Sermon Matthew
14:13-21 August 6, 2017 Communion Ordinary Time
Are You Hungry?
All I could think about at the beginning of this week’s VBS
as we were filled to the gills with young people, was, “is there enough?”
We are still unsure of how we went
from 23 registered little ones for VBS to 38, then 42. Perhaps it was the radio
advertisement, perhaps, it was friends of little ones that came before. In 20
minutes, the room was full of young people and parents and the buzzing sound of
happiness. And the buzzing sound of leaders discovering their ability to adapt
in a heartbeat.
This week has been a miracle,
a wonder,
at times incomprehensible,
and a reality of a blessing.
God was in the midst of us
fulfilling promises
and offering us the reality of
salvation!
The story of Jesus in the desert seeking quiet is a story
about the One we call our Savior.
It’s
a story that helps us live into the power of God present with us fulfilling
promises and offering us the reality of salvation.
We have tried so often to turn the stories of the Bible into
scientific stories.
We have spent a lot of time trying to rationalize the
miracle out of the stories we read. Jesus walked on stones beneath the surface,
not on the water-people shared their food rather than the miracle of
multiplication.
We debunk the miracle and only claim the humanity and
compassion of Jesus. I think over the decades of historical criticism we have minimalized the God we serve and the
God we worship.
Jesus has just been told of the death of John the Baptist.
He is in deep grief.
Grief struck so suddenly is paralyzing.
It creates a numbness,
an inability to focus and a
need to get away and
regroup the brain to know how to go forward.
Jesus needed to get away in his grief.
It was not about the crowds and their needs
it was his need to process this devastating news.
So, he sought to go to a place alone.
But, when he arrived he was greeted by the crowds.
Instead of being angry or frustrated, or indignant of the crowd’s lack
of understanding of his needs, he turns to them with compassion.
Every time I read that about Jesus, it blows me away.
I’m a horrible introvert and I need my alone time to regroup
and get my act together to be able to meet folks with a cheery smile. And I
blow it all the time.
We discover the person of Jesus as he reaches out in
compassion to those who follow him. His
grief is processed through his outpouring of his love for those who need
healing, and those who need love, and those who need to be touched by the
kindness of another, and those who need to be acknowledges as human.
The crowd was hungry.
And Jesus knew it.
And he provided them filled them til they were full.
In his compassion, he healed them. Jesus stayed with them
and the day turned to evening and Jesus was still with them.
The disciples were hungry by then.
I can hear their tummies rumbling as they tell Jesus to send
the crowd home to get their own supper. Jesus is now more than just a teacher
to follow and be amazed at all he can do.
Jesus, looks at his disciples and tells them to feed the
crowd.
They look at him through limited lenses.
They only have five loaves and two fish.
And as far as they are concerned they are ready to get to
town because that’s nowhere near enough for all of them let alone share with a
crowd of lesser people.
Jesus offers them the miracle.
He offers them the chance to distribute fulfillment to a
hungry crowd.
But they fail to see the possibility of a miracle.
They fail to see the
power of God present with them.
They fail to see the reality
of salvation being fulfilled.
They fail to see the
Messiah in their midst who fulfills God’s promises.
They dismiss the
opportunity.
We are no different from the disciples.
We are constantly excluding the power of God to work
salvation in history.
We lack the imagination that things contrary to nature can
happen.
Perhaps we are not
hungry enough.
Perhaps we are too filled up on our own selves to be hungry
for God.
Perhaps, we are stuffed with our own self-righteousness that
we fail to see God still working contrary to nature for the sake of our
salvation.
God can’t do anything
with us without our desire, our hunger, our need for the presence of God with
us.
If we can be hungry.
If we can chase after Jesus and meet him and desire him.
If we can be hungry enough to let him feed us.
We can have enough imagination to believe the miracle of how
he feeds us til we are stuffed to the gills.
Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves and
gave them to his disciples and they gave them to the crowds and ALL ate and were
filled.
Are you hungry?
May we be hungry.
May we be Blessed. May we be Broken. May we be Offered. May we be Filled.
Amen.
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