13 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. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 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.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 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. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Matthew 14:13-21 is the story of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000. The source is Mark. This is the one miracle story that all four gospel writers saw fit to include in their works ‑‑ the feeding of the 5,000. The early church prized this story, undoubtedly because the story shows a mighty work of Jesus that had a symbolic relevance to the Eucharist and to the promise of the Messianic banquet. Popular historical explanations abound, such as Jesus inspiring people to share their meager portions of food with others or that they survive on meager rations. They have their moral value. Yet, they tend to miss the point. Let us see if we can capture the point of the story.
We see Jesus retreating to a deserted place to be alone. We see the crowd finding him. We can see a contrast with the meal of Herod who, filled with evil jealousy, kills the prophet John the Baptist. Jesus will have a joyful, thankful, eschatological meal. In contrast to political leaders like Herod, who used violence to keep the people oppressed and to take away popular leaders like John the Baptist, Jesus showed compassion upon the people and healed them. Jesus wants to be alone to reflect upon the significance of the death of John the Baptist. We can see the hesitant way of Jesus with the crowds, recognizing their longing for political deliverance, a longing from which clearly Jesus wanted to keep his distance.[1] The crowds have come to a deserted place somewhere in Galilee to be with Jesus. We are not sure why they come. They may have awareness of their spiritual need. They may have curiosity. They may have political concerns. Jesus does not seem to care why they came. The disciples inform him that the crowds need something to eat, but Jesus invites them to feed the crowds. Such a story about Jesus recalls a story of Elisha II Kings 4:1-7, 42-44). During a famine, he invited a man carrying 20 loaves of barley to serve the people and let them eat. The servant of Elisha wonders how such a small amount will feed so many people, but Elisha assures him that the people will eat and have some left over. Many people think that this story about Jesus is a Midrash on this Old Testament story. In addition, in I Kings 17:8-16, Elijah allows the meager rations of the widow of Zarephath to provide enough food. We are also to think of Exodus 15 (manna provided in the wilderness) and Numbers 11 (quail). Such stories indicate the promise of heavenly nourishment, which in the time of Jesus would have an eschatological import. The people of God receive nourishment today that contains within in a promise of eschatological abundance. Jesus becomes the one sufficient to meet the needs of those who follow. The disciples believe they are out of resources. The only solution is for the hungry to provide for themselves. The disciples do not believe they have anything to offer. Their response is that Jesus needs to send the crowds away, a response that creates distance. When Jesus blessed the meager food, blesses and breaks the loaves, and has the disciples distribute the food, we are to think of the Lord’s Supper, even though the story does not have anything comparable to the cup of wine. Jesus does not ask the crowds their views on Herod or the Romans occupying their homeland. He does not ask their views on John the Baptist. He does not ask them about the differences between Jesus and the Pharisees. To put it in modern parlance, he does not ask if they are progressives, conservatives, or another political brand. He does not ask about their views on the hot topics of the day, such as abortion or gun control. At some point, we need to have enough spiritual awareness that our political issues are petty when placed alongside the Infinite and Eternal. The late hour, a place set apart, arriving on foot, a time set apart are all reminiscent of the later cultic act of the faith community. Yet, the crowd is not only satisfied, but they have plenty of leftovers. The needs of the crowd may overwhelm us, but they do not overwhelm the risen Lord. Our meager offering of our time, talent, and treasure is what the risen Lord blesses to meet the needs of the crowds. One places confidence in God always and is especially confident when all other sources have run out. When the faithful begin to act with faith, sharing our resources with others, miraculous things begin to happen. Trusting in God, and acting with compassion, scarcity is transformed into abundance. The story also wets our appetite for the eschatological and Messianic banquet, where we will set aside the finite issues that seem so important now and find ourselves satisfied by what Jesus gives us.
