To Be Like Jesus = To Be Compassionate

Matthew 14:13-21

All he wanted was to be by himself. The news was devastating. John was dead – not just dead, murdered…it was all political, beheaded. It was heart-wrenching and fear-inducing. John was family. They had known each other since before they were born – literally. Their mothers were close, in fact, Elizabeth and Mary spent 3 months of their pregnancies together. After the boys grew up, John was a real spiritual leader. He lived out in the wilderness like a prophet, preaching that the time for repentance was at hand – the Messiah was coming, and you want to be ready! Prepare the way! He was baptizing people in the Jordan River as they came to him, ready to dedicate their lives to God beyond just what was required, beyond the rituals and rules to draw near to God in relationship. These people had chosen to be part of a community that wanted to come to know God and do God’s Will, to change the world. Jesus went one day and was baptized by John. His time had come. John realized that Jesus was the Messiah that he had been preaching about. They had a close, deep bond. And now, John…slaughtered at the hand of a cruel tyrant whose only concern was himself and his power. Would he be next? He needed some time. Alone. Time to pray. Time to feel all his feelings. Time to think. Time to just breathe deeply and stare off into space, to just BE.

He got into the boat and crossed over to the other side of the lake, the Eastern shore, the wilderness side. But, the crowds saw him. The Sea of Galilee is not huge; it really is a lake – you can see across to the opposite shore. So, they took off on foot and were there before he was.

As much as he needed space, to rest, to grieve, to be with God, Jesus had compassion on them. He put their needs ahead of his own. Even in the midst of his struggles, he couldn’t ignore or postpone paying attention to theirs. Immediately, he began to heal.

I can just imagine the reaction of the disciples. I wonder if they tried to get the crowd to hold off the whole time they were traipsing around the lake. “We will be back in a day or two. He needs some time for himself.” But they didn’t listen. They were drawn to this man and his teaching, his blessing, his healing, his promise to change their world. As soon as Jesus got close to the shore, I just imagine Peter and Andrew wading out and pulling the boat up on the rocks, having a quiet word with him. “You might want to put back out. You need to take care of yourself, and the whole crowd is already here waiting for you. We can send them home and tell them you will meet them in one of the towns tomorrow – where do you want to say? Capernaum?”

Jesus looked up toward the shore, and he saw them. All already there. And he had compassion on them. He saw these people’s needs, and he loved them. He stepped out of the boat, past the disciples, as exhausted in every way as he was, and began healing.

Apparently, the disciples were Presbyterians because while Jesus was healing, they had a committee meeting about the disaster that was facing them. No one had prepared for this several hour jaunt around the lake. And now, it was getting late. They knew what was going to happen – there was going to have to be a meal, but they didn’t have food to feed this crowd. So, they came up with a plan. It was a good plan. It’s time to stop, before dinner time – give people a chance to get back before dark to get their own dinner. It was a reasonable, sensible plan. It was getting late. Jesus was tired. All the people were hungry. It was the compassionate thing to do, right?

They presented the plan to Jesus. “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.”
“No, they don’t need to go away,” Jesus responded, “YOU give them something to eat.”

Barbara Brown Taylor says she wishes she was there to hear that, to see how they looked at each other when he said that. “What do you mean we should give them something to eat? All we have between us is five loaves of bread and two salted fish, which is hardly a snack for twelve men, never mind five thousand. There are five thousand people out there, Jesus. No disrespect intended, but you are not making sense” (The Seeds of Heaven, p.50).

They were operating out of a sense of scarcity, Barbara says. They looked at the crowd, assessed the need and their own meager resources, and came to the very sensible conclusion: there is not enough. So, we will keep what we have and send them to get what they need somewhere else.

Jesus, offered a different way, the way of compassion. “Bring what you have to me. Doesn’t matter that it isn’t a lot. Bring me your time, your listening ear, your love, your talent, your ability to set up tables, your money, your hobbies…whatever you have, bring it to me,” says Jesus. And he receives them, lifts them before the Father, offers a prayer of blessing, breaks them open so that they can be shared, and gives them back to be shared with those who need them.

