The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
The Rev. Nick Parker
Matthew 14.13-21
Well it sure is a hot summer here in Eugene – quite a change I can tell you from England, where we’ve also been enjoying sunshine but with temperatures in the 70’s and low 80’s – still enough, I gather from Bingham+, to trigger some heavy thunderstorms the last couple of days…
But for all the heat here now, we’ve also been hearing about your cold winter and record snowfall – rare in the valley and completely outside my limited experience during the three years we lived in Eugene…
Ted told me the story of how he and Stephen (a mutual friend visiting from England) had to park way short of his house due to a burst gas main and trudge with very heavy cases up to his house – and how for two (somewhat) out-of-condition guys this almost became their final journey! And Ted told me how Stephen commented that every time Ted told this story – the cases grew larger and heavier, the distance longer, the snow deeper, and the hill steeper!
We all know how good stories tend to get embellished – to make them even better… But the reverse can also be true – when we’re remembering an event, recording it, writing it down, it’s very easy for important details to get forgotten…
Which brings me to our gospel today, the story of the feeding of 5,000+ (women and children did not make the count!)
It’s certainly a very significant event for it’s recorded in each of the gospels – besides here in Matthew 14 we find it in Mark 6, Luke 9 and John 6.
If I was asked to recall this story without the aid of a Bible I’d certainly include the details that are found only in John’s account – the disciples reckoning of the cost (half a year’s wages) and the youth who’s the source of the five barley loaves and two small fish that the disciples give to Jesus to be blessed…
We should notice that the Synoptic accounts have something that John’s account does not – namely the disciples panic and their request to Jesus to send the crowd away…
But it’s John alone who flags up the significance of this miraculous sign – as revealing Jesus as the new Moses providing manna in the desert – giving rise to the imminent danger of the people forcing Jesus to be their king – which explains his rapid escape – whether it’s in a boat (Matthew and Mark) or up a mountain (John).
I don’t have either the time, or the Biblical knowledge to hand, to explore each of these differences – rather I want us to think about the place of stories…
How might it feel to be written out of a story (how might the youth feel hearing Matthew, Mark or Luke’s account?) – or to be written in?
When does our own personal story become something bigger, something shared, that gives identity not just to us but to a whole community?
What in our own story helps to point other people towards Jesus – giving glory to God?
I find it deeply significant that most often it is the disciples’ weakness – their lack of faith, their spiritual blindness, their intellectual slowness, their presumption – even their lack of hospitality and compassion – that points most clearly to Jesus – as opposed to the generosity of a youth, the humility and tenacity of a Syrophoenician woman, the faith of a Roman centurion or the perseverance of a woman with hemorrhage.
It is truly wonderful that in recording the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the disciples felt able to be so candid, so honest about their failings, and at the same time were pleased to depict the surprising and amazing faith revealed in others, because they knew that it is through both that Jesus can most clearly be seen:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Corinthians 4.7)
I have little doubt that what allowed this honesty, this candor, was the fact that the lives of the apostles in the days of the early Church spoke for themselves – people could see how their encounter with Christ had changed them – how they were no longer blinkered or captive to their fears. Rather, how they strove to walk always in Christ’s steps, to live lives of great integrity and courage, to demonstrate Christ’s love and forgiveness in the face of persecution, and to share the Good News of God’s transforming love and grace with everyone who was open to receive it – regardless of their background…
And what of us? What stories do we tell of ourselves? What do we have to offer others through God’s own story of love, of forgiveness, of redemption for our fallen race?
I pray that we’d have enough self-insight and enough candor to tell stories where we’re not the hero but are rather the butt of the joke – the one with something to learn…
I pray that we rejoice so much in the faith we find in others (often outside of the Church) that we long to tell their stories – to include their contribution, however small it might be, in God’s own story…
And I pray that our lives have a Christ-centered integrity – that it’s not just our words, our stories, but who we are that leads others to look on the face of Christ – the one who has redeemed even us…
I could of course tell a bunch of stories that reveal my own failings – it’s a supply that seems to grow longer all the time! But today I want to end with the faith and generosity revealed in that youth. I wonder what the future held for that young boy?
Rather than imagining how he might’ve felt to be left out of Matthew’s account (that we heard today), just imagine for a moment how he must’ve felt to see what he gave to Jesus feed 5,000 men (not to mention all the women and other children)… imagine how excited and proud he must have been then – and later in years to come – as this simple act was remembered by the early Christian community…
“That was me!”
I imagine an early Church where this young boy grows into an amazing young man – where alongside the apostles – we see Mary Magdalene, Martha and Mary, Nicodemus, Simon of Cyrene, Joseph of Arimathea, the woman at the well, Cornelius, not to mention the countless people that Jesus healed – all with an honored place – all of them able to point to their encounter with the Christ – to the way that God provided for them and through them – to the fact that their lives were never the same again…
And I imagine a present Church where each person, through the combined power of affirmation and self-revelation, has found their own voice, knows their treasured place in God’s story, and is continually growing towards the fullness of what God calls them to be…
Prayer of Richard of Chishester
Thanks be to you, our Lord Jesus Christ,
for all the benefits which you have given us,
for all the pains and insults which you have borne for us.
Most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother,
may we know you more clearly,
love you more dearly,
and follow you more nearly,
day by day.
Amen.