13 Now when Jesus heard this, Matthew beginning by referring to the death of John the Baptist. By setting this feeding miracle story directly after the death of John the Baptist, Matthew is contrasting Herod's bitter banquet with Jesus' joyous meal. Herod, filled with evil jealousy, kills God's prophet. Matthew uses these two meals, Herod's great banquet and Jesus' feeding of the 5,000, to prefigure Jesus' coming last meal and death. Jesus' path to kingship is quite the opposite of Herod's, which was littered with corpses. Jesus' path to kingship was by offering himself on behalf of others (20:28). Just as Herod gathered his friends for a banquet to celebrate his birthday, Jesus now gathers those from the surrounding towns and villages in the wilderness. Thus, after hearing of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. John the Baptist's death obviously disturbed Jesus deeply. John was both Jesus' kinsman and his messianic confederate. Matthew does not try to intrude upon Jesus' private thoughts and grief when he learns of the Baptist's death. The gospel writer does report that, as he often did, Jesus immediately separated himself from the crowds and sought solace in a private retreat far removed from civilization. Context suggests that he wants to come to terms with and contemplate John's death. The exact location of this solitary place is not given. The last location that was referenced was Nazareth (13:54; 57), and now Jesus is approximately 10 miles from the lake, where a boat is available. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. As seems usual, the crowds disturb the intention of Jesus to retreat. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. Jesus appeases the needs of those who are ill and the hungry crowd. This contrasts with Mark, who said Jesus taught them many things. The sharp contrast between the wanton violence that occasioned John the Baptist's death at Herod's hands with Jesus' instantaneous "compassion" for the intrusive crowd suggests that Matthew was intentionally emphasizing the difference between messianic authority and the abusive power practiced by human despots such as Herod. Ironically, in the story of the Baptist's death, Matthew notes that it was "out of regard for his oaths and for the guests" (v.9) that Herod orders John's beheading. Oddly enough, Herod could be "trusted"‑‑trusted to save his own reputation and the integrity of his office no matter what the cost. If even one such as Herod could demonstrate a worldly, if warped, sense of trustworthiness, how much more could the disciples trust that Jesus would remain the compassionate, committed leader they had witnessed during his Galilean ministry. While Jesus' healing compassion and touch are the focus of Matthew, the disciples themselves seem doubtful of the need for crowd concern, only crowd control. 15 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.” The careful reader at this point might note that a large crowd of hungry people in a desolate place calls to mind the Israelites wandering the deserts of Sinai after the exodus from Egypt (e.g., Exodus 16-18; Numbers 10-11). Indeed, this faint allusion will grow stronger as the episode unfolds. 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” These words seem to echo intentionally the instructions of Elisha during a famine in Gilgal (a town near Bethel). A man comes along carrying 20 loaves of barley and some grain in a sack, and Elisha order him to “serve the people and let them eat” (II Kings 4:42). Elisha’s servant incredulously asks how such small rations will suffice for a hundred hungry people, but Elisha asserts that the Lord has declared that they “shall eat and have some left” (II Kings 43). This incident thus follows the precise pattern found in the feeding of the 5,000 here in Matthew; a paltry amount of food miraculously ends up being enough for a large crowd, such that there is some left over after all are filled. However, there are also echoes of other instances in which God provides miraculous sustenance from meager rations, such as Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (I Kings 17:8-16). Jesus' order tests the trust level of his disciples. Do they believe that Jesus genuinely cares about the physical and spiritual welfare of these people? Or do they doubt the constancy of his love and concern. 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 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, Jesus acts and speaks in a way like that of the Eucharist. And Jesus gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. Neither the disciples nor the crowd do or say anything to indicate that they have beheld anything out of the ordinary.
It is debated by many scholars whether this text is meant to remind the readers of the Lord's Supper. In support of this, Matthew omits the distribution of the fish, which would not fit with the Lord's Supper. However, Matthew uses the phrase "When it was evening," which is the same phrase he will later use in his narrative of the Last Supper (26:20). Undoubtedly, these words reminded Matthew's Jewish-Christian readers of the family and church meals they had shared, as well as the Last Supper and their own experience of their Lord. The late hour, a place set apart, arriving on foot, a time set apart are all reminiscent of the later act of worship that arose out of the faith community. Most scholars understand this miracle considering Old Testament precedents like II Kings 4:1-7, 42-44, Exodus 15, and Numbers 11. This is heavenly nourishment. It is a preparation for the eschatological nourishment of the Eucharist. The feeding of the 5,000 is thus a subtle yet powerful fusion of allusions to different stories and traditions. On the one hand, it echoes Old Testament narratives about both the wilderness generation, which was fed directly by God daily, and Elijah and Elisha, through whose hands God multiplies small rations into abundant portions. On the other hand, the early Christian practice of the Lord’s Supper shapes the feeding of the 5,000, by which the community believed Jesus continually nourished them. The combination of these motifs reflects a deft literary hand and results in a surprisingly rich story despite its relative brevity.
There have been numerous explanations of how one should understand this miracle/feeding story. For the 21st-century reader, the story can be difficult to understand. One of the more popular explanations, offered by H.E.G. Paulus in 1828, is that when Jesus and his disciples started sharing their small portions of food with others in the crowd, the rest of the crowd began to bring out food that they had secretly hidden away, thus providing enough rations for all. This explanation is trivial and clumsy but remains popular. Another portrayal, that of Ernest Renan, is that when Jesus journeyed into the desert, followed by a crowd, they exercised great restraint and survived on minimal rations. Albert Schweitzer promoted the view that "they ate their fill" and the description of the "leftovers" should not be part of the account; thus each person present received a tiny portion of bread; their token of future participation in the messianic feast. This feeding was an "eschatological sacrament." Some read this story as a midrash on the story of Elisha (II Kings 4:42-44) about Elisha having 20 barley loaves and fresh ears of grain and issuing an order to his servant to feed "the people," simply to have the servant question how he will be able to feed so many with the resources at hand. Elisha responds that the LORD has said they would all eat and have leftovers, and indeed they do.
