Change and Risk
July 31, 2011
Rev. Barry W. Szymanski
First Congregational Church of Wauwatosa

Mt 14:13-21

Now when Jesus heard [about the death of John the Baptist], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

SERMON

When I studied martial arts, believe it or not, stick fighting and knife fighting, any attack on a person's weapon, hand, wrist, or arm was called 'defanging the snake.' The fangs referred to was the knife or the stick. The impact was to be hard enough to impede the person's arm movement, or to have them drop their weapon.

But this is a sermon. So where am I going with this? Over the course of centuries the church has disarmed the Gospel. Why? In order to make the Gospel fit what the church wanted, the church had impeded the Words of Jesus. A contemporary theologian, Gerhard Ebeling, who died in 2001, wrote in his book, The Nature of Faith, that "Listening to the Word has the power to change the world, as it did in the time of the Reformation."

Then he added these powerful words:

"In ecclesiastical usage the Bible was so domesticated that it could not become a danger to the ecclesiastical system, while among heretics, though it occasioned all kinds of revolutions, these were like summer lightning, touching only single points, superficially, and never breaking the spell of the basic traditional view.

But in the Reformation the Bible began to be critical at a deep level of the traditional view of Christian faith, bringing about an upheaval from the very foundations. This was only apparently destructive and revolutionary,

in reality it was constructive from within . . . . For it was on the basis of a new total understanding of faith that the all-transforming critical effects of Scriptural exposition penetrated the farthest regions of the church and the world."

[For All the Saints, Vol II, 210]

I want to repeat one clause: Ebeling said that: "the Bible was so domesticated that it could not become a danger." What has modern society done to the Bible?

What has it done to the Gospel? Have we tamed the Gospel so that it is no longer a danger to us? Have we defanged the Word of God? Have we impeded the message of Jesus? The person of Jesus? And, yet, what Ebeling was saying was that the upheaval of the Reformation ". . . was only apparently destructive and revolutionary, in reality it was constructive from within . . ." He gave the reason: "For it was on the basis of a new total understanding of faith that the all-transforming critical effects of Scriptural exposition penetrated the farthest regions of the church and the world."

Look at today's Gospel. Jesus had just learned that his cousin and friend, John the Baptist, had been killed by Herod. When Jesus received the news, he tried to go to an out-of-the-way place to quietly grieve John’s death. However, a lot of people walked to where Jesus was. Jesus saw them and was overcome with compassion and began to heal them.

As evening approached his disciples went to him and reminded Jesus of the obvious: that they were in an out-of-the-way place in the country and that it was getting late. They suggested to Jesus that he dismiss the people so they travel home, or could go to the villages to get some supper.

But I think that they also wanted to be alone with Jesus to mourn the death of John the Baptist. And, secondly, they knew how much food they had between them, and they could see the large number of people there – in other words, they knew that there was not enough food at all! But Jesus surprised them when he told his disciples: "You give them supper." The astonished disciples responded by reminding Jesus that all they had was five loaves of bread and two fish. Plainly, Jesus was telling them to give up their own food for those people who came to see and listen to Jesus, and be healed by him.

But Jesus took the five loaves and two fish that his disciples had, and he lifted his face to heaven in prayer, blessed the loaves of bread broke them, and gave the bread to the disciples. The disciples then, perhaps very reluctantly, gave the food to that assembly, which was, really, a large congregation. The Gospel reports that they all ate their fill.

When we examine today's Gospel, we must ask whether we have somehow done away with the story of Jesus multiplying bread and fish? Have we tried to explain it away? Have we dismissed it as not probable? And therefore pay little attention to it? But that is not what the people who selected this story wanted to do when it was recorded in this Gospel.

