First Reading: Isaiah 55:1-5
1Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
Psalm: Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21
You open wide your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. (Ps. 145:16)
8The Lord is gracious and full of compassion,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
9Lord, you are good to all,
and your compassion is over all your works.
14The Lord upholds all those who fall
and lifts up those who are bowed down.
15The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord,
and you give them their food in due season.
16You open wide your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
17You are righteous in all your ways
and loving in all your works.
18You are near to all who call upon you,
to all who call upon you faithfully.
19You fulfill the desire of those who fear you;
you hear their cry and save them.
20You watch over all those who love you,
but all the wicked you shall destroy.
21My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord;
let all flesh bless God’s holy name forever and ever.
Second Reading: Romans 9:1-5
1I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit—2I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. 4They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; 5to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.
Gospel: Matthew 14:13-21
13Now when Jesus heard [about the beheading 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. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When 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.” 16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19Then 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. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
CHILDREN’S SERMON: Today I want to focus our thoughts through the childhood poem, “Old Mother Hubbard.” Let’s see if we can remember it.
“Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the Cupboard,
To give the poor Dog a bone;
When she came there,
The Cupboard was bare,
And so the poor Dog had none.”
The origins of the poem in the early 1800s are debated and actually there are several more verses that have been added through the years for various reasons. The point I want us to think about is when we “go to our cupboard’ and find it “bare,” what are our alternatives? Share with your neighbor something you might do if you found the cupboard bare. Call instacart? Borrow from a neighbor? Change the menu?
Let us pray. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, my Rock and my Redeemer.
SERMON
Last Sunday we heard about the wonderfulness of the kingdom of heaven. It is like a mustard seed that grows into a great bush that provides food and shelter. It’s like yeast that is used to make bread. It is a treasure, a pearl of great price, and a good catch of fish. Whew. We are blessed to be part of the kingdom. It almost sounds like the health, wealth and prosperity gospel. Try it, you’ll like it and be happy ever after and maybe even get a miracle. Perhaps that is why we need the reminder of today’s gospel. The kingdom of heaven also involves death, no resources and hunger on earth. Some days we go to the cupboard and it looks bare!
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (Matthew 11:11)”
Our text today opens with problems. Jesus hears that John the Baptist, his cousin, his forerunner, and a great servant of God was beheaded. John was the victim of King Herod, who did not want to loose face, so kept a thoughtless promise to his seductive stepdaughter who danced for him. Herod ordered the head of John the Baptist be brought on a silver platter. Gross. Unjust. Unfair. It is an epitome of political power corrupted.
Jesus heard and could have called down the armies of heaven to establish a just society but he didn’t. He withdrew in a boat to the wilderness. Maybe our situation is slightly different. The doctor says our godly husband has a terminal disease. A senseless accident by a drunk driver wipes out the potential of a beloved other. A marriage with all it’s promises made to God, turns sour. That other candidate gets voted into office. We shake our head and a little voice whispers in our ear, “Where is your God now? Doesn’t he care about you?”
Suffering in this world does not mean God have forsaken us or that he doesn’t care or that he is busy with others with worse problems. Godly people like John the Baptist experienced injustice. People struggling are not necessarily bad people. Only God knows. Let us not be like the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not like that poor tax collector. The kingdom of heaven drew near in the person of Christ and we taste some of the wonderfulness of that kingdom in the beautiful sunrise, the smile of a friend, and a hug when we are discouraged. But we also experience grief, down days and death.
So how did Jesus handle the bad news, the hard times? Our text tells us he withdrew to a deserted place by himself. Jesus, God incarnate, withdrew. I sometimes think as Christians we ask of ourselves to always be happy. Several people at my retirement center have passed away recently and often I hear the response that people are so happy the deceased is with Jesus singing, if they were musical, and loved more than here with family. We grieve privately and save our tears for our pillow. Jesus too withdrew. Our text does not say Jesus is grieving but I suspect that if he cried at the grave of Lazarus, he grieved at the death of John the Baptist. Withdrawing to recharge our emotional batteries is not wrong.
The crowd heard about Jesus moving and beat him to the distant shore. Jesus had compassion on them. When we feel like God has withdrawn his presence from us, what do we think? I suspect we often take his silence as judgment or disapproval. We think God has withdrawn and we withdraw rather than seek him out. Many times God seems cloaked, out on the sea of life in a boat dealing with the really important issues of life. We doubt that God can be concerned about our little dilemmas. Perhaps God is silently hanging his head and grieving that one of his own is hurt! This passage reminds us that God sees, God has compassion on us, and God cares. Suffering can draw us closer to God. Old Mother Hubbard had a bare cupboard so what did she do?
“We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.”
Limited resources!
Our text says Jesus spends the day curing the sick brought to him. I suspect the disciples spent the day doing crowd control. While grieving, they must go the extra mile at work. Some days are like that. Do I hear an “Amen!”? Well, as Lutherans we just nod our head. But we know, bad news does not stop life. We must continue on. At the end of that day the disciples realized they did not have any more resources. There was no food for dinner and Instacart has not been invented yet. And even if it were they had no charge card! Like good followers, they turned to Jesus and asked him to make the problem disappear. Send the people away to nearby shops to buy food because they, the disciples, only had two fish and five loaves. Lord, our cupboard is bare!
