The Bread of Life (sermon prep)

Sermon: The Bread of Life – August 6, 2023 – Lebanon UMC

Proper 13 Year A — Ninth Sunday after Pentecost

See the video of the sermon preached here.

Matthew 14:13-21

¹³Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. ¹⁵ When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” ¹⁷ They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” ¹⁸ And he said, “Bring them here to me.” ¹⁹ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. ²⁰ And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. ²¹ And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Introduction

Food. Eating. Meals. There isn’t much that we need as we need to eat — to take nourishment. Meals and food hold a significant place in our lives. Food can keep us healthy and strong, or it can weaken and even lead to our deaths. But for the most part, food is life.

We have meals that are quite ordinary and some that are extraordinary.

Sometimes we eat a meal for sustenance plain and simple.

Sometimes a meal is for remembering.

Sometimes it is for celebrating.

We mark occasions with meals.

We have a meal to celebrate the love found between two people after a wedding.

We have a meal to celebrate a life well lived after funerals.

We have meals at family reunions — at Thanksgiving — at Christmas.

We have meals at birthday and anniversary celebrations.

Is it any wonder that Jesus would describe the joys of the Kingdom of Heaven by comparing it with a Wedding Banquet — a Great Feast.

The father welcomed his prodigal son back with a tremendous feast of celebration.

The first temptation of Jesus in the wilderness was Satan egging him on to turn stones into bread.

Bread is life.

Exposition

Let’s take a few minutes to look through the Gospel lesson today. As I go through the text, I will also bring in observations from the other gospel accounts. You see, this is the only miracle or sign account that is present in all four gospels. All four gospels include an account of this tremendous event. It must have made a big impact and it must carry a great deal of importance to our understanding of our faith. Listen…

¹³Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.

Jesus has just learned about the death of John the Baptizer — his cousin. He naturally desires to withdraw to a quiet place to have time to reflect and pray. The problem is that he has become something of a celebrity. People want to be near him, to see him, to witness something wonderful or perhaps to get something for themselves. They learn of his location and begin to gather by the shore where he is out on a boat.

Jesus comes ashore and sees them gathered. He is moved by what he sees. What does he see? In Mark’s account Jesus has compassion for them because they are like sheep without a shepherd (6:34). Luke says that he began to speak about God’s Realm and curing those who needed healing (9:11).

This was obviously an impromptu gathering. People came from all over, perhaps not knowing what to expect. Had they come prepared for a time away from their homes? Had they water or food?

The text continues.

¹⁵When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ¹⁶ Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”

We don’t know how long they were all together. Had they started in the morning or in the afternoon? We don’t know. What we do know is that it was getting late. People were getting hungry — the disciples were getting hungry. Now keep in mind that they would not have been near a McDonald’s or a Red Lobster or even a convenience store. This was a lot of people. We know that it was over 5000 because there is only an estimate of the men present — not the women or children.

The disciples begin to encourage Jesus to wrap things up so people can leave and go home or find their way to places in towns to eat. Jesus says that they don’t need to go away, just give them something to eat. Give them something to eat? What? The other gospel accounts say that it would cost more than 200 denarii to buy enough bread.

200 denarii. Jesus treated a denarius as the least amount of money it would take for a family in his day. Based on the federal poverty level for a family or 4 in the lower 48 states in 2023, the 200 denarii represent $16,438 (Reed). Now my guess is that the disciples couldn’t raise that kind of money at that moment, much less have it on them.

When Jesus tells them to feed the people it is an impossibility for the disciples as mere humans. When Jesus tells them to feed the people it is an opening for the demonstration of God’s grace. Indeed, in the Gospel of John (which is also known as the Book of Signs) this is the opening for pointing to the glory of God through Jesus.

¹⁷They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” ¹⁸ And he said, “Bring them here to me.” ¹⁹ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

So, the disciples scrambled to find some food. What all four gospel accounts say is that they came up with five loaves of bread and two fish. In John’s account it is Andrew who tells Jesus that the loaves and fish came from a boy. The boy would likely have had a pouch packed with the loaves and fish by his mother for a day out. The loaves would have been much smaller than what we might normally think. Consider a stack of 5 pitas. And for the fish consider a couple of dried or cured fish. Imagine that this is all you have to eat for the day. They are then given to Jesus.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree on the sequence that follows, namely that Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it. It is this same fourfold sequence that we use in the Great Thanksgiving: take, bless, break, give. At this point the bread and fish are distributed to all of those who had sat and were waiting to share in a meal.

²⁰And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. ²¹ And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

And so, they passed the food around, taking some to eat, and afterwards the disciples were instructed to gather up the leftovers and when they did so they had 12 baskets full.

