Two Fish, Five Loaves, and the Kingdom of Heaven

In the parable of the yeast, which we read last Sunday, Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened Matthew 13:33.  We explored the way a small bit of yeast will not just double in size itself, it will make the entire ball of dough double in size, providing the delicious bread which sustains our lives and is part of our celebrations.  

In today’s gospel passage, I feel like that parable is growing even further, and Jesus is miraculously extending the growth of the bread to feed a whole multitude of hungry people.  Today we’re going to look at this passage by looking at the three people in it: the crowds, Jesus, and the disciples.

First, the crowds.  At the beginning of this passage, we notice that the people in the crowds are so eager to hear Jesus that even when he goes across the lake in a boat so that he can be in a deserted place by himself, the crowds walk all the way around the lake on foot so that they will be there with him when he arrives.  Why would they drop everything and walk so far to hear him?  For some, probably simple curiosity about who this guy is and what he’s saying.  For others, maybe a spiritual longing or hope for what he’s talking about.  For others, a growing faith.  For others, a desire for the healing they’ve heard Jesus can give, for themselves or for a loved one.  For others, maybe a mix of several of these.  What matters most, for them, and for us, is not whether their motives are pure.  What matters most, for them and for us, is that they go to be where Jesus is.  While nobody in the crowd controls miracles, the fact that they go to be where Jesus is means that they’re there when the miracle happens.  

Matthew points out something else about the crowd.  Some people refer to this passage as  “the feeding of the five thousand”, but I prefer “the feeding of the multitude” because there are more than five thousand people. Matthew specifically tells us, “those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”  This is significant for a variety of reasons.  One is that we know that the people who get up and go to be with Jesus, even during his lifetime, are not just men, they are also women.  And children can’t be left unattended, so the parents bring their children along to see Jesus too.  It may be that there were a lot of children.  As genealogists will tell you, in the generations before the availability of reliable birth control, ordinary married women had another baby about every two years, maybe every three years, especially if there was a miscarriage in between.  That means that if you were a woman in those times, you were either pregnant or breastfeeding or both almost constantly from the time you got married to the time you reached menopause.  So the women who are trekking around this lake on foot to see Jesus are women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, but they still go.  And when they get there, as the hour gets late in the deserted place and they have no food, it is not just the adult men who are affected by hunger.  It is also the pregnant women, the breastfeeding women, and the children who are affected by hunger.  The disciples suggest that Jesus send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy food for themselves.  I want to point out that when we look closely at that verse, we realize it means that the people in the crowds won’t go into the villages to buy food for themselves unless Jesus sends them away.  Even with their hunger, they want to stay where Jesus is.  And Jesus gives them both compassion and food.

Next, we are going to look at Jesus.  Last Sunday’s readings had the parables of the mustard seed, the yeast, the treasure in the field, the pearl, and the net.  There is a section of verses that comes right after that passage, and right before today’s passage. In these verses, at the beginning of chapter 14, Matthew tells us that Herod heard reports about Jesus, and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; for he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.”  It then goes on to tell us why Herod has a guilty conscience: that Herod wanted to put John the Baptist to death, but he feared the crowd.  Matthew tells us that John had told Herod it was unlawful for him to have his brother’s wife, Herodias.  Then it tells us about Herod’s birthday banquet, his promise to Herodius’ daughter to grant whatever she might ask, and her request, prompted by Herodias, for John the Baptist’s head on a platter.  John the Baptist’s disciples bury his body, then they go and tell Jesus.  So when today’s reading starts by saying, “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there…” what Jesus heard was what had happened to John the Baptist.  

It would make sense that Jesus might want a little time to himself away from the crowds as he grieved.  It would make sense that Jesus might want a little time to himself in a deserted place when he knows that Herod killed John the Baptist for saying things he didn’t want to hear, and now Herod thinks Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead, and Herod wants Jesus killed too.

Since the crowds surround Jesus on land, he gets in a boat to go to a deserted place.  But instead of getting alone time, he finds himself surrounded by the crowds again.  Jesus makes numerous sacrifices throughout his ministry, leading up to his ultimate sacrifice on the cross, and today we see one of them.  He doesn’t send the crowds away.  Instead, he had compassion for them and cured their sick.  The original Greek uses the word “splagchnizomai” here, the word that means feeling compassion in your gut.  So Jesus starts working miracles and curing their sick.  There are so many hurting people that it takes a long time, the day passes, dinnertime passes, it is evening.  The disciples suggest that he send the crowds away so they can buy food.  But Jesus does something different.  In today’s gospel passage, we see that not only is Jesus someone who teaches the people about the kingdom of heaven and talks to them about spiritual things.  Jesus is also someone who has compassion, at a gut level, for them and their physical needs.  Jesus has compassion for their physical pain and illnesses, and he cures them.  Jesus has compassion for their physical hunger, and he feeds them.

