Friday, September 8, 2017

Matthew 14:13-21 "The Mathematics of Dancing"

Matthew 14:13-21
            Once upon a time there were three mice that died and went to heaven.  The trio had been there only a couple of days before St. Peter stopped by and asked them how they were doing, whether they enjoyed being in heaven, and, because they had been very good mice on earth, if he could make their eternal stay more pleasurable in any way.
            The mice all agreed that they liked being in heaven very much.  However, they did have one minor complaint. You see, they explained, because they had such short legs, it was awfully hard for them to get around because heaven was so big. 
            St. Peter thought for a moment, snapped his fingers, and said he had just the thing to help them.  Shortly thereafter, an angel came to the mice and gave each of them a set of roller skates.  The mice put them on right away.  You can imagine their delight when now they could zip around heaven and really enjoy themselves.  And so they did, traveling far and wide without a care.
            A little while later, a cat died and also went to heaven. As was his custom, after a couple of days, St. Peter stopped by and asked the cat how he liked his new eternal home. 
            The cat grinned a rather Cheshire cat sort of grin and clapped its front paws together in a show of great excitement. "Oh, boy, do I ever like being in heaven! I am having a great time, and I am really enjoying myself. And most of all, I love those meals on wheels."
            I suppose for many of us, it does not matter much where our food comes from.  I suspect that was the case with those 5000 people (not including, for some unknown reason, all the women and children) the folks who had followed Jesus from the town square in Capernaum along the shoreline and into the hills where they now unfurled their picnic blankets and unfolded their lawn chairs and spread themselves out on the hillside before him.  
            Jesus, for his part, had been hoping to avoid such a scene.  He desperately needed some alone time.  You see, he had just heard the horrific news about his mentor, John the Baptist.  John had been arrested as a terrorist and imprisoned for inciting the masses, urging repentance and promising forgiveness if they would but turn to God first rather than to the corrupt and ruthless secular powers-that-be.  
            Such an inflammatory message did not sit well with Herod the King.  And so when the opportunity to get rid of John afforded itself (on Herod’s birthday, no less), the King jumped at the chance.  
In the grisly guise of granting a wish to his lovely young stepdaughter following the enchanting birthday dance she had done for him, Herod offed John the Baptist and served up his head that very night on a silver platter.  
            No wonder Jesus needed some alone time!  Imagine his grief and despair, not to mention the terrifying and haunting question of whether anything like that could ever happen to him.  But the crowds did not know what Jesus was thinking or feeling.  They just knew he was a healer, and so they amassed themselves on the hillside.  They spread themselves out at his feet, all 5000 of them we are told, plus the women and children, of course.  
            Now, Jesus might have turned his back on all those folks.  It was well within his rights.  No one said he had to run a 24-hour medical clinic.  He owed them nothing.  
            He could have had his disciples cover for him, capture the congregation’s attention with a little song and dance while he took the back road into Capernaum.  He could have put his own desires first and figured that his need for alone time was far more important than anything that might be bothering the halt and the lame, 
the sick and the sick at heart who sat on the hillside, ready to receive his healing touch, hanging on his every word.  
            But Jesus did not.  Instead, the Gospel writer tells us in this tale that is found in all four of our Gospels and so in some way must be of the utmost importance, Jesus did not leave.  You see, he felt compassion welling up from his very soul and could not leave even if he wanted to.  
            Instead of turning away, Jesus turned toward the crowd and spent the afternoon healing – bring hope to the hopeless and peace to those who until now could find no peace.  And the lame threw away their crutches, and the dumb spoke words of gratitude while the formerly deaf listened intently.  The blind looked around in wonder as the sun was beginning to set.  And the whole world seemed to dance.
            And the disciples, ever the practical ones but who never did know a real miracle when they saw one, broke into those precious moments of compassion.  They understood only the scarcity of sunlight at the end of the day and the fact that, once again, they were not absolutely certain where their next meal would come from.  And so they approached this pivotal moment the way they approached their whole lives – with a sort of cool skepticism.
         “We’re way out in the country,” they declared matter-of-factly.  “And it’s getting late. Send all these people on their way,” they whined.  “They need to go back to their villages and get some supper. Tell them to go home.  Besides, we are getting a wee bit hungry,” they complained.
         However, Jesus was not done with the miracle of compassion – or perhaps the miracle of compassion was not done with him yet.
             And so he replied, “There is no need to dismiss them. They do not need to go home yet.  Why cut this miracle short?  You give them supper.”
         “You want us to do what?  All we have are five loaves of bread and two fish,” Peter, James, John, and the others replied in disbelief.  “Come on, get real.  Do the math.”
         And lo and behold, Jesus did the math – though it was not the math the disciples expected.  He took the five loaves and two fish – and saw in his hands not that which he did not have, but rather that which he did have.  And he looked out at the crowd – all 5000 of them plus the women and children.  He knew that some of them would follow him nearly to the end. 
He knew as well that others had already begun to criticize him.  But no matter!  He looked out at all of them with compassion.
         He lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed, broke, and gave the bread and the fish to the disciples. The disciples then gave the food to the congregation. They all ate their fill, and then the disciples gathered twelve baskets of leftovers – one for each of them to take to the local food pantry.
         We call this tale of the feeding of the 5000 a miracle story.  However, it becomes too easy to ignore if we are deluded into thinking that the miracle here was that five loaves of bread and two fish did the trick for a massive picnic dinner.  It is too easy to put the story aside as something that happened once long ago and far away and consequently is irrelevant to us – too far-fetched nowadays to really take seriously. 
         It is like the story of a nine-year-old who came bursting out of Sunday school like a wild stallion. His eyes were darting in every direction as he tried to locate either mom or dad. Finally, after a quick search, he grabbed his father by the leg and yelled, "Man, that story of Moses and all those people crossing the Red Sea was great!" His father looked down, smiled, and asked the boy to tell him about it.
         "Well, the Israelites got out of Egypt, but Pharaoh and his army chased after them. So the Jews ran as fast as they could until they got to the Red Sea. The Egyptian Army was gettin' closer and closer. So Moses got on his walkie-talkie and told the Israeli Air Force to bomb the Egyptians. While that was happening, the Israeli Navy built a pontoon bridge so the people could cross over. They made it!
         By now his dad was shocked. "Is THAT the way they taught you the story?"
         Well, no, not exactly," the boy admitted, "but if I told you the way they told it to us, you'd never believe it, Dad." 
         All that being said, if you choose to interpret this story of the feeding of the 5000 literally, it is certainly a very impressive feat.  I will give you that much!
         However, I think this story had profound importance to the early church for another reason.  What if the story of the feeding of so many people with so little was simply an overlay, a veil through which to witness an even greater miracle that might somehow come down through the ages to touch us, here this morning, in this little church that struggles to meet its budget, that too often thinks about what we do not have rather than what we do have? 
What if this story is not about an event that may or may not have happened at a single time and in a single place over two millennia ago?  What if this story was meant to speak to us?  Would it raise a question of higher mathematics?  Or would it raise a question of just how deep our moral fiber runs and to what extent we embrace the grace of God?
         I think the miracle of this story is not that the loaves and fishes were divided and multiplied to feed 5000 people - plus the women and children.  It is not a question of divine mathematics.  Rather, I think the miracle lies elsewhere, and it is three-fold. 
         The first part begins even before Jesus blesses, breaks, and shares the bread and fish.  It centers on Jesus’ compassion that overwhelmed his most ardent desire at that moment to be cut off from the world.  Somewhere deep within his heart, in spite of his grief and despair at the grotesque execution of John the Baptist, Jesus comes out of his funk and spends the afternoon doing what he does best, and that is healing. 
        

