Pentecost 10a (3YL)

Intro

I am not sure how far this word has made it as far as saturation but does anyone here use the word hangry? Its a combination of hungry and angry and as the person experiences this they become more hungry and more angry.

I have young kids meaning that hangry is a word my wife and I keep to hand. The kids dont always want to eat nutritious food and then when they start to melt my wife and I have to take a moment are remember that they are most likly hungry and angry at the same time.

I bring it up because today we are going to look at the feeding of the 5000, and although hangry has nothing to do with the text I admit that I am curious if that crowd was getting restless and unmanageable as the people got more and more hangry.

That is really beside the point lets take our attention to the text.

Text

Matthew 14:13–21 “When Jesus heard about it, he withdrew from there by boat to a remote place to be alone.

What does Jesus hear and why does he withdrawal. The Death of John the Baptist.

Some think he is in sorrow for the death of the relative…I am not convinced.

I think he is coming to grips with what must happen in Jerusalem.

When the crowds heard this, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a large crowd, had compassion on them, and healed their sick.

In his sorrow he is not despondent, in fact he is compassionate. He is sick, hurting, yet he can turn and heal the sick, the wounded healer. Arent we all.

When evening came, the disciples approached him and said, “This place is deserted, and it is already late. Send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”

His disciples bring before him a need that the have no solution for. This will will long be the plight of the church, we will often be confronted with needs that are bigger than what the church can deal.

We might even be tempted to give God the solution. Send them to the city to get food.

Think of the logistical nightmare 5000 people showing up to a town in search of food.

“They don’t need to go away,” Jesus told them. “You give them something to eat.” “But we only have five loaves and two fish here,” they said to him.

Jesus solution is the church. He is not looking for our logical solutions he is wanting the church, the new Israel to accomplish his will. Its easy as a church to remind God what we are lacking. Think of the needs of our neighborhood. Think of our capability. God may come to us to ask us to do the supernatural. But more than that God will call us to be for our neiborhood to be a church, and what is a church,

"The Church is the assembly of saints in which the Gospel is taught purely and the Sacraments are administered rightly.

Who said anything about sacraments? Jesus does.

“Bring them here to me,” he said. Then he commanded the crowds to sit down on the grass. He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them. He broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

Much ink has been spilt here…is this about the sacrament? It seems to me, it seems to the early church thinkers.

We might not be able to do all the things this neighborhood needs, but we can break the break and remind them, the Body of Christ broken for you.

Everyone ate and was satisfied. They picked up twelve baskets full of leftover pieces.

In the dessert, Moses took 12 tribes, and God rained bread from heaven to which Moses pointed and said eat. In this wilderness Jesus the newer better Moses, God in the flesh creates bread from thin air.

This is a new Israel, better than the old, Lead by a new Moses better than the old. Twelve disciples for the new tribes each with their own basket of mystical bread.

Now those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

This is a great detail…there are those who are absolutely commited to the Gospel being a figment of someones imagination. An agenda ridden mess written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for their own reasons. And because they all focus on different things they must be all making up their own story. The Raising of Lazerus, is only in John not the other three so it must have not happened. The Widows son at Naine only in Luke, must be a fabrication. The lepers are in Matthew Mark and Luke not in John must be false. But then you get the feeding of the 5000, in Matthew and in Luke and in Mark and In John. Does it mean if its in all three it must be true? I think its all true but by a skeptics logic this one is the most likely to be true. Healing the sick, Feeding a monstrous crowd, of 5000 men and then the attending women and children. Not only is it in all four Gospel, 15,000 people is a lot of witnesses. You could try and make this up, but then who is there to say it did or didnt happen. Thousands of people. This moment of Jesus divine work happened. We can be sure.

Application

In our hurt we will still need to find compassion for the hurting around us, and follow Jesus on the road to suffereing. Our hurt is not meaningless. Jesus sadness here was true sadness over a real issue, his coming death. But his death will save the very people he is about the heal and to feed. Your hurt is not meaningless. And taking your hurt and stepping into the mess of another is the most Christlike things we can do.

The church is the hands and feet of Jesus. We will always be asked to do bigger than our capability, but that gap between what we can do and what we are called to is where we see the miraculous work of Christ. Last week I talked about the small things done with great love. Keep is up, but let us also keep our ear to the ground for those times that God call us to swing for the fences.

We are the New Israel, under a new Moses. We have been given a Eucharist to share with all the nations. The old Israel saw them selfs as an inward community, them against the world. We are an outward community bringing this great message to the world. The Hungry sick and destitue.

Closing

The structures brought by the Law saw the word of God in John and decided to stop him. To silence him by beheading him. The Gospel in the flesh Jesus Christ is not only the word of God but he is also the savior of the world. We deserve the death of John, and yet we are fed the food of Christ. We are transformed because Jesus on the Cross took the death that belongs to us and give us his everlasting life. Every week we come to hear his word and every other week we come to eat the bread he give and be satisfied. Come today you desert wanderers. Do what our Old Testament reading commands.

Isaiah 55:1–5 ““Come, everyone who is thirsty, come to the water; and you without silver, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without silver and without cost! Why do you spend silver on what is not food, and your wages on what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and you will enjoy the choicest of foods. Pay attention and come to me; listen, so that you will live.