Grace United Methodist Church
Corpus Christi, TX
pastorwillrice@gmail.com
Mark 14:13-21
Last fall, Alisha and I were living in the suburbs of Austin. We were living in quite a family friendly neighborhood, so at Halloween, we decorated the house and got lots of candy and Alisha put on something scary and answered the door, scared the kids and gave them candy. I took a few turns at the door and I noticed some differences between these kids and the kids I used to go trick-or-treating with back in Western New York. First of all, these kids were not wearing winter coats over their costumes. Second of all, they were not caring little orange UNICEF boxes.
There are still some schools that do this, hand out boxes for kids to take trick-or-treating. In towns where this is done, most people have a bowl of candy and a bowl of change. The kids collect pennies, nickels and dimes, and they all get sent to the United Nations Children’s Fund to help kids all around the world.
As an adult, I would wonder how a measly dime could help stop world hunger, But as a kid, it made perfect sense.
13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
Sometimes, when we read scripture out of context, we miss the meaning. Other times, it makes no sense at all.
13 Now when Jesus heard this,
We have to back a up a bit to see what Jesus heard. If we read backwards, we realize that Jesus’ friend, John the Baptist has been beheaded by Herod Antipas.
12His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus. 13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
The stress of his ministry, grief over his friend’s death, many factors have convinced him that he needs some time away.
13aBut when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd;
I never really got this until I drew a map. I am so thankful for the advances in technology that allow me to use projected digital maps to bring this to life for you.
Jesus heads to a deserted place in a boat. We are assuming that he is on the Sea of Galilee. Now let’s say that Jesus has picked a deserted place about 4 miles across the Sea of Galilee by boat. Now let’s say for a moment that the same location could be reached on foot by walking about ten miles. Now let’s say there wasn’t much wind to push the boat, or it was blowing in the completely wrong direction and Jesus doesn’t feel much like paddling. It becomes totally possible that people saw Jesus get on the boat, figured out where he was going and got there before him.
14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd;
Jesus has just found out that his friend/cousin/colleague, John the Baptist has died a horrible death, Jesus has decided to take a little time away to think, pray, perhaps mourn and when he gets there, there is a huge crowd.
Now, even though I have only been here a short time, but I love you all. I love to have the chance to teach you and learn from you. I love the opportunity to help you and comfort you in times of need. I love to pray with you and remind you of God’s love. But, maybe once a year, if we are lucky, Alisha and I drive to New Mexico, rent a cabin in the mountains and spend a week in the solitude. There are no phones there, no internet. We read, we watch the fire burn in the fireplace, we take the dog for long walks in the wilderness, I nap.
Now, as much as I love you all, if I ever packed up the car, drove 10 hours, got the cabin, got out and so all of you all there. I would probably not do what Jesus did.
14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 1
He had compassion for them. Actually, that might be a bit of an understatement. What it says was that he was splagcni,zomai (splageitzomai) which translates as “was moved with compassion.” But, what is interesting about this word is that, in the entire New Testament, it is used only in reference to Jesus or by Jesus in a parable as a way of describing the compassionate love of God that we are to emulate.
Jesus was moved with compassion for the crowd and this has turned into a working vacation.
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.’
It sounds sort of like the disciples are trying to get rid of the crowd, but they might be feeling a little bit of compassion as well. Remember the map? They have all walked quite a ways and now they are in this deserted place and the disciples are looking around and they realize there is not one single Whataburger in sight.
So, they go to Jesus, the guy everyone is looking at and tell him to dismiss the crowd so they can go eat. It is extremely important to notice what Jesus does not do next. First, he doesn’t say, “O.K. good point, y’all go away now and eat.”
Second, and this is a miracle story, so it is important to see this. He doesn’t just say “shazaam” wave his hand and manifest Dominoes pizza in front of everyone. He doesn’t do that. Instead, he does something utterly preposterous.
16Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’
It is so easy for things to get lost in translation. We miss a little something here. It reads, “you give them something to eat.” What we miss is something, in Greek called an emphatic. It is a way of describing the subject twice as a way of emphasis. So, in a way it says, you, you give them something to eat. Or, perhaps, YOU give them something to eat. Jesus is being exceptionally clear who will be getting something for the crowd to eat.
This is important. Jesus is the one who will be credited with a miracle. Jesus is the one with the power here, right? But he says “you give them something to eat.”
