The Rev. Parker Williams: Give them something to eat. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, before we can really dive into the text this morning, we have to do just a little bit of back work. The text immediately before our gospel passage is the story of a party in Herod's palace.
It's a palace feast of wealth, power, reputation, self protection, and Herod made some rather foolish promises. Remember, John the Baptist, he has imprisoned there in the palace, and Herod became trapped by the image that he was trying to portray to those around him, an image of self protection, an image that he had it all together and he was afraid of appearing weak before those in his court. And Herod's banquet ends with John's head being carried in on a platter. Herod sees people as instruments for protecting his own power. And I couldn't help but think of this text.
Last week, I watched this documentary. You may have heard of the Fyre Festival in 2017. Have you heard of this debacle? It's a crazy story. And it's not so much that somebody's head ended up on a platter, but it was equally as disastrous, I think.
The guy who started it would go at any length to sell an image and preserve his privilege. For months, social media had been filled with these images of a perfect white beach in The Bahamas, filled with celebrities and models and influencers, yachts, bright blue water, luxury villas and gourmet meals that they were selling tickets to this festival for sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. And the promise was that for the right price, you could enter a world of beauty, abundance with all the right people. People bought all the tickets and then some. They bought the image, they bought the promise, they bought the idea of a feast, but when they arrived, hardly any of that actually existed.
The musicians had withdrawn, the luxury villas that they advertised were actually FEMA tents, cramped in with beds that had been soaked by the rain. And eventually, the word got out what was really going on. An image circulated on social media of a Styrofoam box with two slices of stale bread, two small pieces of cheese, and a little pile of salad on the side. The lavish feast that had been promised was anything but. And it became a cultural phenomenon.
It spread everywhere. Everyone was talking about this all over the news, and I think it became a cultural phenomenon not just because of the grand disaster it was, but because we recognized something in this. We know what it is to be promised a feast and be handed a cheese sandwich. We know what it is to pursue a life that is promised to satisfy and discover that we can't perform and we're still hungry. It's all a mirage in a wilderness.
So, Matthew places two banquets before us. One is that of Herod, where John's head ends up on a platter, and the other is what we see Jesus do here in the wilderness. This banquet, Isaiah tells us, comes with where you can buy without cost, where your joy will be fulfilled, where you will be satisfied, but it begins in grief. A little bit of a twist, it begins in grief, not an image that's portrayed as all success but in the reality of the grief that Jesus and his disciples are feeling. Remember, Jesus has just heard that his cousin, his forerunner, John the Baptist is dead.
And the text says he immediately retreats. He wants to go to the wilderness. Don't overlook this. Jesus is grieving. He wants to be alone, in silence, in prayer with his disciples to gather himself and mourn for his friend while it also reminds him of the path that he's heading on.
So he withdraws. And as soon as he tries to get silence, it's all taken away. There is no silence. The crowds have found him. They followed him.
They've come to this beach. The quiet he sought is gone before it began. And the disciples, in grief themselves as well, realize the strain and it gets towards the end of the evening as we heard and they say, let's send them away. After all, this is the responsible thing to do, right? We have all these people.
Nothing to eat. We can't keep doing this. Send them away so they can buy something. The text says Jesus had compassion on them. Compassion.
I think this is a really fascinating word, way it's understood in the ancient Israel. The way they understood in this word, what it connotates. The Greek word is physical. It's a physical thing. It's to have one's bowels yearn.
It comes from the same root as where we get our word for spleen. It's in the gut. It's the inward parts. It's in the ancient world, the seat of emotions. Jesus doesn't merely notice the crowd or feel vaguely sorry for them.
There's something that moves him from within. The disciples likewise, they're not heartless. They're trying to do the responsible thing, let these people have something to eat. But Jesus' response, I don't think we sit here enough, Jesus' response to them, You give them something to eat. Remember, this is anywhere it says the text says 5,000 men.
So if we count women and children, somewhere close to around 10,000 people. If you've ever been to Red Rock Stadium in Colorado, that holds 9,250 people. That helps you picture this a little bit. I can only imagine. I wish I'd been able to see the disciple's face.
I can only imagine if Jordan and I are standing here one day, you know, we just happened to take a day trip to Red Rocks and it's full, and Bishop Brewer walks in and says, hey, you need to feed all these people and do it right now. There would be a bit of a open jawed looking around. I'm not very good at math. Okay? But that's a lot of people.
