Pentecost 9A

9th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The story is told of a man who was traveling by sea when the ship took fire and many people lost their lives. He himself was saved, and was deeply grateful to God for his escape. And whenever he told the story afterwards to anyone he always finished up by asking his hearers, “Was that not a wonderful example of God’s providential care?”

One day when he related his experience and ended by putting the usual question, he was surprised when a minister who was in the company said:

“Yes, it was. But I can tell you of an even more wonderful thing that happened to me.”

“What was that?” asked the man, half incredulous that anything more wonderful could happen.

“Last week,” said the minister, “I crossed from Holyhead to Dublin, and the ship never took fire at all.”

The other man pondered these words a moment, and then said: “Yes, I see what you mean. I have never seen things in that light before. It was indeed a more wonderful example of God’s care.”

There are many of us who need to learn that God is not only to be seen in the extraordinary and unusual happenings in life, but that he is to be seen even more in the common and ordinary things of every day. For these are always happening, whereas shipwrecks and accidents are only occasional occurrences. (G. MacBean, in New Sermon Illustrations for all occasions, compiled by G.B.F. Hallock, Westwood, NJ:Fleming H. Revell Co., 1963, p. 365)

The lessons for today are a reminder that God is constantly providing for us…not just in gigantic, astounding miracles, but in everyday, routing, little things. In ways we don’t always recognize. In ways we take for granted.

I am guilty of this myself. More often than I’d like to admit. When things are going well, when life is smooth, when I am content, it’s easy to forget God’s hand in that. It’s easy to forget that God provides for our every need…even the day-to-day.

Why do we do that? Why do we only think that God provides for us in the most extreme circumstances? When a surgery goes well, or when we narrowly escape injury in a mishap, or when cancer treatment is successful? Why don’t we think of God when we sit down in the chair and put our feet up? Or when we turn on the shower and feel the water get warm? Or when we gather around the table with food on the plates in front of us? Can we see His Hands at work in providing these little things for us?

Here’s the question of the day: why does God provide for us? He knows our sins. He knows our shortcomings, our failings, our mistreatment of others. Why would He provide for us? Remember the psalm for the day? What did we say over and over again? “His steadfast love endures forever.” THAT is why God provides for us. Not because we have confessed our sins. Not because we come to church almost every week. Not because we tithe. Not even because we ask for it. God provides for us because He loves us. Of course it pleases Him when we ask, but He provides for us because, as the Psalmist tells us, “His steadfast love endures forever.”

To give us an idea of why God provides for us, we only have to look to our Gospel reading for today. In it, Jesus has just learned of the death of his dear friend John the Baptist, and he sets out to spend some time alone, to mourn and to pray. But the people weren’t ready to let him go off by himself. They followed him on foot, even when he was sailing off on a boat. By the time he came back to shore, there was already a “great crowd” gathered, waiting for him. Certainly he would have seen them long before reaching the shore, and could have just kept sailing (the Sea of Galilee is a large enough body of water to do that). He could have jumped off the boat and dismissed them.

Instead, what does Matthew tells us? “…he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” He had compassion on them. In the Greek, this phrase describes a feeling at the very core of his being. He knew that these people had needs, physical, bodily needs, and he cared about that. He cared enough to want to do something about that. So he did - he healed the sick. But that wasn’t all. As his disciples reminded him that it was time for the evening meal, and the disciples wanted Jesus to send the crowd away.

I can’t help but wonder about the motivation of the disciples. I think there are a couple of possibilities here:

It could be that the disciples just wanted to ditch the crowd so they could go eat. Disciples get hungry too.

Or it could be that the disciples knew that a hungry crowd can quickly become an angry crowd. No one wants to contend with that.

Or maybe the disciples wanted to have their teacher to themselves. Time with the crowd meant time Jesus couldn’t spend teaching his inner circle.

