Sermon: Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Unemployment reached a four-year high this last month, as employers cut another 51,000 jobs, according to the latest report on the economy. If you don’t hear the word economy at least once a day, you don’t turn on the television, read the newspaper, or surf the web. It seems like the economy is going down the tubes, and fast. Unemployment is up. Oil prices are higher than they have ever been. Government budgets are being slashed, leaving people unable to get the services they need. It is a mess.
It seems kind of natural to me that we talk about the economy with a little fear in our voices. This church runs on the gifts of its members- so the state of the economy certainly keeps me awake at night. People keep talking about less, less, less, we have to cut back, we have to scrimp and save, because things are bad now, and they are going to get worse. The stock market is down, banks are failing, we don’t know where our money is safe. The economy is like a big, mysterious force that defies our understanding or explanation. We just react to it.
This morning our gospel is one of those famous bible stories. A very similar story appears in all four of our gospels. The only miracle to make it on the pages of every single gospel. Some of the details might be a bit different, but the shape of the story is the same- a bunch of hungry people are out in the wilderness with Jesus, and there isn’t enough food to go around. So out of a measly offering a few loaves and some fish, an abundant meal is served, and all the people, thousands of them, leave satisfied.
But the story begins a little differently in the gospel of Matthew. Because in this gospel, Jesus goes the wilderness because he has just received terrible news. John the Baptist has been beheaded. John the Baptist, his friend, cousin, the prophet that proclaimed Jesus’ divinity, he’s dead. Jesus leaves and goes off to a deserted place. Do you know that feeling? Because I do. That feeling when you just have nothing left, when you want crawl under the blankets and wait until it is a new day. That feeling that comes over you when it seems as if the world itself has become one big disappointment, and there aren’t any good options left. That feeling when someone dies, or when you face tragedy, or when the world just overwhelms you. I imagine that is what Jesus was feeling after his friend dies- sadness and despair, and so he goes off to a deserted place.
And even in the pain of the loss of this friend, the crowds still follow Jesus. They follow him into his lonely place, and they themselves are sick and hungry. I imagine Jesus is scraping the emotional bottom, but what does he do? He sees that great crowd, thousands of people, and he has compassion for all those sick, sad, lost people, and he goes to them and he heals them.
But this isn’t the only picture in our story. Because after Jesus heals these people, night begins to fall. They start to look a little hungry. Their collective tummy starts to growl. So the disciples come to Jesus asking him to send these people to the villages so they can get some food. But Jesus doesn’t send them away. He looks at the disciples, and he says, “you feed them.” You, underline, exclamation point, you feed them. But with what? They don’t have anything. How can they feed a crowd of 5,000 men, plus numerous women and children? How can their nothing feed this huge something?
This gospel story is about a lot of nothing. That is, at first glance, the state of this gospel economy. Nothing- no energy, just sadness. Nothing- no food, no drinks, just a few loaves and some measly salty old fish. A whole lot of the bottom. A whole lot of not much. Jesus, the disciples, and all these hungry people are in the wilderness, that scarce desolate place, and they are speaking the language of scarcity.
I know that language, and I know you do, too. The language of scarcity is so pervasive that it feels like it is almost normal. We don’t have enough, time, money, energy. We don’t have enough to give anything, because there is only so much. We know the economy of scarcity, and it isn’t just about jobs and gas prices. We are pulled in 100 different directions, we are pushed and tugged, and sometimes we really do have nothing left. I have certainly thought that on plenty of days. People, church, the world, keeps trying to take from us, and in an economy of scarcity, we are forced to protect what we have.
But, when we look a little deeper, when we focus our eyes on the whole gospel story, the economy starts to shift. The disciples bring those loaves and those fish to Jesus. There isn’t much there. It really is a sad little offering spread out before thousands of people. But Jesus takes that nothing, and looking up to heaven, he blesses that tiny little offering, and the disciples pass it out to the crowd. And miraculously, that nothing, those tiny fish and loaves become more than something, they become a feast to feed thousands, a feast that leaves all the people loosening their belts because their stomachs are so full, a feast that leaves behind 12 baskets of broken bread.
With God, the economy isn’t based on scarcity, because God’s economy is based on extravagant abundance. Sometimes it feels like a miracle, when God takes our nothing, our little bit of time, our little bit of energy, our little bit of commitment, and makes it into something that can only be described as divine. In an economy of scarcity, we hold on to what we have until we have enough that we can be sure it is okay to share. We hold on to our time and our energy and our money because it just wouldn’t be right to give it away until we are on a full tank. But, in an economy of abundance, God seeks to use even our little nothing. God seeks to use us even when we aren’t at our best. The story didn’t start with 12 baskets of bread, it started with five loaves and two fish. In an economy of scarcity, the person baking that bread and the person catching those fish would have kept them to feed their own rumbling stomachs. Some people say that the miracle in this story is that heavenly power multiplied those loaves like magic in the hands of Jesus. I agree that heavenly power multiplied those loaves and fish, but I wonder if that heavenly power wasn’t focused on the 5 loaves and the 2 fish, but if that heavenly power was focused on the more than 5,000 people sitting in the grass. I wonder if that heavenly power was what inspired them to throw in a loaf or two as the basket came their way, because even if they didn’t have much, surely the person next to them should get a fish sandwich. I wonder if the miracle was that in an economy of scarcity, in an economy we know just as well as that gathered crowd, if the miracle is that for those hungry people, for those disciples, for those hearing this story, suddenly scarcity felt like a whole lot more. The story of not enough became the story of more than enough. The story of keeping for oneself became instead a time to share in order that all might eat and be filled. This is a miracle worth printing on pages in all four gospels. Not enough, when we look up towards heaven, suddenly becomes more than enough. Enough that we can’t do anything but give it away rejoicing because the economy has shifted. Amen and thanks be to God.