         When he thought he most wanted to tuck himself away, instead he responded to that divine nudge and opened himself up.  When he most wanted to minister to himself, he ministered to those in need.  And when he did, the whole world danced. 
         What if compassion was a ruling force in our lives?  What if, when faced with a choice to turn inward into ourselves or turn outward to the world, we chose the latter?  Would the world dance?
         Second, Jesus understood that God’s dream for the world centered on embracing a theology of abundance rather than scarcity.  As UCC pastor Stan Duncan wrote, “The disciples’ first response was to worry about how little they had to offer.  There are so many people down there, and our resources are so tiny.  Jesus responded simply:  share what you have, and let’s see what happens.” 
         The disciples lived out of a theology of scarcity:  We don’t have enough to go around.  Duncan continues:  “We can’t feed all those people with our meager provisions.  Somewhat similar to comments we hear so frequently today, that America can no longer afford to care for its poor people.  Even though we are the richest country in the world, we simply can’t afford to give hungry people SNAP or WIC or School Lunch Programs….
Jesus, on the other hand, had a theology of abundance:  share what you have…It’s true you can’t feed everyone.  It’s true there will always be suffering.  You can’t make it go away.  But that is no reason to do nothing.”
         What if we lived out a dream of abundance rather than scarcity?  What if we trusted that we had enough to pay our personal bills as well as tithe (or even half tithe) to support the far-reaching ministries of our church?  Would the world dance?
         Third, Jesus did not do a “manna from heaven” trick and have bread rain down on the folks on the hillside.  He asked his disciples to do the work.  He had them take the bread he had blessed and he had them keep passing it around until all were fed.  He had them discover first hand the power of embracing abundance.  He laid upon them the obligation of feeding those who were hungry. 
         As Episcopal priest Roy Almquist notes, “The story is a clear call for the Church of Jesus Christ to be a compassionate Church, which hears the cries of people and responds to their needs. You give them something to eat! It matters not whether they are like us, members of our families, or people of our ethnic background. If they are in need we must respond!
The story also reminds us that all people deserve our concern, as God’s instruments, simply by virtue of being in need, hungry, lost, and alone.” The love of God is grace-filled and inclusive.
         What if we took really seriously the responsibility of being Jesus’ 21st century disciples?  What if doing the work of God’s dream was the focus of our lives?  What if it was the hinge point of our financial decisions?  What if what we gave to sustain the work of this congregation was as important as paying our mortgage or rent and our utilities – and not an afterthought for when our regular and discretionary expenses were covered?  Would the world dance? 
         In the end, the loaves and fishes are incidental to this Gospel story. Multiplication and division are irrelevant.  This is not a story about divine mathematics, but rather human possibilities. This is a story of what happens when compassion, a theology of abundance, and a willingness to make a difference and to change lives converge and intermingle. This is a story about making the world dance.

 
            


 
            

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