feeding the five thousand

It's still early Sunday morning, just ticked over to seven o'clock, nice breakfast of soft-scrambled eggs, ice water, and heart pills, and I guess we're going to 10:30 church? Linda prefers that, I like the Sunday Time factor of going to the early service, eight o'clock, makes no difference to me about the liturgy, whether it's Rite One (traditional English) or Rite Two (contemporary). What Cranmer wrote that may seem so precious now was contemporary English in his Time. Nowadays, though, hearing and saying "thee" and "thou" and "thy" and, once in a while, "vouchsafe," may make us feel that we've entered into the Holy.

My theology is that Pantokrator does not care, it isn't an issue with God what tongue we worship in.

Well, IDK, Adonai Elohim might prefer the Hebrew that was spoken in The Beginning. 

Anyway, here we are, and my mind is on the gospel reading that our lectionary lays out for us this morning. It's Matthew's account of Jesus feeding the five thousand. Several things occur whenever I read it, both that our sermons may pick up, and that I notice and might not necessarily have said in a sermon but would have discussed in adult Sunday school class: 

This story is told in all four canonical gospels, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. We're looking at Matthew's version.

Jesus is compassionate, we are meant to emulate that quality.

In Matthew and the other synoptics, Jesus does miracles (Gospel John calls them "signs") whenever he encounters people whom he feels called to help. Inside the synoptic story, Jesus does not mean the miracle to show who and what he is; outside the story, to readers, the story is meant to show who and what Jesus is.

The story is told as a miracle: Jesus takes whatever is and makes it work, he does not Create more, he does not create five thousand more fish; how does he do it? It's a mystery, we don't need to figure it out. We are not meant to do inane things like rationalizing that the people there must have been touched and opened their hearts and lunchboxes to others. The worst I ever saw was a Jesus of Nazareth film years ago that pictured masses of live fish suddenly leaping and jumping. It wasn't outrageous, it was sheer ignorant, asinine absurdity.

In Matthew (and the other synoptics, but not in Gospel John), every Time Jesus hosts a meal, supper, feeding, he performs what we call the four Eucharistic actions, Take, Bless, Break, Give, that we also do in our Eucharistic prayers. How and why in the synoptics? Why not in Gospel John?

There is significance in the amount of food that is collected as leftovers, the abundance of it. Whether there's numerology is the five loaves, and two fish (seven?) and the twelve baskets of leftovers, a Sunday school class might enjoy exploring.

The number of people that Jesus fed here makes an interesting discussion. Five thousand MEN plus women and children: how many fish did he need?

Any Time we read one of the stories of Jesus feeding the five thousand, it's interesting, fun and good to compare all four stories. It's also interesting to bring in the two accounts of Jesus feeding the four thousand.

To complete sermons or discussion sessions, it's also fun to look ahead and see how the gospel writer has Jesus' later actions tie back to the multitude feeding accounts.

Finally, perhaps, it's Heilsgeschichte, a holy story: how do you take it? Literally? Figuratively? Metaphorically? Happening maybe 33 AD, it developed and was passed along orally for decades before Matthew picks it up about 85 AD from Mark's 70 AD writing. Visualize the scene as you contemplate the story.

RSF&PTL

T90

Here's today's reading:  

Matthew 14:13-21

Jesus withdrew 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.