These moral, social, spiritual, and eschatological explanations all have their value. A final challenge comes from hearing the accents that the four gospel writers put on this story and discovering how these texts work together and blend in the minds of the faithful.
The miracle story in the Synoptic Gospels is a revelatory moment. It challenges the reader to see truly the risen Lord, who is present in a way not analyzable by our science and math. The miracle story invites us to consider possibilities that standard scientific reasoning and even the reasoning of common sense will not allow. The point of the miracle story is not breaking laws of physics and biology, but of seeing truly the possibilities of this moment as we consider the reality of the risen Lord.
I heard Quaker theologian/philosopher Parker Palmer tell a story about abundance once. The way I remember it is that Palmer was a passenger on a plane that pulled away from the gate, taxied to a remote corner of the field and stopped. You know the feeling: The plane stops and you look out the window and see that you’re not on the runway and the engines wind down and your heart sinks. The pilot came on the intercom and said, “I have some bad news and some really bad news. The bad news is there’s a storm front in the West, Denver is socked in and shut down. We’ve looked at the alternatives and there are none. So we’ll be staying here for a few hours. That’s the bad news. The really bad news is that we have no food and it’s lunch time.” Everybody groaned. Some passengers started to complain, some became angry. But then, Palmer said, one of the flight attendants did something amazing.
She stood up and took the intercom mike and said, “We’re really sorry, folks. We didn’t plan it this way and we really can’t do much about it. And I know for some of you this is a big deal. Some of you are really hungry and were looking forward to a nice lunch. Some of you may have a medical condition and really need lunch. Some of you may not care one way or the other and some of you need to skip lunch. So I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. I have a couple of breadbaskets up here and we’re going to pass them around and I’m asking everybody to put something in the basket. Some of you brought a little snack along — something to tide you over — just in case something like this happened, some peanut butter crackers, candy bars. And some of you have a few LifeSavers or chewing gum or Rolaids. And if you don’t have anything edible, you have a picture of your children or spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend or a bookmark or a business card. Everybody put something in and then we’ll reverse the process. We’ll pass the baskets around again and everybody can take out what he/she needs.
“Well,” Palmer said, “what happened next was amazing. The griping stopped. People started to root around in pockets and handbags, some got up and opened their suitcases stored in the overhead luggage racks and got out boxes of candy, a salami, a bottle of wine. People were laughing and talking. She had transformed a group of people who were focused on need and deprivation into a community of sharing and celebration. She had transformed scarcity into a kind of abundance.”
After the flight, which eventually did proceed, Parker Palmer stopped on his way off the plane — deplaning, that is — and said to her, “Do you know there’s a story in the Bible about what you did back there? It’s about Jesus feeding a lot of people with very little food.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know that story. That’s why I did what I did.”[2]
I offer a modern “miracle.”[3]
The startling headline read: “Arkansas woman texted father’s number every day after he died; she got a response four years later”? That made the story below the headline sound like an outreach from the other side of the grave. But the actual story was far less sensational. For four years, Chastity Patterson, then 23, of Newport, Arkansas, had been mourning the death of Jason Ligons, who, while not her biological father, had been so much like a father to her that she called him Dad. After he died, Chastity continued to text his phone every day to update him about her life. While she didn’t expect a response, the daily texting was a way of dealing with her grief. In her message on October 25, the night before the fourth anniversary of Ligons’ death, she told about how she’d beaten cancer and hadn’t gotten sick since his passing. She also wrote about falling in love and having her heart broken, joking that Ligons “would have killed” the guy. But then, she received a response. It was not Ligons, but a man, identified only as Brad, who had been receiving her daily messages these past four years. “I am not your father,” Brad texted, “but I have been getting all your messages for the past four years. ... I lost my daughter in a car wreck (in) August 2014 and your messages have kept me alive,” Brad said. “When you text me, I know it’s a message from God.” Brad went on to say that he had read her messages for all that time but hadn’t texted her back for fear of breaking her heart. Chastity posted the exchange to Facebook, saying, “Today was my sign that everything is okay and I can let him [Ligons] rest!” Her post was then shared more than 288,000 times and picked up by several media outlets.
How Brad came to receive Chastity’s messages is easily explained: When an individual surrenders a phone number, whether because of relocation, death or other reason, the company that supplied the phone service eventually reissues it to a new customer, sometimes as soon as 30 days after the number was discontinued. After Chastity’s story went viral, she posted that she had shared the story to show friends and family “that there is a God and it might take four years, but he shows up right on time!” While Chastity’s story was splashed out by several media outlets, few of the major national news organizations reported the story at all, which suggests that by some standards, it didn’t rise to the level of “news,” and there was no “miracle” involved.