This story is told 6 times in the Gospels. It is the only miracle that is told in all 4 Gospels. And over and over again, we try to explain it. People must have had food in their pockets. It was a spiritual hunger, not a physical hunger…people just took a crumb each. Here is the truth of what happened – they gave what they had and it was enough.

I’ve always thought of the leftovers as an abundance – 12 basketfuls left over. Of course, it could symbolize that the disciples gave all that they had, and after everyone’s needs were met, there was enough for each of the disciples to have a take-home basket. It could be a reference to God providing for the 12 tribes of Israel.

What if the point is not abundance, though? Dr. Doug Hare, who taught at Pittsburg Theological Seminary, wrote in his commentary on this passage, “It is natural to think of [the 12 baskets of leftovers] as pointing to the superabundance of God’s supply, but in fact a mere twelve basketfuls after many thousands have eaten” – remember that they only counted the men, there were probably at least 20,000 people there – 12 baskets is barely any leftover when you are feeding 20,000 – it’s a “narrow margin….The story suggests that God will provide with a little to spare, but there must be no greed or waste, or some will go hungry.”

Just like the Israelites were instructed to only take enough manna for the day, and then enough for 2 days to provide for the Sabbath, when God provides we are tempted by the sin of greed. But if we give in to that sin, the “extra” we gather rots and some go hungry, some continue to be in need.

We have to trust God enough to begin to live not out of a sense of scarcity—a fear that there isn’t enough, so we have to save and preserve and hoard. Two different recent surveys of Americans reveal a lot about our attitudes toward enough. Only 19% of Americans think that they earn “enough.” So, 81% think that they don’t earn “enough.” While 79% believe that more money will make them happier. The title of the article in Forbes is actually, “79% Of Americans Believe More Money Will Make Them Happier. Here’s Why They’re Wrong” and the article goes on to say that, “Prioritizing the pursuit of money NEVER contributes to overall happiness and life satisfaction.”

The reality is that we are ALL hungry. Why are you here this morning? I suspect, that if you thought much about it, you came here hoping to find bread for your deepest hunger.
“Thou hast made our hearts restless,” St. Augustine wrote centuries ago, “until they rest in thee.” Who doesn’t know what that means? Hungry—for bread of heaven; thirsty for living water. That is why five thousand men and their families followed Jesus and stayed into the evening, past dinnertime, with gnawing hunger reminding them of their emptiness.
And Jesus had compassion on them. To be like Jesus is to have compassion, to offer what we have and pray for God to bless it, to break it and share it, confident that God provides from our meager resources an abundance that is enough.

Rev. John Buchanan, who was pastor of 4th Presbyterian in Chicago and still is active in the PCUSA, had the opportunity early in his ministry to serve a small parish church in the Western Highlands of Scotland. And while he was there, he got to know and became friends with the pastor of the Church of Scotland in the neighboring parish, Johnny Dunlop. One day, while they were having coffee and a good long conversation, Johnny started talking about World War II.

Johnny was in the infantry in the British Army and his unit was surrounded, and he was captured and ended up in a prisoner of war camp in Poland. It was dreadful: cold, wet, filthy, and worst of all, there was almost no food, just a bowl of thin soup and a scrap of bread once a day. Prisoners lost weight, until they were skin and bones, contracted diseases, and began to die. The war was not going very well for the Allies, and there didn’t seem to be any reason for hope. As the tide began to turn and Germany’s fortunes diminished, the conditions in the prisoner of war camp became worse, until some prisoners didn’t want to go on living. One easy way to end it all, he said, was to throw yourself against the barbed wire fence as if trying to escape and be shot instantly by the guards. Johnny said that one night, deeply discouraged, depressed, and sick with despair and hunger, he slipped out of the barracks and walked toward the fence, not quite sure whether he ought simply to end it all. He sat down on the bare ground thinking. He sensed movement in the dark on the other side of the barbed wire. It was a Polish farmer. He had half a potato in his hand. He thrust the potato through the barbed wire. As Johnny Dunlop took it, the man said, in heavily accented English, “The Body of Christ.”

It was enough. Amen.