JUL 31, 2011  SERMON ARCHIVE

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen.

The text for our meditation today is the Gospel Lesson of the Day, St. Matthew chapter 14:13-22. There we read these words:

When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food." Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered. "Bring them here to me," he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.

Dear Christian friends:

I have spent most of the past twenty years learning and relearning a lesson that all pastors must continually learn and relearn. And the lesson, which is not an easy one to learn, is this: I cannot fix things. I am not talking about my inability to work on a car engine or to repair Jeeps and make them way cool or to raise Chevrolet Pickups to heaven or anything like that. I am talking about the fact that I cannot "fix" people.

I cannot fix your bodies, I cannot strengthen your feeble knees, I cannot heal your diseases or removing your cancers. I cannot fix your relationships with each other, I cannot make you more able to love your family, I cannot spare you any pain or shame at the way your family may treat you. I cannot repair your broken heart or calm your anger, I cannot renew your youth or make any single one of your believe anything more than what you now believe.

And I cannot do any of that stuff for myself, either. And what is more, I have also come to realize that none of this comes as a surprise to you.

However, it always comes as a surprise to me. I must relearn yet again and again that I cannot fix things. I must-along with every brother pastor I have in parishes around this country and throughout this world-I must continually look at the enormity of the task I have been given, and I must continually confess with the disciples, "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish" (Matthew 14:17). In other words, dearest Lord Jesus, there is no way that these few scraps in our possession will care for all the people you have gathered around us!

Dear friends, did you know that with the exception of Jesus' miraculous resurrection from the dead, the feeding of the 5,000 holds the honor of being the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. All four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John take special pains to report this miracle, and they each do so in considerably more detail than the other miracles that Jesus performed. That simple fact alone leads to the suspicion that this miracle-more than any of the countless other miracles of Jesus-this miracle contains some particular, ongoing significance for the Christian faith.

However, even though this miracle is recorded by all four evangelists, this Gospel Lesson before us gives us no opportunity to learn whether or not the people who had gathered together in that lonely place understood the significance of the event. The only thing St. Matthew tells us is this: "[The people] ate and were satisfied" (Matthew 14:20).

Dear friends, there were more men, women and children at this gathering than the entire population of Nora Springs, Rockford, and Manly put together along with a few from Plymouth and Rock Falls thrown in. In fact, you could probably add to that the population of Rudd, if you wanted, and they all got what they came for: their sick were healed, and a free meal was thrown in as a bonus.

The people "ate and were satisfied" (Matthew 14:20), and that is all we are told about the whole lot of them. No one expresses the least bit of amazement, as they did when Jesus calmed the storm (Matthew 2:27). No one is recorded as having said, "What kind of man is this, who turns a few loaves of bread into food for thousands?" Nor is a single word of thanks expressed by anyone present, not for the healings or for the miraculous food., not for anything.

There is not even a mention of Jesus' enemies, who in other cases doggedly follow Him around and challenge His every word and every act. None of that appears in this seemingly significant miracle. The one and only reaction among the people is that they "ate and were satisfied" (Matthew 14:20).

The disciples, however, were not such easy recipients of this spontaneous and divine act. In this Gospel, the disciples are confronted with the stark reality of Jesus' call to discipleship, a call that looks upon their utter poverty of both body and spirit, and in spite of that poverty demands of these men, "You give them something to eat" (Matthew 14:16). Do not send these people somewhere else; do not tell them that you have nothing to give; do not turn them away! "You-most emphatically, you-give them something to eat."

No longer were the disciples allowed to stand by and watch the Lord Jesus do His work, but now the Lord Jesus threw His task toward them: "You give them something to eat."

With these words of God, the disciples immediately saw the enormity of their task, for with the command came also the realization that they could not do that which they are given to do. They must feed the people, the thousands of people, and they must do so with only five loaves and two fish.

But, dear friends in Christ. The Lord who made the demand is the very same Lord who would fulfill the demand through His own grace and mercy. The disciples answered, "We have here only five loaves and two fish" (Matthew 14:17) and Jesus replied, "Bring them here to Me" (Matthew 14:18). And here, now, is a significant thing, both for the people who gather around Jesus and for those who are sent to serve them:

Jesus said to His disciples, "Gather those few little morsels you have and bring them to Me." You will indeed feed these people, but you will do so using the gifts that I provide; I will supply their needs, and I will do so through you.

So, you see dear friends, it does not matter that I cannot fix things, not any more than it matters that the disciples had in their possession only five loaves and two fish for all of the people gathered there. These things do not matter because the Lord Jesus will supply everything that is lacking in your life as well as in mine.

These things do not matter because the Lord Jesus took His disciples' small gifts and He prospered them, so that after everyone had eaten and had been satisfied, they "picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over" (Matthew 14:20).

And this is the lesson that I and every other pastor must continually relearn, that the Office of the Ministry is not about me; it is not about the men who served here before me and it is not about those who will come after me. We do not come to give you our own gifts, for these are as meager as five loaves and two fish. We come only to bring you Jesus' gifts, and these are more than sufficient to satisfy your hunger and your thirst for righteousness.

The Office of the Ministry is about Jesus and only Jesus: It is about Jesus' crucifixion, Jesus' resurrection, Jesus' service of His true body and blood; Jesus' ongoing life among you who are the people of God. The Office of the Ministry is all about what Jesus supplies to His people, to you and to me, distributed through men who see that they are just as impoverished as those to whom they are sent.

The Lord Jesus faithfully supplies all that we lack, so that the abundance of His gifts to you overflows continually and unceasingly. I may have but five loaves and two fishes to give you, but your Lord and mine faithfully supplies infinitely more than that, meeting all of our needs, both yours and mine.

It is a sobering thing for a Pastor to realize, to realize that I cannot fix things for you. But it is also truly uplifting when together we discover by the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst all that God has accomplished for us. And truly, God has accomplished much.

For Christ Is Risen.