“Stop Waiting for a Miracle and Participate in One Instead”

July 28, 2024

Matthew 14:13–21

Now when Jesus heard this, 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.

The story of Jesus multiplying bread and fish to feed thousands is the only miracle story told in all 4 gospels. It is apparent this miracle was too important a story for any of the writers to leave out — too important because it told of Jesus’ ability to provide for people’s needs, spiritual and physical. When they were sick, Jesus healed them; when they were sad, Jesus blessed them; when they were hungry, Jesus fed them.

As time went on, this story became one that early Christians told around the table when they gathered for worship. As they blessed, broke, and shared the bread of the Lord’s Supper, they remembered that other time when bread was miraculously blessed, broken and shared, and it was as if Jesus stood among them again.

The feeding of the 5000 is one in a series of bread miracles in the Bible. In the Old Testament manna fell from the sky to feed the children of Israel in the wilderness when they were far from home and without a clue where their next meal would come from. In 2 Kings the prophet Elisha fed one hundred hungry men with twenty barley loaves. His disciples protested that it was not enough to set before all those people, but Elisha insisted and the Lord provided, so that everyone ate his fill and there were leftovers, too.

The feeding of 5000 with five loaves and two fish is a notable miracle. Do you wonder how it happened? Did new loaves appear when no one was looking? When a piece was broken from the loaf, did it suddenly grow again? Matthew does not tell us. What he does tell us is that the miracle happened at “a lonely place apart,” which was where Jesus had gone after hearing the news that John the Baptist was dead, beheaded at the whim of a dancing girl and her evil mother. After that Jesus wanted to be alone. John was his prophet, had baptized Jesus and devoted his life to preparing the way for him. His murder was a vivid reminder that God’s prophets were not immune to death, especially violent death.

So, Jesus withdraws to the other side of the lake and went up a mountain. The crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.

Now, it was about time for the Passover, so Jesus asks Philip, ‘Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?’ He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, ‘Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Jesus, ‘There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?’

He may have needed to be alone, but they had needs of their own. They were sick, sad, and hungry. While anyone else but the son of God might have told them to get lost, Jesus spent the afternoon walking among them, laying his hands on them, saying the things they needed to hear.

By evening, the disciples found Jesus and proposed he send the crowds away to get supper in nearby villages. It was a practical idea. It was time to call it a day, build a fire, eat the bit of food they had brought along. It was time to take care of themselves for a change and suggest that everyone else do the same thing.

But Jesus had a different idea. “They need not go away,” he said, seeming to know that what the people needed more than a hot meal was to stay together, to be nourished in each other’s company. Sometimes, after bad news, it does not matter what you eat as long as you it with someone.

“They need not go away,” Jesus said to his disciples. “You give them something to eat.” I wish I had been there to see the faces and hear the responses. “Give them something to eat? Us? What do you mean we should give them something to eat? Just how do you propose we do this when all we have is five loaves and two fish? That is hardly a snack for us, never mind five thousand. No disrespect Jesus, but you are not making sense.”

Jesus might not have been making sense, but in contrast to the scarcity thinking of the disciples, he had a sense of the situation that went beyond the disciples’ thinking.

Jesus operated out of a sense of plenty. When the disciples looked at the situation, they saw not enough. Jesus saw plenty: plenty of time, food, possibility at hand. Not that he knew exactly how it was all going to work out — he was human as well as divine. But what Jesus knew beyond a doubt was that wherever there was plenty of God there would be plenty of everything else.

So, Jesus asked the disciples to bring him their food and ordered the crowd to sit. He blessed the food in front of all, perfectly confident that God would turn not enough into plenty. Can you imagine what it must have been like to watch him do that — sitting in that crowd, blessing the bread and fish and then giving it to the disciples to give to a crowd that went on forever? The people that evening did not know they were in for a miracle, because the math was nonsensical. Five loaves divided by five thousand equals one loaf per thousand people.

Some in the crowd must have laughed aloud. Some had to be embarrassed for Jesus, that he should promise so much with so little to deliver. Yet some had to be touched by Jesus’ simple confidence that it would be enough. I wonder if some in the crowd felt the food hidden in their pockets. Surely, they had some — a few raisins, a chunk of bread left from breakfast — bits of food they had tucked away before heading off in chase of Jesus going to a lonely place apart. Wouldn’t you have done the same thing? The pocket food would not have been enough food to share, so chances people kept it hidden, waiting for an opportune moment to go off alone and sneak a bite.

