The Feeding of the Five Thousand

I’ve been thinking lately about the feeding of the five thousand.

Every three or four weeks, I meet with a monk, a Jesuit, with whom I talk about my prayer and spiritual life. About a month ago, I mentioned to him that I wanted a more personal relationship with God. Sensations of God’s vastness and transcendence come pretty easily to me, but it’s harder for me to feel the particularity of God’s presence in my own personal daily life—washing the dishes, responding to email, listening to others. That day, I was longing to feel taken care of. Being a good, Scripturally minded monk and priest, he asked me what Bible stories came to mind when I think of Jesus being especially caring. The first that came to mind was the scene in the feeding of the five thousand—not just the feeding part, but the part when Jesus tells everyone to sit down. 

Since then, I’ve been spending a lot of time with that passage (not just the sitting part, either). It’s a scene that is repeated in all four Gospels—the details are a little different in each, but in all four, the people have followed Jesus out into the middle of nowhere. They are hungry, and it’s late, and the disciples are worried.   In the Gospel of John, there’s just one little boy who has some food with him.  And Jesus makes them all sit down, and the food is distributed, “and all ate and were filled.”

The people sit down—they stop milling around, stop shouting for their kids, stop looking around for something to eat. They sit. And all are filled, and there are twelve baskets left over.  A second miracle, one which isn’t named in the Gospels, is that all the people ate together—in a society so governed  by ritual purity, the chances that those 5000 would consent to eat together in any other circumstance was pretty much zero. The miracle was that they were together—not just that they were fed (we talked about that in our “Connect” class last year—thanks to Dylan Brewer for the point).

We’ve been talking a lot in vestry about how to manage the constant use of our building—four congregations worship here on Sundays, and we are about as different as they come.  Our church walls hear French, Spanish, Luganda, English, the “thee’s” of Rite One and the “You’s” of Rite Two.  It’s a lot. As I mentioned in my annual report, some of our building use is motivated by the need for income, but a lot of it is for the sake of hospitality. We share a special relationship with St Peter’s because we share the heritage of the Anglican Church, and it’s with us that the Diocese of Massachusetts connects to St Peter’s.  But how do we balance being welcoming to others and being faithful to the needs of our own ministries? How do we help each congregation respect the other? It’s not as simple as writing down some times of day on a calendar.   

And all ate and were filled. God has a dream of abundance that is far greater than anything we can imagine, but it can be so hard to see it. Whenever I pray that story I am always amazed at the sheer quantity of human bodies that must have been present.  There were five thousand people!  The Gospel of Luke says they sat down in groups of fifties. That’s as many as we had in church last Sunday--multiply that by one hundred.

The story begins—Jesus had compassion on them. Jesus has compassion for us—even when you are one out of a crowd of five thousand people, that compassion and feeding is there, enough for everyone—enough not just for “everyone,” a crowd of faceless people, but enough for you and me, too.  Put yourself in the story—what is it like when you sit down at Jesus’ invitation? Who are you sitting with? Is it cloudy or warm? What is it like to be filled? Let’s pray for the grace to eat that bread of compassion and to drink the wine of kindness.  

Parallel Texts of the Feeding of the Five Thousand

Matthew 14:13-21

 Now 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. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 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.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ 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. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

 

Mark 6:30-44

 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

 

Luke 9:10-17

 On their return the apostles told Jesus all they had done. He took them with him and withdrew privately to a city called Bethsaida. When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.

 The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.’ But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said, ‘We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.’ For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, ‘Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.’ They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

 

John 6:1-14

After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias.  A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’ Jesus said, ‘Make the people sit down.’ Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, ‘Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.’

 [New Revised Standard Version, Copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. 

From January 28: Prayers for the President

I hope you had a good snow day and didn't have to drive too far in this weather. Thanks to everyone who attended the annual meeting and brought delicious dishes for lunch last Sunday. Our earlier joint service was very successful, and gave us plenty of time to talk and eat.

Today I'd like to share with you the prayer offered by Bishop Robinson of New Hampshire last week at the opening inaugural event at the Lincoln Memorial. They're good words for the president, and good words for us, too.  You can find a link to the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire below.
...
Welcome to Washington!  The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God's blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will. . .
Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic "answers" we've preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be "fixed" anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility - open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance - replacing it with a genuine respect and  warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity - remembering that every religion's God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln's reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy's ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King's dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
 
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters' childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe.  We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we're asking FAR too much of this one.  We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe.  Hold him in the palm of your hand - that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN.