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.”
Sisters and brothers, you who have been brought here now among this gathering of believers, grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from the LORD our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
He has sent his Holy Spirit far and wide, to gather you from the dark corners and back alleys of this world in order that you might hear a word from your LORD that you can trust. “HO!” he has cried from his font, “everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;” and again from his table he rings his dinner bell and yells out across the earth, “and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” This LORD of yours gives you everything from his endless stores, at NO COST to you… now that’s what I call “SAVINGS”!
Savings… and not earnings. Nothing that we have will do in the exchange. Christ’s merit alone earns back what we have rung up in our sin, our death, and our nightmarish “buy now, pay later” cooked-books scheming with the devil. And Christ, the anointed messiah of the LORD’s chosen nation Israel, the actual, living, breathing New Testament of the entire scriptures, born in the city of God’s chosen king David, Christ himself and alone is here, passing all… ALL the savings along to you, in his word of forgiveness of sins, given in water, wine, and bread. FREE OF CHARGE!
In the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of eternity impinging itself at this very moment upon this finite world in faith alone, by God’s grace alone, Christ has compassion on us who twitch and curl in thirst for mercy, this weary gaggle of thousands, so caught up in the moment that we’ve stranded ourselves in a wilderness without bread. Instead of sending us away to fend for ourselves (he’s seen how that goes… and it ain’t pretty), rather than finding a quiet place to hunker down and shake off the rejection he’s just had in his own hometown, not stopping even for a day to lock himself away in a room somewhere to grieve his beloved cousin John who had just been beheaded at the whims of ignorant paper royalty, instead Jesus is moved to compassion for the multitudes… the very crowds who in only a short while will cheer as he rides into Jerusalem as David did on a colt; the same people who will spit and curse as he drags his sorry carcass through town to the hill outside the city, to give himself totally for them, for us, for you.
“They need not go away,” he says, cutting the disciples short in their attempt at protecting Jesus from further abuse at the hands of strangers. “Don’t you dare tell them to leave, you tell them to stay here… and YOU give them something to eat. The shopkeepers, merchants, and innkeepers around here will only charge them money they don’t have for their bread, water, and pillow; I have something different in mind. So just you fellas hold yer horses and ring the dinner bell.”
An ancient and joyful prayer, offering praise and recognition to God for his abundance and mercy, Psalm 145 contains words that we often recite together around our own tables as we sit down for supper and a review of the day with the ones who love us. “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season.” Such were the eyes of these many people gathered on that sad day from area towns, following Jesus on foot where he went by boat to try and withdraw. “You open your hand,” sings the psalm, bringing to mind this classic posture of invitation that we even see today in our worship services, this gesture embodied in carvings of St. Francis statues we put in our gardens, and in those lovely animated maidens welcoming birds and cute little creatures to sing with them in Disney adaptations of fairy tales. Every time I do this gesture up here, singing like some happy goofball to you in our liturgy, I feel like we’re in one of those musicals that we all watch when we want to feel good again. “You open wide your hand,” some translations have it read, emphasizing the sheer giddy eagerness God has in feeding his creatures, “satisfying the desire of every living thing.” Not just families gathered around a table, huddled over a woven mat in a one-room hut, or trailing after a rapidly-emptying relief truck, but every living thing has satisfaction coming in Christ. He is the one to whom all desires are known, and from whom no secrets are hid, and he is capable of dizzying compassion when all of us can only wonder, “how does he do it?”
So we can understand the sentiment behind the disciples comments: wanting to give their rabbi some breathing room, acting on to preserve his public image, trying to take care of his flock for him just this once the only way they know how… by sending them away to fend for themselves. But as David, the shepherd boy who was anointed king of Israel, once looked over his family’s sheep in the fields, protecting them from lions and wolves with a sling and a spear, so too does Jesus look over his very own flock… moved to compassion by their great need. And though we might make sense of the thought process of the disciples, we will only perceive by faith what it was that followed.
“NO ONE GOES AWAY HUNGRY!” booms the voice of the LORD. “ALL WILL EAT TO THEIR HEART’S DELIGHT AND ALL WILL DRINK THEIR FILL.” “But how can this be?” asked the disciples, “there’s nothing here but a little bread and fish… barely enough for us!” And that’s where we find ourselves caught with them: in the arms of an abundantly rich LORD, heads shaking in bewilderment as he goes about the business of feeding the world, of opening wide his hand and satisfying the desires of every living thing, leaving us to only recognize it by the work of the Holy Spirit, who leads us in prayer: bless us O LORD, and these thy gifts, which we receive from thy bounty in Jesus name, Amen. Come LORD Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blessed.
And he is here, for you in his Word, given and shed for you at his table, poured over you in his baptism. “How can this be?” you wonder, “Bring them here to me,” comes the order.