We have just heard about the birthday banquet Herod throws for himself, in which he and all his powerful cronies drink too much and eat too much and lash out with violence against someone who dares to point out what he’s doing wrong.  In contrast with Herod’s violence, we see Jesus’ compassion to heal and to cure.  In contrast with Herod’s self-indulgence at his meal, we see Jesus’ compassion to provide a meal to feed the multitude of ordinary hungry people in need.  He takes the two fish that men have caught in their net, and kept as good fish.  He takes the five loaves that women have made with yeast that has leavened the dough and made the whole ball of dough increase in size.  The living, growing nature of the kingdom of heaven that he has described in the parables, he now demonstrates by growing this meal of two fish and five loaves into enough to satisfy the hunger of the entire crowd of men, women, and children.  

This is an important miracle in the Bible.  In fact, it is so important that it is the only miracle that appears in all four of the gospels.  It is important because it demonstrates so much about who Jesus is and how Jesus cares for us, both our souls and our bodies.  It is important because it demonstrates the generosity and expansiveness of Jesus’s care for us, and for all the people who suffer from hunger.  It is important because it demonstrates the role of feeding in Jesus’s relationship to us, reminding us of what Jesus does at the last supper with his disciples before the crucifixion, and what he tells all of us to do in memory of him. We read here, “Taking the bread and the fish, Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them”.  These four actions of taking, blessing, breaking, and giving bread appear also in the verses about the last supper, in the Apostle Paul’s writings about celebrations of the eucharist in the first-century church, and in our own celebrations of the eucharist in our own time and place.  Jesus still feeds us today, here in Bowmanville.

This miracle is also important in demonstrating that God’s care for us is not simply enough to satisfy us, it is more than enough.  We read, “all ate and were filled” and even beyond that, “and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.”  Our God is a God of abundance.

Third, we will look at the disciples.  The disciples come to Jesus with a suggestion that seems reasonable enough: “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 replies with something they totally did not expect: “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.”  They are taken aback.  What?  We’ve got thousands of hungry people here!  We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish!  It sounds crazy.  Jesus says simply, “Bring them here to me.”  We often pray about the needs of other people, asking God to provide solutions to their problems, and that’s a good thing to do.  There are plenty of problems that are beyond what we can do, and we are right to bring them to God in prayer.  Still, there are also plenty of times when we can do something to help, even if what we can do to help seems insufficient. Here’s something I hope you will take away from this sermon.  It’s good to ask God to do what you can’t do, but if there’s something you can do to help, Jesus is probably saying, go ahead and do what you can.  The teaching “you give them something to eat” applies to all sorts of situations.  We pray for God to feed the hungry and the homeless, and Jesus says go ahead and do what you can to feed them.  We pray for God to bring world peace, and Jesus says go ahead and do what you can to be a peacemaker.  We pray for God to provide for the ministry of the church, and Jesus says go ahead and do what you can to give to those ministries.  It seems like what you can do to help isn’t enough?  That’s not what matters.  All that’s asked of you is that you do what you can to help.  You might be surprised that God uses your gifts to have effects that go well beyond what you expected.  But God won’t use what you give if you refuse to give it.

Thankfully, when Jesus says, “you give them something to eat” and “bring them here to me” the disciples do give the five loaves and two fish they have.  Jesus turns them into a miraculous abundance.  Then the disciples appear again in this passage.  Jesus gives the fish and bread to the disciples, and the disciples give them to the crowds.   What I hope you will remember from this is that the gifts Jesus gives us are meant to be shared.  Jesus does not give this abundance of fish and bread for each disciple to hoard for himself.  Jesus does not give this abundance of fish and bread for each disciple to evaluate which individuals in the crowd are deserving of being fed and which individuals in the crowd are not.  Jesus gives this abundance of fish and bread for the disciples to be involved in the miraculous giving Jesus does, by giving these gifts so that all can eat and be filled.

As we reflect on the crowds in this passage, we aspire to do what the crowds do, to go to be with Jesus, and to stay with Jesus.  As we reflect on Jesus in this passage, we give thanks for the compassion of Jesus, the feeding of Jesus, and the self-giving love of Jesus in which the kingdom of heaven grows.  As we reflect on the disciples in this passage, we strive to give what we can, knowing that no matter how insufficient it seems, Jesus can grow it into abundance for all.