And this is no small task, the last verse of today’s passage reveals how many people we are talking about.
21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
So, add, women and children, then we have maybe 10, 15, 20,000 people. The new American Bank Center Arena seats about 10,000, picture filling that up to overflowing and then being responsible for food. And then think about realizing:
17They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’
This is even worse than it sounds. What they were probably talking about was the equivalent of a couple of sardines and five dinner rolls.
The disciples have reason to be a little concerned. Jesus has just ordered them to feed a whole lot of people with very, very little. It would be sort of like me asking you to feed all those people at the American Bank Center with a couple of the What-a-catch fish sandwiches. I might as well ask you to end poverty with what is currently in the church refrigerators.
But Jesus, seemingly not perplexed by what they find says,
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. 2
Notice what is going on here. Jesus commands the disciples, YOU get them something to eat, they go and collect not nearly enough food, the give it to Jesus, and then Jesus gives it back to them to serve. Notice the role they take in this event.
20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.
And there were leftovers.
Whatever happened with Jesus and the disciples and all those people in the deserted place was very important. This is the only “miracle story” found in all four gospels. People tend to look at it from two extremes. One is that it is simply another miracle, another way to show that Jesus is truly the Son of God. It is there for the same purpose as the walking on the water, the turning water into wine, the raising of Lazarus. The other extreme is to see this as not really all that miraculous. Some say that the only true “miracle” in this story is that once everyone opened up their hearts and bags they realized that they all had enough food to share.
Both of these views of this event can be dangerous. There is a danger in holding tightly to the idea that Jesus just decided to manifest enough food for everyone. It begs the question, when I turn on my television and see people starving to death in sub-Saharan Africa, why doesn’t God do that there? The U.S. government estimates that 35.9 million Americans live below the poverty level meaning that given their income, they cannot afford to purchase enough food to meet minimum caloric and nutrition needs.[1] Worldwide, eight million people die each year because they don’t have enough to eat.[2]
Why doesn’t God do something about that?
Now the flip side can be just as perilous.
16byou give them something to eat.
If we take God completely out of this equation, we put all of the responsibility upon ourselves. This almost sounds like a good idea, until we begin to see the scope of the problems we feel called to solve.
Think about it, eight million people die each year because there is not enough to eat. I mean we could really put our backs into that, take our whole church budget and raise all the money we could and we couldn’t even begin to get a program off the ground that tackle to systemic, economic, government, ecological, planning and logistical issues that cause that to happen and so, and here in lies the danger, we do nothing.
The danger of both of these extreme views is that we do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Whether we put it squarely in God’s hands or squarely in ours it is more than likely that nothing will happen.
But what if… what if we do what Jesus commands here.
16byou give them something to eat.
And then, when we are sure we don’t have enough, we listen again.
18And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’
What if instead of sitting motionless in our assurance that God will take care of it, or sit paralyzed in our fear the all of the responsibility is on our shoulders, we take what we can offer, and truly have faith in the miraculous, that God will take our meager offering and bless it and create abundance.
Isn’t that what we do when we step into the mission field? When our youth head out to work during Sea City Work Camp, they have already heard the call “you give them something to eat.” But do they go thinking that they must single handedly fix every roof, re carpet every home, fix every bathroom in Corpus Christi? Do they think that they must single-handedly change the lives of every person in the coastal bend that is living in less than adequate housing? No, they know that they are called to do what they can and trust in God to bring abundant blessings through their meager offering.
I see a box in the glassway. One of our groups is collecting bags and toiletries for kids in crises situations. They have obviously realized that God is calling them to be part of the blessing. But one bag isn’t go to change the life of a child. But we have to believe that God can take that one bag, and someone else’s bottle of shampoo and the financial gift that someone else was able to offer and the gift of time of a counselor and the gift of love of foster parent, and all the other gifts and bless them and bring from them and through them the abundant gift of life.
It is just like the UNICEF boxes, where we, with the simple minds of children believed that those pennies, nickels and dimes could change the world. And they can.
God can and does domiraculous things, but God calls on us to be faithful, to be generous, and to trust that God can bring abundant hope out of our meager offering.
Amen?
[1] According to the U.S. Census. The information is available online at: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html
[2] According to Jeffrey D. Sachs in his book, The End of Poverty, (Penguin Press, 2005) An excerpt of his book was printed in Time Magazine, March 14, 2005. It is available online at http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1034738,00.html.
