Filling Needs: Sermon for Pentecost 8, 2014

Sermon: Filling Needs

Text: Matthew 14:13-21

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who fills us, as much as we need.

            I grew up with the phrase eat everything on your plate, or no dessert! I tried of course to get away with not eating the things I didn’t like, I would spread things out really thin hoping it would look like I had eaten most of it. I would try to hide things under other things. It was all of course to make sure I knew to not waste food.

            The concern about not wasting food of course implies that we had food enough to waste. We weren’t eating $40 dollar steaks, or lobster tails, my mom was always rather frugal with grocery shopping, clipping coupons and taking advantage of sales, but we were never without food.

            In fact most in our country do not suffer from hunger. There are of course exceptions, but for the most part our culture’s image is one of abundant food. Enough that there are jokes about how much food we eat. Comedian Jim Gaffigan talks about appetizers and deserts and trying to explain what they are to a starving person. Oh, Appetizers? That’s food we eat before we eat our food. Dessert, oh that’s food we eat after we eat our food.

            It’s not at all what the people listening to Jesus would be experiencing. For the most part they did not have the luxury of having food to waste. They simply had food, and hopefully enough for everyone in the family.

            The scene before us has a stark contrast that occurs in the scene before it. Jesus is going out in our text because he has heard that John the Baptist has been killed. John is killed during a massive feast held by Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, and current governor under the Romans of the area. He is celebrating his daughter’s birthday and the party I’m sure has gone on for days. I’m not sure if you have seen the movie the Hunger Games, but a scene in it is of a lavish feast in the capital, and at the feast people eat as much as they can possibly eat, then drink a solution that makes them vomit and then they eat again. It’s not stated in this story, but I could see a similar situation happening. The party is beyond lavish, it is obscene the excess that is wasted and abused.

            Now, Herod Antipas is of course not the one growing this food, or catching the fish, or hunting the game, that all fell to those people who came to listen to Jesus, lowly peasants, barely above slaves in Herod’s rule. And all their hard work leads not to full tables for them, but empty stomachs as they watch Herod feast.

            All these hungry people have followed Jesus out to the desert, not seeking food, but seeking healing. And when evening comes the disciples see they have no food and seek to dismiss them. Send them home Jesus, see if they can get food elsewhere. And Jesus says, no, you feed them. The disciples counter, we have nothing to give except 5 loaves and 2 fish. And Jesus takes the loaves and fish, blesses them, breaks them, and gives them to the disciples to hand out. And they keep handing out, and handing out.

            Verse 20 of our gospel: And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.

            All ate and were filled. I wonder when the last time any of those people had been able to eat until filled? That may be the case for us, we eat until we are full, but for these people and for most people around the world, they don’t eat until they are full, they eat until the food is gone, whether or not it’s enough, and usually not.

            Jesus does these miracles, the healings and the feeding, in the midst of compassion for the people. As they approach him on the shore he sees their hurts, and sees their hunger and is moved to satisfy them, and not just barely enough, but enough that they are filled.

            Jesus sees their need and fills it. Abundantly and completely.

            What is your need? What do you hunger for? Healing? Peace? Grace? Comfort? Love? Care? Someone to talk to? Presence? Safety?

            Jesus sees your need and fills it.

            I believe this text says so much more than feeding, it speaks of Jesus seeing people’s needs and meeting them and filling them.

            Jesus meets us here where we gather seeking him and he fills us. He fills us in the waters of our baptism. He fills us through his body and blood which we eat and drink in communion. He fills us through his presence in each and everyone of us gathered here.

            And filled with his presence we can go out to spread the good news to people that Christ knows their hunger and he wants to fill them.

            Let us go out sharing the bread that is Christ, which will never runout, which fills all, as much as they need. Amen.