Sunday Sermon - The Rev. Dr. Hillary Raining (Aug 2, 2026)

[00:00:05] Speaker A: The holy Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ according to Matthew. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Glory to you, Lord. Christ. [00:00:14] Speaker A: 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. They need not go away. You give them something to eat. They replied, we have nothing here but 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. 12 bags, baskets full. And those who ate were about 5,000 men, besides women and children. Gospel of the Lord, [00:02:11] Speaker B: In the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. A couple of public service announcements as we get started. We normally have story time for some of our youngest members, but today we don't have a storyteller. So I'd just like to remind you that we have these great red bags in the back if you need something to do during the sermon. They're for all ages, of course, so if you'd like to color instead. I won't judge. I won't judge. The second public service service announcement is that today you might have seen in the weekly email news that goes out is we're doing a Bible study during our sermon time. So I hope you brought your Bibles with you. Huh? [00:02:52] Speaker A: Huh? [00:02:53] Speaker B: Some. I see some. Okay, fantastic. I also accept Bible apps, so if you have your phone and you want to get that out, that's fine. No judgment there. Now, the reason we're doing a Bible study this week is because we have one of the most important stories in the Gospel. So, so important, in fact, that it's the only miracle story recorded in all four gospels. I mean, outside of the resurrection, of course. We have it in Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, John 6, if you want to look them up later. So this tells you something about how important it was to the early Christian church and to who Jesus is. So today I thought we'd do kind of like a backwards Bible study because like any good bread, and this is a story about bread, you need to see what goes into it. The other reason this is such an important story is that Jesus has cultivated so much of the entire story of God and God's people into this one moment that if we don't take time to pull them out, we miss why this is so groundbreaking and what it means for us as Christians today. So if you have your Bibles open or again, Bible app on your phone, I'm not picky. Go ahead and start where we start today, which is Matthew 14:13 through 21. You also have that on the piece of paper that is in your leaflet. So Matthew 14:13, 13:21. If you start in your Bible versus what's written in your leaflet, you already see that the miracle of the 5000s starts with a different line than what's listed in our scripture. It says here, now, when Jesus heard this, do you see that? Now when Jesus heard this, that's different than what we have, which is. And then he went to a deserted place. So it begs the question, what did Jesus hear? What did Jesus hear? So our first step backwards is to start at the beginning of chapter 14, verse 1. Chapter 14, verse 1. What Jesus heard about is a tragedy. What has led Jesus to seek this solitude in a deserted place is the beheading of John the Baptist, which happened immediately before this. John the Baptist, as you'll remember, is an incredibly important person in Jesus life. He's a relative, probably more like a cousin, maybe even raised, more like a brother. They're almost the exact same age. And John has an incredibly important part in Jesus ministry, heralding who Jesus is as the Messiah and some scholars even think was Jesus own rabbi. So here we have Jesus, beloved John, not just killed, but as you see in that part of the story, he was brutally murdered. First, John was in prison for calling out Herod for his improper marriage and the violence that Herod was known for having killed even members of his own family to gain power. So Herod throws him into jail for this chastisement and would have loved to kill him right then and there, but he's afraid the people will Rio. He does change his mind, however, when his stepdaughter niece, yeah, it's a little bit salacious here, dances for him and is given the chance for anything she wants from the king. Her mother chooses revenge and asks her to ask for the head of John on a platter. Herod obliges. But when Jesus goes out to this desert, having heard this terrible news, I imagine he's going for some space because there's got to be a lot going on inside the heart of Jesus. Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. You've just heard what's happened to your beloved John, and it's likely that you're feeling anything from grief to terror to fear, maybe even rage and a need for retribution. Fear, because if it happened to John, it could happen to Jesus. And of course it does. But also rage, rage that leads to the temptation of revenge. And this would not be the first time Jesus faced temptation in a deserted desert place. Our next falling backwards into the Scripture will take us to Matthew 3, chapter 3, and chapter 4. So fall back, if you will, to Matthew, chapter 3 and 4. One of the ways you know, you know what is going on in a story is by sometimes hearing these words that call us back to another place in the biblical tradition. And a lot happens for Jesus and John out in the desert. Chapter three, as you see, there is where John is doing his baptism at the River Jordan. Happier days here at that river. He is calling out as a voice in the wilderness to prepare the Lord of Jesus. Once Jesus is baptized, the Holy Spirit sends him out into the wilderness even further. It says there in chapter four, verse one, Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. I don't doubt that. And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. You can see the feeding of the 5000 has its seeds in the story here in this deserted place where Jesus could have been tempted to use his own authority and make the miracle of bread at its heart. This first temptation is about authority, about the devil trying to trick Jesus into claiming his authority over God's authority, authority for himself. Jesus could have decided to use his power for himself right then and there, not just to make bread, but but to make himself a king, to enslave the world if he wanted, into his own rule. But he doesn't. So back in chapter 14, in this second desert moment, the temptation would have almost surely grown for Jesus at this point, wouldn't it? After all, that just happened to John, the temptation to claim authority and to work miracles for himself. And did you notice also back in chapter 14 that Matthew says that there's 5,000 men alongside women and children Now Matthew isn't being sexist, just naming the men. No, in this time period everyone would have heard that number 5,000 and known that 5,000 men makes up a Roman legion. At this moment, Jesus has at his disposal a well fed army that loves him. It means the crowd was ready to make any sort of move that he would call upon them, ready to make political insurgents happen if he, if they wanted, waiting for a leader to spark a revolution against Herod and against the empire, had their boot on their neck. He could have told them to do anything and given into the temptation to march them straight to Herod to