We know the end of the story but the disciples don’t. That is how the kingdom of heaven is now for all of us. We don’t know what God is going to do and we know we do not have what is needed to face the challenges in front of us. Ukraine begs the world to help in their fight against invasion. Politicians spend big bucks begging for us to help them win the election. Facebook is full of people asking for affirmation for them in a situation they are facing, unrecognized artists post using all sorts of media, unrecognized musicians post their talent, movie stars ask for further affirmation from fans, and that does not even mention the plea for help facing medical problems. Our resources are often insufficient for our challenges.
The disciples turn to Jesus, good choice. They turn to Jesus with a prepared solution. Get rid of the challenge by sending the people away. Often we too turn to Jesus and don’t realize we have blinders on. We think we know how God might resolve our pain. Very few choose suffering, humiliation, or defeat. The history of the missionary movement in China is a more modern case study. Missionaries went to China mid 1800s and by 1900 it was estimated there were 700,000 believers. After the Cultural Revolution in, 1949 missionaries were expelled and many despaired. In 2018 China claimed 44 million believers and many think there are many more who did not declare their faith publicly. Authors like Joni Erikson Tadda look back on physical tragedy and write how it led to unplanned blessing. This is not to dismiss the pain of tragedy but to affirm that we do not know at any moment when our resources seem so limited, how God might work in the situation.
Jesus looks to heaven and prays. We do not know what he prayed but we do know that all were fed and satisfied. Jesus met the people and the disciples at their point of need with the resources at hand. They were still sitting in the wilderness. They still did not have the resources for an uncertain future under the Romans or under King Herod who could just order the death of John the Baptist, a righteous man. They did not know what the next meal would be but as they let God deal with their problem, they experienced satisfaction.
Faith is not a substitute for the problems of life. Faith means we believe God walks through the problems, running interference, holding our hand, caring. I wish I could say that faith means all our problems are resolved to happy-ever-after but it does not always happen that way. We know. Divorces happen and families are split with terrible scars. Bankruptcy may have to be walked through. The doctor’s scalpel is sometimes the answer to disease. And yes, people die. But perhaps the kernel of truth in this part of the passage is that Jesus does not send the people away because he is too busy. He helps them deal with their challenge and blesses. Old Mother Hubbard is going to the cupboard and does plan to feed her dog.
Our text challenges us to ask ourselves, when we hear the news of our world, of our doctors, of our economists, or our environmentalists where do we run? Where do we run when we realize our resources don’t meet our needs and we are grieving? Where will Mother Hubbard go to feed her dog?
15When 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.”
Hunger
The kingdom of heaven is not always happiness as we face the challenges of this world. We have our feet in two worlds. We live in the kingdom of this world but by faith we have started living in the kingdom of heaven. There is always a tension. Now we grieve and eventually die physically to enter eternity. In this world we often do not have enough resources to deal with life and must turn to God and trust as he walks with us through tough times. But I also see the truth in this passage that we hunger. The people saw Jesus leave for the wilderness and got there before him. They were hungry for a different way of life he talked about. He healed their sick. There were no razzle-dazzle medical resources like we have today. There were no credit cards that allowed people to live beyond their means. The crowds were subject to the whims of Rome, of tax collectors, and of evil. At the end of the day they were hungry for a better life. When all is said and done, we are hungry too. I love Chronicles of Narnia, in the 6th and final book, The Last Battle, it ends with the children entering a stable that opens unto eternity and they join hands singing, ‘Higher up and higher in!” The journey of faith is always, “Higher up and higher in” to the presence and relationship with God.
Would we be satisfied with a meal of bread and fish with no tarter sauce or mayo, shared by some unknown kid, and handled by a bunch of uneducated fishermen turned disciple? Like the people of Israel, we might grumble and ask, “What is it?” Surely God could do better than this? We might look for disinfecting wipes to clean our hands and we might even put on our masks. We live such entitled lives in the USA where choice is part of our way of life. We go to a buffet and choose our items. Even deciding what to eat at Mc D’s is a challenge of choice. Often we have the right to get a second medical opinion on any procedure. Satisfaction often eludes us.
Jesus looked up to heaven, blessed and broke. I wonder what that moment was like. Was Jesus just putting on a show of prayer or was he seeking guidance? Did baskets of bread and fish just suddenly appear? Or did the example encourage others to dig into their knapsacks and share as some suggest? Or would I have been so anxious about getting my fair share that I was preoccupied and did not even see the multiplication going on? What exactly happened, we are not told.
Miracles are like that. Something happens and life changes. The phone call comes at that moment of despair and rescues us and reminds us we are loved. We open the Bible and our eyes fall on a verse that exactly answers our heart. Jesus spits and makes mud, puts it on a man’s eyes and he goes and washes and he can see. How did that happen? How did Lazarus walk out of the tomb, bound in wraps? God works in ways beyond our ability to predict and often beyond our ability to explain. Our choice is to respond with an attitude of gratitude or to grumble, what is it? Our text challenges us to ask what we hunger for today.
“20And all ate and were filled”
We believe in a God who grieves at injustice, at political corruption, and walks with us, perhaps in silence. Christians seek out God in the midst of the problems of this world. God responds to our dilemmas with compassion.
We believe in a God who is there when we are at the end of our rope, when our resources are just not enough. He cares when we have no solution. He can use the two fish and five loaves, what is available in our life situation. The solution may not be to get rid of the problem but to join with God in resolving it.
We pray for an attitude of gratitude when we hunger for it draws us to a God who works in unexplainable ways in our lives.
Lord help us, with the 5,000, to ask, seek, and knock on your door with our challenges. Open our eyes to see the ways you are working in our lives. Lord, we long for our hunger to be filled by you.
Let the people of God say, “AMEN!”
On the Way to Wonder 