Always Enough 8-6-23
Always Enough
Is 55:1-5; Mt 14:13-21
Is 55:1-5
Ho, 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. Why 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. Incline 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. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, 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.
Mt 14:13-21
Now when Jesus heard this, 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. 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.
Prayer – Compassionate and responsive Lord – you look at the world through your always loving eyes. Seeing the hungry, seeing the despair, opening your heart to the needs of those all around. Remind us this day that you, your love, your compassion, your gifts and blessings are always enough – amen.
Matthew’s favorite characterization of Jesus is as a teacher, a rabbi. But in Matthew 13, Jesus becomes a worker of miracles. Earlier in Matthew’s gospel we are told that Jesus traveled about Galilee not only teaching and preaching, but also curing all kinds of diseases and sicknesses. Because of his success as a healer, miracle worker, large crowds follow him, hoping against hope that there is enough healing, enough compassion to transform their lives.
Right before our passage Jesus learns that Herod has put John to death, cutting his head off to please a young woman. Jesus attempts to leave the crowds behind to have a few moments of solace, a few moments to grieve the loss of his cousin, to reflect upon the man who prepared the world for his very own arrival. But once again the crowds follow Jesus. Perhaps surprisingly, or maybe not, Jesus doesn’t flee the onrush of folks looking for him; rather he sets his own loss and pain aside and responds to those who are sick and suffering. Even in his own sense of loss and grief, there was a well spring of compassion for others – perhaps reminding us that Jesus, God in the flesh, always has enough for us.
Jesus looked upon that crowd and saw them, not as demanding and grabbing power and attention but as those who have a need for something that overflows from Jesus’ heart – his desire to help, his desire to change another’s circumstance, his deep and abiding compassion that is bottomless and is always enough. Typically when I reflect on this passage I focus on the miracle feeding and today I wonder if the feeding of the five thousand is simply a metaphor for the boundless compassion that resides in Jesus’ heart.
This time as I reflected I noticed, perhaps for the first time is that Jesus sees the crowds – who are demanding of his time and attention – through the eyes of compassion. He not only feels them but also moves toward them; acting to help them. He views the crowds not as an imposition upon his solace and grief but as those who are in need. Even his own disciples were like – you need some self-care time – we can shoo them away. But Jesus saw the unsettling desperation in the eyes of the crowd – maybe even a hunger that couldn’t be satisfied – a hunger for love, compassion, justice and peace.
The disciple’s request of Jesus is not unreasonable. Jesus, and they, are tired from serving and caring for the large crowds. It’s the end of the day and the disciples weren’t sure when they could get a few moments of rest and their stomachs are growling with the same hunger pangs as the crowd. But Jesus sees a deeper hunger than meal time hunger and instructs his disciples to respond to the hungry multitude to which they reply we only have five loaves and two fish. Poor timing, few resources, how was this going to work?
And yet, Jesus, moved by compassion, to which he always seems to have enough, acts of the behalf of that needy crowd of – physically and spiritually – hungry folks. He not only acts, but directs his followers to act as well. Jesus does not quickly dismiss the physical needs of the people. Rather he is the embodiment of compassion. He doesn’t try to preach them full to assuage their hunger. And perhaps even more amazingly, Jesus instructs his disciples to feed them from what they had. Jesus feels for those in need and takes responsibility for them, and furthermore, commands his followers to respond to the needy as well. Wonder if that is the task of discipleship???
When I lived in SC a older, wise gentleman showed up at our church one Sunday. Shared that he had just retired from a long career with a local company. “I understand that your ministry for the homeless is somewhat of a mess.” Well, how did you hear about that? I responded. He ignored my question and said, “I’m here to organize it and set things right. That what I did in my job, you know, organize things. I want to do that for this church.” I was thrilled, Lord knows we need the help. So I asked him a different question, ‘what motivates you to do this?’ He said, “Just occurred to me that you can retire from your job, you can be too old to work, but there’s no retirement from being a disciple of Jesus.” The silence that followed was profound and perhaps worth reflecting on.
You’re at work, at home, and the phone rings. The voice on the other end is a distant relative, or perhaps even a good friend. “She’s gone!” he or she says. “Wasn’t even sick, so far as we knew. Just died. This morning.” You get up from where you are sitting – walk out into the back yard – to just sit and think about a loved one that suddenly and inexplicably had just died. You don’t want to be bothered by a spouse or church member. You just want a few moments to remember various times, many stories, memories that have embedded upon your soul.