Here is the miracle: the food that was so little became the food that was so much. The disciples felt challenged to feed so many when they had a mindset of scarcity, “we only have 5 loaves and 2 fish!” By the time the meal is completed we see the evidence of abundance — 12 baskets full of what was left over.

There have been different interpretations of what this miracle actually was. How did Jesus cause what was so little to become so much? Did he literally magnify the loaves and fishes, or did Jesus so touch the hearts of those gathered that they too began to share what they had hoarded for themselves? Regardless of your understanding, (how it happened), a miracle has taken place. As John would have it, we see a sign of God’s glory. Jesus moves us from an attitude of scarcity to an attitude of abundance.

Takeaways

I believe that this gives us our first takeaway today. When we look around what do we see? When we think of Lebanon UMC what comes to mind. Do we look around and see things from a human perspective of scarcity to do we look around and by the grace of God see the abundance of what we have in Jesus? We can only move forward by putting aside any fear of scarcity and boldly moving forward with an eye on God’s abundance — right here, right now.

The second takeaway is in the significance of the numbers in today’s gospel reading. Numbers tend to have significance in the scripture.(Friberg 1145; Boring 299) We often see patterns in the way numbers are used. There were two fish — the number two. God gave Moses the 10 Commandments on two tablets. There is the tradition that on the first tablet there were the commandments that guide our behavior toward God. The second tablet then contained the laws that govern our behavior toward one another.

This echoes the teaching we have from Jesus, that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second great commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

There were 5 loaves of bread. Five is often associated with God’s grace. The five loaves represent first our inadequacy before God. All the disciples were able to present to Jesus was 5 loaves, yet Jesus took those five loaves and fed the multitude.

There were 12 baskets of leftovers. Jesus didn’t want any of the food to go to waste, so it was gathered up — 12 baskets. Twelve is a number that represents the people of God. There were 12 patriarchs and 12 tribes of Israel. Jesus chose 12 apostles to serve as the foundation of the church with himself as the cornerstone.

Taken together we see that even though what we have to offer is so inadequate, by grace God provides abundance. The abundance is enough for all of God’s people. We may seem to look like few in number, capable of little, but by the grace of God we are able to do the work of God.

Finally, there is the issue of hospitality. All these people came to be with Jesus. To witness the healings and to hear him teach. When it came time for a meal, he would provide one as a host.

Call to Discipleship

So, what will we do with this message?

Instead of seeing ourselves in a position of scarcity, we should rely on the abundance that comes from God.

When people are hungry, we should hear Jesus speaking, “Give them something to eat.”

Finally, as we accept God’s hospitality in being fed at the table of our Lord, we must be hospitable to the people — the multitude — in the world around us.

Let me share with you something that happened in my life.

When I was a junior in high school, my father was transferred to Research Triangle Park by IBM. We settled in the town of Apex, and I began to attend Apex High School. This was the mid-70s and the Triangle was beginning to show the signs of growth that would soon cause the area’s population to explode. But the towns were still small. Apex was a small town. My graduating class was in the 90s. As we settled in, I found myself to be an outsider. It’s not that people were unwelcoming — no, they were quite welcoming. But I still felt I was an outsider. The number of us transplanted to the area was quite small.

One day I noticed another new face. His name was Joe, and he was from Pennsylvania like me. Joe grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Philadelphia and he considered himself quite the connoisseur of good pizza. There were no pizza places in Apex and few places in Raleigh to get pizza. To be honest, the local pizza was quite bad.

Joe decided to invite a group of us — all outsiders like me, to his place on Saturday. There we would make pizza. We would make the dough and sauce ourselves. We would make the dough, mixing the water, flour, and yeast. We would put the big ball of dough in a large ceramic bowl, cover it with a moist towel, and let it sit in a warm oven until the whole thing rose. We would then take the risen dough and pound it into the cooking pans and then make the pizzas. It was our sacred liturgy. Those were among my happiest times in Apex. During the year more outsiders moved into the town and became a part of our group. We would come together each week to Joe’s kitchen. We would make the bread dough and make pizzas out of it. We sat around the table together, broke our bread together, and remembered home (how we always remembered home), and thought about how wonderful it was to be alive and to have each other.

[now facing the eucharistic table]

Yes, Lord, we come together. We give thanks. We break bread. We remember. How wonderful it all is.

References

Boring, M. Eugene. “Numbers, Numbering.” The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 4, Abingdon Press, 2009, pp. 294–99.

Friberg, Jöran. “Numbers and Counting.” The Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel Freedman, vol. 4, Doubleday, 1992, pp. 1139–46.

Reed, Eric. “What Is the 2023 Federal Poverty Level (FPL)?” SmartAsset, 24 Mar. 2023, https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/federal-poverty-level-2020.