Notes from a Sojourn
August 2, 2020
The Story of Us
A Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)
The story of Jesus feeding thousands of people, with only five loaves of bread and two fish, might be the clearest, most comprehensive, and enduring expression of the Gospel ever told.
The earliest Christians certainly thought so.
Within a generation or so, every biblical Evangelist in succession – Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John – included their telling of this story in their written Gospels – the only gospel story to be included in all four gospels! In fact, Mark and Matthew each tell of a second occasion when Jesus did the much the same thing again with thousands more people. That brings us to a total of six gospel tellings of Jesus feeding thousands with a paltry potluck of bread and fish.
So what might it be about this story that makes it worth telling and re-telling, again and again? What enduring quality (or qualities) does it possess that any telling of the Gospel can't be without?
The telling of this story is likely to be important for different reasons to different people. There are many parts to it, so I’d expect that any one of them may resonate more with some people than others. And I think that’s it – that’s the quality of this story that makes it not only worth telling but indispensable to telling the Gospel at all.
I think the story of Jesus feeding the thousands is the story of us – every single one of us.
It is the story of anyone who has travelled a long way to an unfamiliar shore in search of healing; who has travelled to where they’ve never been before in search of wholeness:
“Jesus 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…”
It is the story of anyone who has experienced the compassion of God in Jesus: the silent patience of his listening to those who have been made voiceless; his tears of empathy for the bereaved; his healing touch for the sick; his words of life to the despairing:
“When Jesus went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick…”
It is the story of every follower of Jesus whose faith has given way to being “realistic” – who has grown wary of the endless needs of other people or think they know what other people deserve:
“The hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves…”
It is the story of every one of us who feels ill equipped to serve, and of every church that struggles to pay the bills:
“You give them something to eat,” Jesus says; we reply “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish!”
It’s the story of the moments we put our trust in God and stop focusing on what we can’t bring to accept his invitation:
“Bring what you have to me…”
It’s also the story of the upper room before Gethsemane and Golgotha; and it is the story of the Church, the Day of Pentecost, and our celebration of the Lord’s Supper:
“Jesus 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 it is the story of the Reign of Christ, God’s Kingdom, both now and forever:
“And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full…”
The belonging and fellowship, the plenty, the feasting and resting. The storytelling around good food, the jokes and laughter. The singing and playing. Twelve baskets full: every tribe of God’s People restored, refreshed, and delighted by the abundance of God’s Life.
This is our story.
It is the story of our salvation, an exposition of our journey in faith. This story is a spiritual map of Christian lives lived out in ten thousand places everyday in our parish: the hunger for healing, the compassion of Jesus, some faithless “realism", the risk of bringing only what we have, the transformation of our lack into much, the abundance of God’s provision that surprises us at every turn, the blessings given to us to give to others, our spiritual refreshment and delight. It’s all here. It’s the story of us!
And it's not only worth telling, but it’s indispensable to telling the Gospel at all.
Colin+
Image Credit: The Feeding of the Five Thousand by John Reilly (1928-2010). Oil on board, 1958. Methodist Modern Art Collection.