Whatever the reason was, the disciples wanted to get the crowd out of the way, but Jesus had other plans. Sometimes I have to remind myself that Jesus knows ALL. He *is* God. So when he tells the disciples “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” - he knows full-well that they only have 5 loaves of bread and two fish to feed several thousand people with. He knows that they don’t have nearly enough, that there’s no way on earth that such a small amount of food could feed so many.

“Bring them here to me.” he commands them. Bring me what little you have. I’ll show you what good you can do with very little. So they do that. And Jesus prepares everyone for a meal. Sit down. Food is coming. Then, in front of everyone, “and taking the 5 loaves and the 2 fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing.” Now, I just said that Jesus *is* God. So why does he need to say a blessing? Because Jesus is thankful. And as much as he is our teacher, he is also our example. He is showing the crowd that they are to be thankful even for having very little.

“Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” Did anyone not get fed? Were any left still wanting? No. “they all ate and were satisfied.” And besides being satisfied, they gathered 12 baskets full of leftovers. 12 baskets full. Jesus provided not only what people needed; he provided abundantly. More than people could eat. There was far more left over than there was to start with. A miracle indeed. Jesus provided for this crowd in a magnificent way. It was huge, and it was witnessed by thousands.

Jesus gave up his own personal grieving time to take care of this crowd. He cared for their very physical needs…even to the point of providing a meal for a great many; a crowd that even a king would need much planning to feed. This particular miracle is just one more way that God demonstrates how much He loves us. He does this because as we read throughout our lessons today, God has made promises to His people, and those promises do not expire. He made promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob…all through the family tree to David and continuing all the way up until God’s promises are brought to completion in His Son Jesus Christ.

But the covenant between God and His people didn’t stop with Jesus. Jesus established a New Covenant. One of my favorite scholars describes this New Covenant this way: “The new covenant that is established in Jesus Christ is the reason that all of these blessings come to us. The core of what we believe is that Jesus' death on the cross has taken away the sin that would have cut us off from all of God's blessings. Our sin, all the way back to the first sin in the Garden would have stood between us and God and would have prevented us from even receiving last night’s dinner...and every other physical blessing as well. He took away the sin that separated us from God and reconciled us to God. And now, only now, do we receive all of the good things that God has in store for us. This is true even for unbelievers, because their sin no longer stands between them and God, they are receiving all of those blessings because of Jesus' death on the cross, even though they don't realize it. Because of the reconciliation between us and God we receive food and every good thing. All because of the new covenant Jesus establishes with his blood, that he describes to the disciples on the night when he was betrayed. It is Jesus' death on the cross that gives us all of these blessings, and as he gives us also his body and blood in the Sacrament of the Altar we are not only reminded of but actually given again these blessings over and over and over again.” (Rev. Dr. Carl Fickenscher on the Issues, etc. podcast, July 30, 2020)

Each and every time we come to the Lord’s Supper, we remember this New Covenant, just as Jesus commanded us to. But it is more than a reminder; it is the very gift of Jesus’ own body and blood, broken and shed for us to show us exactly how much God loves us. Each time we come to that table, each time we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we give thanks to God that He has done this for us…that He gave His only Son specifically for the purpose of dying for us, to ensure we could enjoy that eternal promise - life with God forever.

Every time we come to the Lord’s Supper, it is a miracle, and we can and should give thanks for that. But let’s also remember that every time we sit down to ANY meal, it is cause to give thanks to God. We have many blessings to be thankful for; one way to express that thanks is in recognizing all that God has blessed us with.

As we go about our routines this week, I’d like to challenge each of us to be particularly watchful for the little blessings. What is that little thing in your day that you normally wouldn’t attribute to God? And when you see it, or hear it, or feel it - say a little prayer of thanks. Recognizing all that God does for us each and every day is absolutely one way for us to grow in faith and in our relationship with God. Let’s give this a try this week and see how it impacts our lives and those around us. I’m convinced it will grow God’s Kingdom…even if only just a little.

In the name of the Father, and of the +Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.