Of course, many of us have trouble reconciling miracles with reason. And that logic gap is likely what the news writer was counting on when he headlined Chastity’s story to sound spectacular. But both the sensational headline and our natural skepticism miss the real story: that Chastity’s texts helped Brad deal with his grief following his daughter’s death, and that his reply to Chastity helped her put to rest her grief over Ligons’ death, and that both Chastity and Brad viewed the texts from the other as conveying a message from God.
Consider another modern “miracle.”[4]
Carol Anderson was young widow whose husband died at 35. Bob Edwards was a young widower whose wife had been killed in a car accident at 29. Both had happy marriages, but after several lonely years the two surviving spouses met and got married. They got along well except for one thing — their differing opinions about how to handle their history. Bob wanted to explore it, to share it with Carol. He wanted to know about Carol’s first husband and tell her about his first wife. Carol, however, didn’t want to talk at all about their previous marriages; the pain from her loss was still too strong. “Why raise ghosts?” she said. But Bob felt that good memories should be preserved, not obliterated. This issue hung between them for a long time, with Carol’s view prevailing, to Bob’s disappointment. But finally, after a few years, Carol felt secure enough to talk about the past and decided to show Bob some snapshots from her first marriage. Among the photos were pictures that Carol and her first husband had taken in France on their honeymoon. “Here we are at Lourdes,” Carol said, pointing to a photo taken at the famous healing shrine. “You went to Lourdes?” Bob said, mildly interested. “So did we.” “Well, I guess half the world goes to Lourdes,” Carol said. It was no big deal. But then Bob asked to see the photo again. “Who’s that couple in the background?” “I have no idea,” Carol said. “Just a couple who walked by and were caught by the shutter. I can see why you asked, though ... It does look as though they’re standing behind us, almost as if they’re posing, but that’s just an illusion.” “That couple,” Bob said, “is me and my first wife.”
We encounter many serendipitous happenings in life for which there is no supernatural intervention overriding the laws of nature. But something occurs that is not ordinary, not usual and not what one would normally expect to happen. Perhaps God did not provide an exception to Newton’s (or Einstein’s) laws of motion, but he may well have moved people to interact in ways that provided what was needed by someone in this time and this place. In the case of Chastity and Brad, the miracle may have been that God moved both toward the mutual support and benefit that occurred. And we can say this as well: Both Chastity and Brad were quick to see God’s fingerprints in their exchange. Skeptics might disagree, but some things take the eyes of faith to discern. If you look, you may find God’s fingerprints all over the place.
The point of the miraculous story is to direct us to the stunning reality of the moment. More reality becomes visible in the miraculous story.[5] A God-given miracle is a series of events and the timing of events in such a way that convince us that God has intervened in our lives. The result of such miraculous intervention is the experience of awe and adoration. That is, we go “wow!” and then we worship God in thanksgiving for the miracle.[6]
Albert Einstein famously said, “The way I see it you have two ways to live your life: the one as if no miracles exist and the other as though everything is a miracle.” To be open to the miraculous is to be open to impossible things becoming possible. It is a stance toward life that is fundamentally hopeful. Contained within a miracle story is the challenge to truly see the possibilities inherent in faith, hope, and love.
An English reporter was interviewing Mother Teresa of Calcutta on her opposition to abortion. "But Mother Teresa, doesn't it bother you that so many children come into the world unwanted?" "Unwanted by whom?" asked Mother Teresa. "I feel sure that God wants them, for why else would he give us so many, and in all different colors, too? Do you want children?" she asked the startled reporter who immediately began to look very uncomfortable. "Well, er, uh, not exactly," she replied. "If you want a child, I can get you one. And it would be wonderful for you, who have no child to enjoy, to have a child since you have so much here in Europe, so much that you could share with a child. Just say the word and I will get you a child." End of the interview.
[1]
[2] —John Buchanan, “Abundance,” March 26, 2000, The Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago Web Site, fourthchurch.org.
[3] Chapman, Alex and Lucy Quaggin. “US woman whose text messages to dead 'father' went viral dispels rumours.” 7News, October 27, 2019, 7news.com.au. Retrieved January 11, 2020.
[4] Halberstam, Yitta and Judith Leventhal, Small Miracles: Extraordinary Coincidences from Everyday Life (Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Media Corp., 1997), 18-19.
[5] —C.S. Lewis, “Miracles,” in God in the Dock (Eerdmans, 2014), 22.
[6] —Edward F. Markquart, “Walking on Water Gospel Analysis,” Sermons from Seattle: A Quest for Better Preaching.
liked the discussion of miracles.
ReplyDeletethank you It was enjoyable to think in these terms.
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