And it might have worked, too. The people in the crowd might have been able to keep their own food for themselves if that breadbasket had not come around, full of scraps, everyone so careful not to break off too much. Everyone wanting Jesus’ crazy idea to work so much that very carefully, secretly, they all began to put their own bread in the basket, reaching in as if they were taking some out and leaving some behind instead, so that the meal grew and grew, so that when the disciples collected the broken pieces at the end they stared in amazement at twelve baskets full of bread — wheat, sourdough, rye, pita bread, maybe even an oat bran muffin or two — all kinds of bread, the leftovers from a meal for five thousand that started off with five blessed and broken loaves.

Parker Palmer, educator, author, and activist dedicated to empowering diverse communities tells the story of a flight to Denver that did not go as expected but resulted in a miracle.

The flight was back in the time when there were no security lines at airports, non-fliers could see you off at the gate, you could pretty much carry whatever you wanted in your bag onto the airplane and real food was served on domestic flights.

Shortly after leaving the gate in Chicago the pilot announced “I have some bad news. There is a storm in the west and the Denver airport is shut down. So, we have no choice but to stay here for a few hours. That is the bad news. The really bad news is that we have no food on board.”

Everyone groaned. Some became angry. But then one of the flight attendants stood up in the aisle and took the mike. “We are really sorry folks. We did not plan it this way, and we cannot do anything about it. You are hungry and were looking forward to a nice lunch. Some of you absolutely need food. Some of you may not care. So, I have an idea. We have a couple of empty bread baskets up here, and we are going to pass them around. Everybody put something in the basket. I know some of you have brought a little snack along, crackers, or candy bars. Some of you have Life Savers and gum. If you do not happen to have anything edible, you have a business card or a picture of your dog or a bookmark. The thing is, I hope everybody puts something in the basket. And then we will reverse the process. We will pick the baskets up at the back of

the plane and pass them around again and everybody can take out what he or she needs.”

“Well,” Palmer said, “what happened next was amazing. First, the complaining and griping stopped. People started to root around in pockets, handbags, and briefcases. Some stood up and retrieved luggage from the overhead racks and got out boxes of candy, a salami, cheese, crackers, a bottle of wine (it was in the day you could do that). Now people were laughing and talking. The flight attendant had transformed a group of anxious people focused on their need, deprivation, and scarcity into a gracious community, sharing and in the process creating an abundance of sorts.”

The flight eventually took off and arrived in Denver, and as he stepped off the plane, Palmer found the flight attendant and said, “You know there’s a story in the Bible about what you did.” She said, “I know that story. That is why I did it.”

But that is not a miracle! Isn’t that just what you are thinking? That is just human beings being generous, sharing what they have — even when it is not much, even when it is not enough to go around. That is not a miracle!

That is just the whole crowd of people moving from a sense of scarcity to a sense of plenty — overcoming their fear of going hungry, giving up their need to protect themselves. That is just people refusing to play the age-old game of what-is-mine-is-mine-and-what-is-yours-is-yours, people turning their pockets and purses inside out for one another without worrying about what is in it for them. That is not a miracle! Or is it?

The problem with miracles is that we tend to get mesmerized by them, focusing on God’s responsibility and forgetting our own. Miracles let us off the hook. They appeal to part of us that is all too happy to let God feed the crowd, save the world, do it all. We do not have what it takes, after all. What we have to offer is not enough to make any difference at all, so we hold back and wait for a miracle, looking after our own needs and looking for God to help those who cannot help themselves.

Sitting in the crowd, waiting for God to act, we can hang on to our own little loaves of bread. They are not much; they would not go far. Besides, if Jesus is in charge of the bread, doesn’t that excuse us from sharing our own? God will provide; let God provide. “Send the crowds away to go into the villages,” the disciples say, “and buy food for themselves.”

“They need not go away,” Jesus says, “You give them something to eat.” Not me but you; not my bread but yours; not sometime or somewhere else but right here and now. Stop looking for someone else to solve the problem and solve it yourselves. Stop waiting for food to fall from the sky and share what you have. Stop waiting for a miracle and participate in one instead.

“Bring what you have to me;” said Jesus. That is where to begin. Remember there is no such thing as “your” bread or “my” bread; there is only “our” bread as in “give us this day our daily bread.” However much you have, just bring it to me Jesus says and believe that it is enough to begin with, enough to get the ball rolling, enough to start a trend. Be the first in the crowd to turn your pockets inside out; be the first on your block to start a miracle.

No one knows how it really happened. Your guess is as good as mine, but what Jesus has been saying to his followers forever he goes on saying to us today: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” If it is a saying that strikes fear in our own hearts, that makes the loaves we have seem like nothing at all, we have only to remember what Jesus says next: “Bring them here to me.”

(Thanks to inspiration and wisdom on this miracle story from Barbara Brown Taylor)