exact revenge for John. But he doesn't. He doesn't. Again, here he chooses the bread of life. The bread of life that comes from God alone. Here Jesus, instead of choosing and giving into temptation, gives into compassion. Put your finger in the Bible there and then flip back to that same time in Matthew 14. In verse 14 there he says Jesus looked on the crowd and the crowd that had interrupted his peace, the crowd that was sick and hungry and demanding things from him. He looks at the crowd with all his grief and his rage and he looks with them with compassion. That's another big word in the Bible that sends us back to see where compassion has come up again. And notice he does it in a way that is completely and fully activated. Because for Jesus, this compassion comes from the prophecy of Hosea. So if you'll turn in your Bible to Hosea, chapter 6, verse 6. Hosea, chapter 6, Verse 6. Jesus knows his scripture well. And for him to make a choice that's different than what the world would choose, retribution, revenge, etc. He knows he has to fulfill God's prophecy. It's the story of God and God's people, which is always a story of compassion, especially in wilderness and desert places. Here it says in Hosea, for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. We know that this is so important to Jesus that in Matthew he quotes this twice, straight up. That's a lot for one gospel. Compassion for Jesus is the story of who God is and how miracles will be worked. And again, Jesus is not just filling prophecy, he's filling the whole of the story. If we fall back even further into the Hebrew Testament, we see from Exodus to numbers to 1 and 2 kings. Wherever the story of God in Israel is told, we hear about God providing the word of life in a desert setting, especially when he frees them from Egypt's rule. One place to see that is in the Psalms, a Nice compact place. If you turn to Psalm 78, verses 19, and then we're going to skip to verses 23, 24 and 25, Psalm 76 starting at verse 19. Here, Jesus again is pulling on the whole of the story. It says the Israelites spoke against God, saying, can God spread a table in the wilderness? Yes. He commanded the scribes above and opened the doors of heaven. It rained down manna bread to eat and gave them the grain of heaven. They ate of the bread of angels and he set the fire food in front of them in abundance. Do you see what's happening here? What goes into this miracle is Jesus own heart and Jesus knowledge that in order to choose what will be the heart of God, we need to hear all of the prophecy, all of the story, everything that goes into who God is. Because here, even in the wilderness where they're complaining, God still has compassion on them and he gives them bread. In this desert place, what has happened before is happening again. Compassion is the way God has always worked. So Jesus is wisely aligning himself up with the God of creation and how God always chooses when we're in wilderness time. God provides all right, now we're going to look forward. We've looked backwards. Now we're going to look forward. Notice back in Matthew 14, the fourfold Eucharistic shape of the story. He takes the bread, he blesses them, he breaks it and he gives it to the disciples who give it to the crowds. The critical fact here is not exactly how Jesus does the miracle. We aren't given those details, the mechanics of it. What is given to us is the critical way that Jesus embodies compassion and story through his prayer and action. Jesus part of the miracle is to gather up through time and space every single part of the story, this whole book, to gather the compassion of God and to put it into action. And then the miracle continues even to this day. For this is not actually the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Notice it's the story of the disciples feeding the 5,000. Jesus commands them to feed the crowd. This is our part of the miracle that in desert times, even when our hearts may be broken, when we feel like we need retribution, when we're feeling fight, flight or freeze emotion, all the things common to a human life are part of the miracle is to come to this table and be fed over and over again until our hearts turn to that same compassion that we feed on here. Now, if we fast forward in our Bible, we can go to Galatians, chapter five. This is our last Bible flip. I promise. Galatians, chapter 5. Here in Galatians, we hear what the apostle Paul talks about as the fulfillment of a heart that is well fed by God. In chapter five, verses 25 and 20. I'm sorry, 22 and 23, we hear what the fruit of the Spirit is. And wouldn't you know it, it's compassion itself. He says here the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Jesus heart becomes our heart. Jesus compassion becomes our compassion. God's compassion throughout all time becomes our compassion. And from there, it simply becomes a matter of distribution. Once our hearts have been filled and we're no longer just giving out crumbs, we're able to distribute a love that is true so much bigger than we could ever imagine. It's both deeply spiritual and deeply practical. When we come to this table to be fed, we walk away. Being able to feed. People are hungry in this world, and yet we have enough food to feed everybody. That's not a food problem. That's a compassion problem. It's a distribution problem. When we're not spending enough time with God, even in the deserted places of our lives, when we're not letting him touch at the very heart of where we hurt, we start clinging to our little crumbs like we never have enough to give. Look at the world around us. I think it's safe to say we have a distribution problem, both resources and compassion. Yet when we fall back into the story of God, we find all that we need. So, my friends, our part of the miracle is to follow Jesus in choosing compassion over fear and revenge. It would have been so easy for Jesus to weaponize those 5,000 men. It's so easy to choose rage, retribution, political force. The world understands armies. The world understands revenge. But Jesus. Jesus looks at the world under the boot of empire and pain, a world grieving and terrified, and offers something radically subversive. He offers bread. He offers a table spread in the wilderness. He offers the fulfillment of story and prophecy. He offers us compassion and says, go and do likewise, friends. Our hands are the distribution system of God's grace. When we choose to meet scarcity with generosity, with rage, with active compassion. Instead, when we show the world that man does not live by bread alone, but by the abundant love of God, then we are taking part in the miracle to follow Jesus into that same fourfold rhythm, to take the pain of the world, bless it and give it back in compassion. When we look backward today, we saw how God provided manna in the wilderness how Jesus rejected temptation. We saw him turn raw grief and rage into radical compassion. And now we must look forward. What is the wilderness you find yourself in? Is it grief, fear, rage? Is there a sense that you can turn that into compassion by coming to this table? Because when you do, he takes what is small, blesses it, breaks it, and hands it back to you. Healed, restored. My friends, the table is set. Let us feast. And with God's help, let us do our part of the miracle. Amen.