Seventh Sunday after Trinity, 2009
"In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples to Him and said to them, 'I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.'
"Then His disciples answered Him, 'How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?'
"He asked them, 'How many loaves do you have?'
"And they said, 'Seven.'
"So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and they set them before the multitude. They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before them. So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And He sent them away. . ." Mark 8:1-9
“We are God’s guests and ‘tis He who keeps the generous table.” This remark came out of the mouth of a very poor man. We don’t hear many people talk that way.
“We are God’s guests and ‘tis He who keeps the generous table.” One reason we don’t much talk this way is that rich people turn to their resources to help them eat and drink. The poor are left with God – or worse, the government! – to look after them.
But there are no resources to be had in a deserted region. Just as this crowd depended completely on Jesus to feed them spiritually for three days, now they need Him to feed them physically. Hunger is a great leveler in society. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor; when there isn’t any food to be had, we are all at the mercy of God.
Perhaps it is no surprise that Jesus has fed them in this story. He’d been doing that all their lives, whether they realized it or not. What is significant here is that we get a glimpse into the heart of God. We find out that it is a heart of mercy. A vast country of unhorizoned space where Christ makes room for the needs of all. The poor, the sick, the desperate; each has a place in the heart of God. What else can it mean when Jesus says He has compassion on the crowd? They have taken hold of His heart without even trying. He will not let them go away empty handed.
So this is a Gospel about mercy. It’s an antidote against anxiety and depression. It’s a story we should take out and recite whenever life seems impossible. It shoots down all the down-to-earth, realistic talk that would sooner look at our balance sheets than our Bibles. While the disciples are certain there is no way to provide anything, the Lord is providing so much that there is a feast for four thousand famished people – With leftovers!
And still, this is hard to believe.
The problem we have is that we have forgotten who is providing for us. We have not looked deeply enough into the heart of Jesus. We don’t seem to remember that He is compassionate and powerful. We see our limited resources, and we think that the Lord must be just as limited as we are. It’s a lack of trust and a lack of faith, and we often call it being realistic. We push God right outside of what we consider to be reality. Typical disciples.
Jesus doesn’t let our fretting and doubting stop His compassion. He takes the little bit of bread and the tidbits of fish that were used to add flavor, speaks the blessing and distributes. And everyone is full. That’s reality. We place whatever we have into the hands of Christ and we receive it back, blessed and changed by Him. In Jesus’ hands of blessing we often find that what we already have provides enough for us and satisfies us completely.
Still, this is hard to believe.
I can look at my life with all its deficits and all of my fear that there won’t be enough, and I am always sinking deeper into despair. Or, I can take heart from this story and place my confidence in the Good Shepherd and place whatever I have into God’s hands, receiving it back with thanksgiving after He has blessed it, and find that I have contentment and trust that each day it is His care to look after me.
What is God’s care like?
There was this bishop who cared so deeply for the sick and needy that he gave up his palace to turn it into a hospital. He took his expense account and turned it over to the care of the poor throughout his district. The peasants gave him the nickname of ‘L’évec Bienvenue’ that is, “Bishop Welcome.” There was a genuine hospitality for everyone in this bishop’s heart.
One day His Grace was asking the rich nobility in his region to make donations for the poor. He was asking for their compassion. No one turned him down except one miserly noble. “You must give me something,” he said to the man.
“I have my own poor to take care of, Your Grace,” he growled.
“Then you must give them to me.”
Give them to me. When no one wants to trouble himself with us, Jesus says, “Give him to me.” When the disciples want the crowds to be sent away, Jesus won’t let their problems be sent away. God will take your money, your food, your empty stomach, your pain, your children’s needs, your broken dreams, your perspective on life – bless them and hand them back greater, more abundant, and more satisfying than you ever could have imagined. You have captured His heart simply by being the object of His compassion.
At times this will seem impossible – when it is dark and you are stumbling around very upset. Don’t fret the outcome. You have a guide who will not stumble. He has, after all, gotten up from His fall into death. There is nothing now left to trip Him. You are safe in His hands. Jesus proves it in this Gospel.
In a few moments we shall be seated together at the Holy Supper. If the Good Shepherd feeds us there, He will feed us in other places, too. “We are his guests and ‘tis He who keeps a generous table.” If a poor man can be convinced of that, then we who are rich can be, too. Amen.
The Reverend Sean M. Smallwood
cruxprobatomnia -- the cross tests everything
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