Sermon  --   August 3, 2008  ------          Rev. Gwen Davis

Matthew 14:13-21      Feeding more than five thousand.

I don’t usually put a name to my sermons – but there are so many ways to feed many.

It is appropriate today when we are partaking of the Lord’s Supper, that the gospel reading should be one of the stories of the feeding of more than five thousand people, probably more like ten thousand ie. five thousand men and all the women and children according to Matthew. The story has been much thought of as a miracle story.  But I think there is a more important side to this story.  The story comes immediately after Jesus has heard that his cousin, friend, perhaps even mentor, John, has been beheaded.  The story says that when Jesus heard this he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.  Like all of us, when someone near to us dies, we need some time to just be by ourselves.  But sometimes a greater need becomes obvious and we have to put aside our own grief and minister to those around us.

That is obviously how it was for Jesus that day.  He was a popular teacher and healer and when the crowds found out where he was going they followed him.  The traditional setting of that story is on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  Some years ago I was in Israel, out in a boat on that sea.  We looked across the water  to a hillside, and I tried to imagine ten thousand people sitting or standing on that hillside, Jesus walking among them, healing their sick, teaching them while the time slipped by and it was almost dusk.  I tried to imagine the disciples coming to Jesus, begging  him to send the crowds away.  Jesus compassion for the crowds was already obvious.  He had given up his private personal time in order to teach and heal.  One would have thought that he would like to send them all away by this time.  We disembarked from t he boat and climbed up a hill to where there is a chapel, and an outdoor chapel where we sat around on benches and listened to the story we have just read.  And I imagined the disciples wanting to send the people away.

But ‘no’;  instead Jesus said, “ They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”  That short sentence has always struck me as an important message for the disciples and for us.  The compassion that Jesus demonstrated was unending.  Part of his teaching of the kingdom of God here and now, is that that compassion would be part of the experience of the kingdom of God.    I suspect most of us have experienced that in one way or another.  Perhaps as recipient of that compassion, or as one who feels in their gut that this is something they need to do.

I heard on the radio last week an author speaking about a book she has written about a couple in Holland during the last years, 1944 and 45, of the Second World War.  The first person who they took into their home was a downed airman, who they could either shelter or turn over to the German authorities.  They decided to shelter him.  That was the beginning for them of that overwhelming sense of compassion for others in need.  From then on they took in many – children off the street, airmen, Jews.  At one time they had 26 people in their home.  They hid them.  They fed them – often hard pressed to find enough food.  And always they were in danger of being discovered, and would most certainly have been killed.   A time when they put aside their own comfort and safety in order to reach out to others and in many cases save their lives.  They did not send them away; they gave them something to eat.

When I was doing my internship at First United Church in Vancouver, I led a women’s Bible Study group.  Most of the women who came had some kind or other of mental illness and could act in some disorderly ways.  But they liked the group and the friendship that we had there.  Near the end of my internship, I decided that I would like to have them to my apartment for lunch.  This was not something that would have been encouraged, but I discussed it with my supervisor and decided that I could give it a try.  So I issued the invitation.  The day of the lunch I did not go down to the mission.  I stayed home and cooked and spread the table with my best china and linens.  I heard later from the staff that there was great excitement that morning.  The women had gathered and pooled resources in order to get a cab to come to my place.  They arrived and we dined.  We had a wonderful time.  When it came time to leave, they wondered how they would get home.  Some of them I drove in my car.  The rest were able to use their bus passes to find their own way  home .  I remember writing about this occasion and saying that they say we shouldn’t take poor people to our homes because it would make them feel bad.  But, I wrote, my friends didn’t feel bad.  They just had a good meal and a good time.  I have to think that that was a time where my compassion was in evidence. I did not keep them away; I gave them something to eat.

Have you heard the story of Babette’s  Feast, written by Isak Dinesen and made into a movie? It is the story of two elderly pious Christian sisters.  They live in a small village on the western coast of Jutland in the 19^th century.  They are daughters of a pastor of a strict sect .  The members lived on the pastor’s premises.  After his death, the sect drew no new converts, but the sisters presided over the remaining flock of white-haired believers. In their youth they had both been beauties and courted by suitors visiting Jutland.  Both of them reject the suitors and live a life of quiet piety, following in their father’s footsteps.  When they are in their fifties, Babette appears.  She has a letter from one of the sister’s former suitor, introducing her as a refugee and recommending her as a housekeeper. The sisters take her in, and she spends fourteen years as their cook.  She gradually eases the lives of the sisters and those in the village. A friend in Paris renews a lottery ticket in Babette’s name every year.  Babette wins the lottery and decides to prepare a feast for the sisters and their congregation.  This is an outpouring of Babette’s appreciation, and she spends her entire winnings ordering sumptuous ingredients, fine china and crystal from her native France. The sisters have agreed to the feast, but they worry that the meal will be too much of a sensual luxury or perhaps some kind of deviltry.  They decide with the congregation that they will eat the meal but will not mention the food during the dinner.  Babette  prepares this extraordinary banquet, try as they may they could not reject the earthly pleasures  of the food and drink. One person describes it this way: Babette’s extraordinary gifts as a Chef de Cuisine and a true connoisseur, so characteristically French, breaks their distrust and superstitions, elevating them not only physically but spiritually.  Old wrongs are forgotten, ancient loves are rekindled, and a mystical redemption of the human spirit settles over the table – thanks to the general elatoin nurtured by the consumption of so many fine culinary delicacies and spirits. The eucharistic, albeit mundane celebration around the table shadows the “infinite grace…that had been allotted to them, and they do not even wonder at the fact, for it had been but the fulfillment of an everlasting hope.”    She did not send them away; she gave them something to eat – using all of her considerable winnings.

Just one more personal story.  I went to Mexico one year on a Global Awareness Through Experience tour.  We travelled out of Mexico City and up a long winding road, riding in the back of a cattle truck.  We came to a small settlement – a co-op where people were learning to make furniture and then once a week would take it down the long winding road to town to sell what they had constructed.  We arrived and were shown around their carpentry area and then invited to sit at tables in an open to the air room.  We had seen as we arrived numerous old hens running around.   By and by the women came in with bowls and a huge pot of chicken stew which was served to us.  They themselves did not partake of the food.  It was perhaps the best chicken stew I had ever tasted and I knew that when they knew we were coming they had killed one of those precious old hens and prepared this feast for us.  We felt guilty eating from their little resources, but it would have been worse to refuse it.  The other significant thing that happened for me there was their sharing with us some pulche.  We had heard of this drink that is made from the fermented milk from a cactus plant.  We had mentioned that we would like to taste it.  The folks produced two cups (with Pepsi Cola written on them) that contained pulche.  We passed them from person to person, each taking a sip.  At that moment it became for me a Eucharist.    I will never forget those folks.  They did not send us away; they gave us something to eat. 

And so we come around the table this morning to partake of the Eucharist – the Lord’s Supper – Holy Communion – whatever you wish to call it.  I believe we come, as Jesus told his disciples, that whenever we eat together and sip the wine together, we remember him.  We remember the compassion of Jesus that we find in so many stories about him.  We remember here his life of teaching and healing and eating together with folks from all walks of life.  We remember his death on the cross.  We remember his being raised again so that we might know new life here and in life beyond death.  We know that Jesus does not send us away.  Jesus gives us something to eat.    We are all invited to partake.  Can we, in our lives, do less?  Let us remember  - let us leave this place having partaken of that remembering and that compassion.  Jesus is with us. We are not alone.

---------------back to top---------------------