10th Sunday after Pentecost Sermon

Ten years ago I went on a four month sabbatical,  just as Eric is preparing to do.  I was fortunate to have been provided a generous grant for this time apart by the Lilly Foundation through their Clergy Renewal program.  This program didn’t require a course of study while on sabbatical, in fact, it was quite the opposite.  They simply asked that the recipient determine how they would best be renewed by the time away and that I create a broad, overarching sort of theme.

I became curious about the ways that community forms, inside and outside of places of faith, around meals and tables.  Inside faith communities this is somewhat obvious:  we gather at the table for Eucharist; we gather for times of fellowship, which I must say we do spectacularly well here.  We gather for potlucks in church basements and picnics in the summer.

And outside of the church, people gather in all sorts of places around many sorts of tables:  in homes and hospitals; in diners, dives, and drive-in’s to borrow a phrase.  We gather around campfires and in five star restaurants.  We gather in high chairs and wheel chairs.

Now some might have questioned whether my Sabbatical topic was merely an excuse to go to a lot of different places to eat in a lot of different places around the globe.   But that was simply a bonus by-product.

Because here’s what I learned.  Relationships happen over meals.  Good things happen when we gather at tables.  Community forms there.  People get to know each other.  In many places groups of people gather regularly.  In some cultures and communities, it is normative for strangers to be placed together at restaurant tables for the sake of efficient seating and before you know it – across all sorts of barriers – connection happens.  We once sat with a group of Finns celebrating Finnish Independence Day and while we didn’t understand a word of it, it was a grand celebration indeed, and they included us warmly.  On another occasion we were seated at a German wurst haus with a widow who ate there every night, at the same table.  Each night the wait staff would seat someone new with her so she never ate alone.

It’s no wonder then, that so many of the stories of Jesus’ ministry happen around a meal.  Or around a table.  His first miracle is at a wedding reception.  He eats in the home of his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  He eats with tax collectors and other marginalized people; those for whom the culture would not pull up a chair and break bread.  His feet are washed with the tears of a woman at a meal.  He is known on the road in the breaking of bread.  He grills fish for breakfast on the beach.  And he gathers for a Passover meal before he is betrayed and arrested.

And in today’s reading we have a familiar story of a hungry crowd and scarce food.

But to really understand today’s story, we have to back up to the portion of this chapter in Matthew that the assigned reading doesn’t give us.  Because just before today’s Gospel reading opens, Jesus has learned that his friend, his cousin, his prophet, his baptizer….John, has been killed.  Murdered by Herod in a terrible story that is told as Matthew 14 begins.  So our reading picks up with “now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”

He withdrew, as one often does in new and unimaginable grief, to process and pray, to be alone with news that would leave him changed.  Many of us have been here, too.

And the writer of Matthew’s Gospel goes on in the story: when the crowds heard this they followed him on foot from their towns.  And the story goes on to say that when Jesus went ashore he saw a great crowd.

So the story comes together in a clearer way:  Jesus, in his new and raw grief, gets into a boat to go away to a deserted place.  The crowds hear of this – of John’s beheading, of Jesus’ grief, of his getting into the boat to set out for solitude and they leave their towns to go to the deserted place, where we can just picture them: standing on the shore – watching for his boat.  Mourning for John.  Empathizing with Jesus.

This is the part of the story that sets the scene for what we know with perhaps the most familiarity from the 14th chapter of Matthew. The disciples come to Jesus with a very practical problem:  it’s been a long day, there’s a big crowd who is getting hungry, who had left their towns in haste, without provision.  Just send them away, the disciples say.  Let them go into the village and buy food.  And when Jesus tells the disciples to feed them, the disciples note that they have five loaves and two fish but they give absolutely no indication that they are planning to share.

And then Jesus does what Jesus does.  He takes what the disciples have, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it back to them to share and everyone eats.  5000 men plus the women and children who the Gospel writer doesn’t bother to count.

But they count, they matter….they all matter, to Jesus.

In the course of these nine verses, Jesus has had compassion for the people who, I also believe, had compassion for him.  When he sees them gathered there on the shore, watching for his boat to arrive, we are told he has compassion on them and he heals their sick.  That’s the first thing he does.  He doesn’t ask why they can’t just leave him alone and let him mourn John in peace.  He doesn’t turn the boat around and head back, although he would have been entirely justified in doing so.  Instead, he shows them his heart, his compassionate heart, and he heals their sick.

And then, when the disciples show an astonishing lack of compassion for the assembled crowds, Jesus doesn’t chastise them either.  He simply gives them food to feed them.

He provides a way for the disciples to follow him.

Bread was broken and shared there on a beach.  Fish, too.

And maybe food appeared from elsewhere.  Maybe the uncounted women who’d made the journey had actually grabbed food out of their larder when the crowds set out.  Or maybe some of the men had gone into the village in the course of the day and brought food back.

It doesn’t matter how it happened.  It matters that it happened.

There are many things we can take away from this beloved story and they are worth naming and yours might not be the same as mine.  This is the beauty of Scripture: that it speaks a new and living word to us differently across time and among those who hear it.

But here’s what I want to offer to us, this beloved community of faith in this beautiful harbor on this day:

People come to tables with their hearts broken.  And they come with hearts broken open.  And they come with compassion to offer.  And  we are those who come to the table.  Jesus invites us here, to this table, exactly as we are.  Perfection is not a prerequisite.

It is in the gift of community that we meet one another – exactly as we are.  In our brokenness.  In our joys.  In our doubting.  In our hungers.

There is no need to prove our worthiness to be fed.  Jesus doesn’t ask for that hungry crowd to prove that they need food.  He simply feeds them.

Dear people of God at St. John’s, bring your hungers here; if you have food to share, Jesus invites you to share it.  Because he stands at the table and blesses this meal and every meal so that we might be fed and healed and sent out to feed others.   Thanks be to God.  Amen.