You give them something to eat. Read with me. You have your worship guide here. Pull this out, open it up to the gospel, and read with me their reply. This is a key part in the text, and I think we read over it too quickly.
I think this is somewhere we need to sit. They Ready? Here we go. They replied, we have nothing here. Stop right there.
We have nothing here. This is why I think the Fyre Festival was a little bit of a cultural phenomenon because we recognize something here as well. I think you know what this feels like. I know I do. Something is being asked of you that is larger than what you can give or handle.
A person we love needs more than we know how to provide. A child needs patience when all of it's gone. A marriage needs tenderness when we do not feel it. A ministry needs gifts we don't possess. Someone asks for help when we're already tired, anxious, stressed, stretched, emotionally empty, when we're faced with a situation to demand something from us and we have absolutely nothing left.
This is the disciples. Not only that they have nothing left internally, but they have nothing physical to give. Five loaves and two fishes, they're empty. This, that spot, is the place where faith begins. That is where faith begins.
This is the place of repentance. One way to understand repentance is simply agreeing with God about reality. Agreeing with God about the reality that we have nothing left. The disciples are not enough for the crowd. Jesus never asked them to pretend otherwise.
And we can't pretend we are enough with what is before us. Look at the text again. We have nothing left. We have nothing here. But.
But. The gospel is not about our adequacy. It's about obedience to the one who is sufficient. What do you have? Five loaves and two fishes.
Nothing here but the question is not whether the loaves are enough, it's if they are willing to trust that little that they have in the hands of Jesus. It's not about if what you have is enough. It's not about if I can muster up enough emotional energy or finances or whatever it may be to be enough. It's about if I'm willing to take the little that's there and place in the hands of Jesus. And he took and he blessed and he broke that which was very meager.
Does that sound familiar? Do those words sound familiar? He took and he blessed and he broke. That's what we do here every week. The Eucharist proclaims the truth of our existence that we are contingent creatures.
We do not make ourselves from ourselves. We do not have life in ourselves. We live because we continually receive that which we cannot muster on our own. Jesus could have made the hunger simply disappear, but instead, he invited the disciples to be honest about reality and to bring what they had. And notice what Jesus does.
He took, blessed, broke and gave to the disciples. And the disciples gave to the crowds. The disciples are not enough for the crowd. Jesus never asked them to do, to be more than what they had. The disciples are not the source of this abundance.
Equally, they're not allowed to be spectators. He invited them to join in what he was doing. What comes from Christ passes through the hands of his people for the life of the world. It was in their own inadequacy that the disciples learned something about their vocation. That is the shape of joy and life in Christ.
We can't pretend that we are enough for what is before us. And the question is not whether we have enough, it is whether what you have been placed in, whatever situation that is, if you are willing to take your meager, whatever it may be, and place it in the hands of Jesus. It's about obedience rather than adequacy. So don't hear this as another task on top of everything else to do when we're empty. We're already overwhelmed.
Jesus does not say find enough strength to go save the world. He says bring what little you have to me. And there's a truth here. A truth here that is kind of just under the surface. And it's, again, it's not something additional to do when we're already overwhelmed or grieving, but it's a fact that emerges when our heart has been illumined by the Spirit.
In grief and exhaustion, it is, of course, good and necessary to retreat. However, at the same time, notice the refreshment that comes when they serve others in their exhaustion. Somehow, when it's put in the hands of Jesus, the exhaustion, the emptiness, it feeds the disciples. There is a bread we receive in feeding the needs of those around us when it is done through Jesus. The world is full of banquets made of images and promises that awaken hunger and cannot satisfy it.
But the banquet cry spreads before us is different. He offers himself, taken, blessed, broken and given for the life of the world and looks at the crowds and in his innermost part feels this compassion. And he says to you, to me, they need not go away. You give them something to eat. And when we answer, we have nothing here but this.
And he says bring it to me. It is there that we are fed and we're full on the abundance of Christ, and he does something through us. In a few moments, the same Jesus will again take bread, bless it, break it, and give it to his disciples. Now, don't be mistaken, it's not the priest up here who's the primary celebrant, it's Christ himself. The same Christ.
We will come with our hunger and with our insufficiency, with what we have and what we do not have. And Christ will not send us away. He will place himself into our empty hands, he will feed us with a life we cannot create, and then he will send us back out into a hungry world, not because we are sufficient for our own needs, but because he is. Listen again to the words of Isaiah. Thus says the Lord, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Everyone who thirsts comes to the waters and you that have no money, come buy and eat, Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Amen.