That’s not too different from what Jesus experienced as we began our passage this morning. Yet I expect that in receiving the news of John’s beheading. Jesus may have suffered doubly. He has not only lost his friend and the person who recognized his true spirit, but surely Jesus felt a sense of foreboding as well – a deep wondering if he was in fact next. What the combination of both religious and civil authorities had done to John, to shut up his preaching – his criticism of the status quo and powerful – they will probably come after Jesus next. Where was Jesus headed when this detour takes place and he tries to escape to the have some quiet time of remembering? Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, and the cross.
In the midst of his own sense of loss, grief, anticipatory wondering if he was in fact next of the death squad’s list, Jesus found that others were hurting, hungry, broken and down-trodden. And that well-spring of love and compassion for others bubbled up and out, responded to those who had a deeper need than even Jesus himself. With Jesus, there is always enough.
Jesus had a remarkable way of being a friend to every person he encountered. We sense in him the ability to welcome the stranger, to find and announce the hidden gift in those others called sinners, to strengthen the ability of the loving to love more. He loved by confronting them compassionately with the ways in which they were unloving and exploitive of others. He compassionately challenged the hypocritical in those who made it their right to judge others with constant reminders that we not only must not but cannot judge another. Jesus found important ways to invite all to discover and cherish the lovable in themselves.
The compassion of Christ is most often experienced as gentleness, acceptance and boundless grace. When I think of the persons I know who model for the depths of the spiritual life, I am struck by their gentleness. They are gentle because they have honestly faced the struggles given to them and have learned the hard way that personal survival is not the point. Their caring is gentle because self-aggrandizement is no longer at stake. There is nothing in it for them. Their vulnerability has been stretched to clear-eyed sensitivity to others and truly self-less love.
In an article I read several years ago, David Switzer, profoundly tells me, perhaps tells us what caring and compassion isn’t. “What caring is not . . . . is to seek to expose our own goals, purposes, values, programs, faith, to manipulate or coerce, however subtly or smoothly, is a failure to trust the basic human development within relationships, and perhaps more importantly, the failure to trust the power of the Holy Spirit in human life. We can’t trick people or lead people by the nose into personal growth and change, into significant decisions in their lives, into growth in Christian faith, or into the kingdom itself. The attempt to do so is not Christian or even human caring or compassion.”
Jesus had and has the capacity and the ability to gently expose people to God’s love and grace, to God’s mercy and peace, almost inviting them in to a divine and human relationship. Jesus didn’t try or need to coerce folks; he simply met them where they were, accepted them graciously in love and gave them, gives them the opportunity to be transformed.
Rachel Naomi Remen, a palliative care physician, once said, “Wounding and healing aren’t opposites. They are part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to find other people or to even know they’re alone. I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of.”
Now I have no clue if Jesus had a difficult childhood that left him wounded and broken. I choose to believe that Jesus’ embodiment of the Divine reflects the compassionate presence and embrace he gives to all he meets. Jesus had and has the unique ability to offer grace to the most broken and even despicable which leaves his viewers scratching their heads. And yet, it is more often than not, the broken and despicable who is receiving compassion and grace, who can then speak to the power, the transformative power that comes from the moment it is received. And that is a testimony worth noting.
What attracted people to Jesus, interestingly enough, were not traits that we customarily associate with effective leaders in our day; traits like self-awareness though he was, innovation, emotional maturity though he was, self-confidence though quietly and distinctly he was, creativity – just look at his parables, and much more. But what struck people the most about Jesus was his compassion more than anything else. He possessed what Frederick Buechner describes as the ‘fatal capacity for feeling what it’s like to live inside someone else’s skin.’
At the very outset of his ministry, Jesus touched and cleansed a leper, moved as he was then ‘with compassion.’ He cared for the crowds from the deepest part of his being, literally from the depth of his soul. His was a deep feeling for what others were experiencing, which he then acted upon kindly.
Because compassion was central to Jesus’ self-understanding, we may speak of it as a primary Christian virtue. It we want to be Christian, we must share in Christ’s large-heartedness . . . his liberating love for all who suffer. (Bonhoeffer) Giving grace to our wounds, giving grace to our failures, showing self-mercy on our moments of adversity are the best ways to offer similar grace and mercy to others. And the amazing thing is – that grace and mercy is always enough, for us and others – thanks be to God – amen.