Trinity 8 Sermon 2 August 2020: : Romans 9, 1-5; Matthew 14, 13-21

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

Jesus feeds the 5000. All four of the gospels record a feeding miracle on a massive scale, though often with the statistics understood in different ways – well, that is the thing with statistics, isn’t it. Sometimes it is 4,000, sometimes 5,000 – sometimes it is just men, other times it is only men recorded, but with a codicil – and women and children as well.

 

Whatever, it is catering on a massive scale with not much of a food supply – many a Greek Mother or grandmother will know the feeling as she creates a tasty meal from almost no ingredients. But this is undersupply on a serious scale. A few loaves, and maybe a few fish, depending on which version you read.

 

Imagine if Jesus were to try and do this in our own time – I guess a fine of €20,000 would be slapped on him, especially if there were no masks, social distancing, and sanitizer, and how much cling film would be needed to wrap each piece of bread before distribution. I am jesting of course – because what we have recorded here in scripture is truly feeding on a miraculous dimension.

 

On the one hand we have the record of the miracle, and it stands for itself; on the other hand we have the joy of how to interpret this. We don’t have a dilemma, by the way. I will not be trying to explain away this glorious miracle, but it in the preacher’s job to give some interpretation for our own context.

Our Lord, as we know, is both fully human and fully divine. The church after decades and almost centuries of division and debate on the ‘two natures’ of Christ has concluded on his full humanity and full divinity. We proclaim this in our Sunday creeds, and in particular the one we call the Nicene Creed.

 

All things, we believe, are possible for God, and so it is possible that in Christ’s divinity events happen that we can only call miracles – they defy the natural order, they break through the regular order of things. So we are able to marvel in the glory of God displayed in the feeding of the 5,000.

 

Regarding his humanity we have some insights into the person of Jesus, which at the same time offer us divine insights – glimpses into the person of God in Christ. Let’s look at this aspect of Jesus for a few moments, before moving on to think of the interpretation.

 

Jesus does indeed self- isolate. We know all about his quarantine of 40 days – for quarantine is indeed 40, not our current version of 14 days, because we read about his 40 days in the Judaean wilderness, that period we refer to as Lent. It is commonly mentioned all through the gospels that Jesus goes off to an isolated place, often to pray. It is not uncommon for some great miracle to happen when he returns from such times of prayer when his heart is united with the heart of God the Father – the model of all prayer life. As St. Augustine of Hippo says of prayer – cor adloquitur cor – heart in conversation with heart.

 

The crowds catch up with Jesus and he heals the sick among them. It is the truly human response between Jesus and the crowd that struck me in particular. We are told that Jesus ‘had compassion for them (vs 14). I checked this out and the NT verb being used for this is σπλαγχνίξομαι. I don’t know if this is a verb current in modern Greek – you can tell me – but when I checked σπλάγχνο means a ‘child’, or ‘of your own flesh’ and σπλαγχνικός means ‘compassionate’. I liked the play on this word. When Jesus has compassion on the crowd, it is not like some sort of social pity, or a guilt trip as so many of us can feel when we see desperate people, but rather a genuine relationship between Jesus as his people. His compassion is as if it were the natural reaction to his own children, people of his own flesh.

 

This takes the compassion of Jesus to an altogether different and deeper level, and reveals the love that God has for us when we cry out ‘Lord have mercy’ – Κύριε ελέισον.

 

Ιt gets late into the evening with no shops or bakeries about. In his divine compassion Jesus takes a few sparse pieces of food and 5,000 are fed. According to St. Matthew the women and children were additional to this number. God is good – all the time. God provides, and he provides abundantly. ‘I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.’ (John 10,10).

 

As to the interpretation of this miracle there are several strands that one could follow. As Christ feeds the 5000 gathered with him, so he feeds us with himself, the bread of life. A friend of mine published a book called ‘Bread for the World’ which I thought summed up well the world’s need to be fed, nourished, nurtured  by the Christ who gave up his life for us – so that we might have life abundant. The church presents the outward signs of this life-giving Christ whenever we celebrate the Holy Liturgy, gathered at the table together as Christ’s people, people of his own flesh, to remind us of that Greek noun again, σπλάγχνο.

 

This offering of himself is truly a cosmic action, a universal action and all may approach, all may eat, and all may know Jesus in bread and wine.

 

This universality is hinted at in the text. After all the 5,000+ have been fed we are told that 12 baskets of bread are gathered up from the crumbs. This is an allusion to the gathering up of the peoples of the 12 Tribes of Israel, as sign that there is a completeness, a fullness, a totality about what has happened within this miraculous event. The whole of Israel, all the people of the Covenant are fed by Jesus.

St. Paul, in that short reading from Romans, touches on this great truth. He acknowledges the chosen-ness of the people of Israel, the faithfulness of God in and through his adopted people, Paul recognizes this and wrestles with this – but he comes to no other conclusion than this:  in Christ Jesus lies the fullness of God’s promise. Christ is the Messiah, the one ‘who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.

 

In this miraculous feeding we have a sign of our inclusion in Christ, and our universality together in and with him. In Christ we are the new Israel; he is the New Covenant; in baptism we are adopted; in our worship we truly approach the throne of glory where angels and archangels sing the endless song, Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.