This passage tells us so much: # about Jesus’ grieving over the death of his friend and cousin, John the Baptist; # of the compassion that Jesus had toward all those who came to him, including the sick and infirm; # about the concern that Jesus showed when he realized that the people would be hungry # and that they were out in the country far from villages; # about Jesus trusting in His Father shown when he lifted his face to heaven which means He prayed to God Our Father; # that Jesus then blessed the loaves of bread as we do when we say meal prayers; # that, as a prefiguring of the sacrament of Holy Communion, and as Jesus did at His Holy Supper, He broke the bread; # and that Jesus handed the bread to the disciples to give away the food to that congregation.

We can ask what prayer Jesus made before He blessed the bread. I believe that it would have either been one of the Psalms just as written, or that Jesus paraphrased a Psalm, or that He prayed as the Psalmist would have prayed. Let’s take today’s Psalm selections as an example. Jesus may have prayed this Psalm 17 prayer from his heart: That Jesus tried to be just what he told the people he was; and no more; but also no less. That Jesus carefully watched his words; and he was not trying to do his own will, or get his own way, but was striving to follow His Father’s way.

He may have prayed that he was on His Father’s path, and, in healing and teaching, was not giving up. In fact, Jesus may have prayed, as the Psalmist in today’s Psalm 17 prayed, that he was calling to God, His Father, because he was sure He would be answered. So He asked God His Father to listen to him, to answer him; to wondrously show God’s steadfast love, because His Father was the savior of those who seek refuge.

And Jesus may have ended his prayer as the Psalmist did, by looking up to heaven and saying, “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake I shall be satisfied, beholding your likeness.” Now imagine the writers of the Gospel recording what happened as written in the Gospel. They realized that Jesus spoke of newness. That Jesus had later, at the Last Supper, instituted the New and Eternal Covenant in the entirety of the Eucharist, his dying on the cross, and his resurrection and ascension!

The followers of Jesus, for all of the first centuries, were asked to change, from Judaism to following Christ. In Greece and Rome, people were asked to break away from many gods, to the one God, a Trinitarian God. The transformation to Christianity of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and then the Spanish, Polish, Irish, Brits, and then the North Africans, and decades later, the Asians, and now all peoples world wide, was beginning. That revolution in divine belief was risk taking.

Change remains a risky business. But if we do as Jesus did, and lift our faces to heaven in prayer, and ask God’s blessing upon what we undertake, then the writers of the Gospel are telling us that we will eat our fill, just as those people did. That is part of the miracle.

Remember that we see what Jesus saw and did and how he prayed. Remember also what his disciples saw, and they wanted everyone to go away, but when they distributed the food, there was more than enough for all. Remember the people also who came to see Jesus, and be touched by him, stayed so late that their food ran out.

Their concept of time faded – but I know that at least one person here this morning hopes that my concept of time does not vanish! And remember that the Gospel reports that, after all the food was distributed, “They all ate their fill.” So imagine the surprise of the disciples, who, first of all, told Jesus to tell the people to go home – for whatever reason they wanted them to leave; and, second of all, saw that there was not enough food for even them, much less the great crowd.

Was there a clear message to those disciples that if we trust in God, there will be enough for all? That when we give away, more will be given to us? The Gospel is clear: They all had their fill. Does this apply to stewardship today in this church where pledges are down, according to the recent Columns report? Does this apply to providing sufficient safety nets to those marginalized in society? Does this apply to assisting others with our time and energy? How did the disciples feel when “all had their fill?” Obviously, more than surprise, for this miracle is reported in all four Gospels! It made an impact on all of the people. If it did not occur it would have been stricken from the Gospels – there were many, many witnesses.

Some theologians point to this multiplication of bread as a prefiguring of Holy Communion. That may be so. But, simply on its face, it shows that we, as followers of Christ must pray and bless what we have; and as Disciples of Christ,

distribute. Let us take a minute for silent prayer and reflection on each of the people here: For, sometimes, we must be like Jesus who stayed to heal and feed; and other times, we are to be like the disciples and distribute what little we think we have and trust in God; and yet, at other times, we are to be like the people who left their homes to follow Jesus to a deserted place, to be with him.

In close, let us not domesticate the Gospel. What Jesus did has fangs, it has teeth, let us not take away its power. Too many people have already done so.