the portions of Psalm 78 which we chanted a while ago, along with the Old Testament lesson from Book of Nehemiah – both of these show us God’s attitude toward those whom he had saved out of Egypt, particularly when they were being stiff-necked, rebellious, and unbelieving. The lesson from Nehemiah is part of a longer prayer of confession which the entire nation prayed in those days; and Psalm 78, by a choirmaster named Asaph, recounts much of the same history which the confessors in Nehemiah remember. What emerges from both the Psalm and the prayer of confession is the patience and compassion of the Lord, who continues to show faithfulness to his people, even when they are disbelieving and rebellious.
This is what Jesus is doing in this miracle. Just the previous day, he had told his disciples that the people who were following him about were the kind of people who have eyes that do not see, and ears that do not hear, and hearts that do not understand. Jesus knows that about a year from that time, these very same people would be screaming for his crucifixion. And, yet, here they are – following him around in the wilderness like the Jews followed the tabernacle in the wilderness 1500 years before that. And, they are hungry. And there is nothing to eat. Fifteen hundred years before Christ, God gave his people manna in the wilderness, and here by the sea of Galilee, Jesus does the same thing – he gives them something to eat.
And, the point? It is to speak to those who have eyes that see and ears that hear and hearts that understand, and what Jesus is saying is this: I am that same God you heard about, the one who fed his rebellious people in the wilderness. In fact, when the Apostle John records Jesus great teaching on the Bread of Heaven, in that discourse, Jesus points back to the miraculous feeding he had done the day before as the setup for what he then tells the people. The day after this miracle, he spoke to the same crowds with these words:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. 27 Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.”
Those words set off a dueling match between Jesus and the crowds. And the result is just as Jesus had told his disciples two days before – the people left him, all of them, so that only the disciples were left, and Jesus asked them – do you want to go away too?
And, Peter answered him, “68 But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” {John 6:68).
Jesus had a point to make the crowds, and they could not receive it. And, so they went away and followed him no more.
On the other hand, Jesus also had a point to make with his own disciples, and – thanks be to God – they received it. It is a point for you and me as well if we are Christ’s disciples, and preachers down through the centuries have expounded this miracle in ways that I am sure you have heard before, if you have heard many sermons in churches.
The miracle is rich with object lessons, some of which I will simply mention in passing.
For example, many preachers and teachers have focused on Jesus as the supply for our needs. Others have noted the impasse confronting the disciples before the miracle takes place, an impasse which is provoked by Jesus himself. “You give them something to eat,” he tells them. And, of course, what is available for the task is ridiculously inadequate. That situation is not a new on in the history of the Church, and one might well point to versions of this very situation in the lives of every here today. As one expositor put it, “our dead end is Jesus’ open door.” He brought them – as he continue to bring each of us – to places where there is nothing for us to do but to trust him. When the doors close for us, then He will open his.
But what I wish to focus on for us here today is a pattern in what Jesus does in this miracle, a pattern which I trust you will all recognize when I point it out to you, a pattern which we repeat here week after week after week. [hat tip to Robert Brow]
First, He gathered the people around himself. Next, he took what was offered to him. Then, he looked up to heaven and blessed the gifts. Next, he gave it back to his disciples. Finally, they distributed it to those around them.
Does this remind you of anything at all? Is this not essentially what we are doing every week in the Eucharist?
We gather around the Lord’s table. We offer to him little bits of bread and a small cup of wine. As your representative, and in the name of Jesus Christ, I pray our Father’s blessing on what our liturgy calls “these creatures of bread and wine.” And then as Christ distributed the bread and fishes to his disciples, so I distribute the bread and wine to each of you. If we take Jesus’ words in John’s gospel at face value, we at that moment partake of a miracle – not the multiplication of loaves, but the miracle Jesus performed for the first time at the last Passover – when he said, Take, eat, this is my Body; take, drink, this is my blood of the New Testament.
And, yet, even so, there is a multiplication in view, for as the disciples received from Christ and gave to the people, so we too give of ourselves to the people.
While I am a Deacon, there is a part of the Eucharistic prayers which I do not speak. I will speak them in our liturgy once I am ordained a priest next month. But those words are important to mention in this context. Whether I say the words today or not, what we offer to Christ in our Eucharistic liturgy is something more than just the bread and the wine. In the prayer of consecration are these words:
And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.
That is what we take into the world and share with others – and that is where the multiplication of the loaves is still going on, as we who have fed on the bread of heaven go out into the world to share ourselves with those who do not Christ as we know him. That is what the disciples were doing during this miracle – they who knew Christ as the Son of the Living God were sharing what they had offered to him, what he had blessed, with those who did not know him at all.
The feeding of the 5,000 was only the beginning. In the Eucharist – and particularly in the lives and ministry of those who feed at the Lord’s Table – the same miracle is going on. Jesus disciples bring him what little they have. He blesses it and gives back to them a miracle. And as they distribute that blessing beyond themselves, Jesus’ disciples share the bread of heaven with a world that is seeks to live on the bread that perishes.
God grant that he will do with us as He did with his disciples by the sea of Galilee many centuries ago. May we offer to Christ the things which we have, the things which we are – small and inadequate though they always are. Let us do this with the expectation that Christ will do for us, and through us, what he did through his disciples long ago – to multiply what little we have so that all with whom we share may feed in abundance upon the Bread of Heaven, even as we do, and that in the wake of that miracle, what little we have offered him will be multiplied into an abundance.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
