It is that time of year again. Both Cherokee and Cobb counties are back in school. All this week I saw wonderful pictures of first days, from sweet little kindergarteners starting their journey to bittersweet posts about a senior in high school’s last first day. And among these pictures was one from a friend who said she had almost missed packing her children’s lunches this summer; complete with the picture you see on the bulletin cover this morning. So I asked for a few more examples, and some proud parents shared these, complete with encouraging notes. (I should also note that several indicated they should just send me a shot of some lunch money in hand). Somewhat surprising to me, not much has changed, with school lunches since I was packing them just a few years ago. There are some standards that have stood the test of time. As I shared with the children a few moments ago, Little Debbie snacks were always a highlight for me, along with Capri Suns and other special treats. For class field trips I often got to have a Lunchable, a prized selection to be sure. Now, I was fortunate to grow up in a home where lunch was always available, but the best ones were the ones my dad packed. I’m not sure if he realized he was packing for a child, or just wanted me to have lots of options, but whenever he packed my lunch, it was full, almost double what I really needed. I always had a snack for the way home, and usually a few things that could be saved for the next day on top of that.
Perhaps that’s the kind of lunch that was unpacked on the hillside that day long ago when the crowds followed Jesus. That’s the end image, after all; baskets overflowing with leftovers, twelve baskets of them, after more than 5,000 people were fed (the 5,000 just accounted for the men, so you might imagine how quickly that number climbs when you add in women and children who surely would have been present, too). But that image doesn’t match the presenting problem at the beginning of our story, as the disciples come to Jesus and remind him that they are in the middle of nowhere and the people are getting hungry. There isn’t a McDonald’s on every corner, or even food trucks popping up for the large gathering. And, from the context here, it appears that no one had really thought about provisions for themselves when they began to listen to the great teacher. And hunger doesn’t seem to dissuade the crowd. This is significant, as one commentator suggests:
Perhaps there is some hunger of the soul that causes people to continue to pursue Jesus even after their stomachs start growling[i].
Such a situation reminds us that there truly is something compelling about what Jesus is offering to the crowds. It also sets the stage for a miracle to happen.
This is among only a handful of stories that is captured by all four gospels, and aside from the Resurrection, is the only miracle, which tells us it must have been of some importance to the early church. Some even suggest that this story was told as a regular part of the church’s gathering to celebrate communion together. Many of us are most familiar with the version in John’s gospel, which features a little boy bringing his little lunch forward to share. But here in Matthew’s account, we find some different distinguishing features that highlight a different aspect of the story, namely, what it means to be a disciple.
The disciples go to Jesus to fix the problem, and his response is not immediately to just make food appear (which clearly God has the power to do, as evidenced by countless stories in Scripture, with God giving manna in the wilderness as a prime example). Instead, he simply instructs the disciples to give the crowd something to eat. Apparently one answer to “What Would Jesus Do?” is tell the disciples to do it. Jesus doesn’t just function like some sort of holy vending machine. Instead, he gives the disciples agency and calls upon them to use their skills and abilities to be a part of the solution. They have come up with the five loaves and two fish, and it doesn’t take a mathematician to see that those numbers aren’t going to add up. The need was too great, and the resources were too few. I’m sure the disciples thought it was a hopeless cause. What they had wasn’t enough.
Even as Jesus’ disciple, it’s easy to feel like what we bring to the table isn’t enough. Sometimes it’s the result of humility, but often we express very real feelings of inadequacy, particularly when it comes to doing things that involve our faith. We are afraid of saying yes to teaching Sunday School, even to children, because we “don’t know enough about the Bible,” despite reading it and coming to church for years. We shy away from singing in the choir because we don’t think our voice is as good as everyone else’s. We hesitate to volunteer to help with the mobile food pantry because we don’t think we’re strong enough to do anything. And, of course, it’s true with things outside of the church. We don’t speak up often enough when we witness injustice because we don’t think we’re eloquent enough to say anything worthwhile. We stay sitting or pressed against the wall at a wedding reception because we are convinced that we have two left feet and our dance moves would embarrass us. We avoid pictures because we don’t think we look good enough in the moments we want to remember; or we apply filter after filter to cover up our distorted sense of reality. We stay silent in the midst of a friend’s grief or crisis because we think there’s nothing we can do to help. You get the idea. Like the disciples, we look down at what we have and determine that it’s not enough.
Unless. Unless Jesus, the Messiah, God incarnate, could take what we have, even if it’s a meager amount, and do something more with it. What if this story is about more than just a little lunch? What if it’s about all of those things, those inadequacies and small portions, and how God can transform them into something amazing? Jesus’ first miracle in the story was to encourage the disciples to get away from their small thinking and instead consider that what they had could be more than enough. With a blessing from Christ, even what was small could be multiplied. Jesus was inviting the disciples to be a part of the miracle. Likewise, God is entrusting us to be a part of the miracles God is doing each and every day.
Answering this call means looking at what we have in our own proverbial lunchboxes, and considering what it is that we might be able to share with the world. Yes, on one level I think this is absolutely about food. The biblical narrative and gospel witness are full of calls to feed the hungry, and we know all to well that there are countless lunchboxes in our world, even in our own community, that are left far too empty. Later in the service you’ll hear more about some of the ways we as a congregation are working within our community to change that circumstance for many children. So the giving of our tangible and physical resources does matter. When we have leftovers in our lunchboxes, we are called to share them. If you can, add in just a few items to your grocery cart each week to donate to our food pantry; anything helps, and some of our most needed items each month are listed on the back of the bulletin. If you’re picking up school supplies, or just walking by the display the next time you’re at Target, maybe get a few extra things for a local school, too. In doing this, you are taking the blessings you have been given by God, and allowing God to multiply them and bless others. And that’s a pretty big part of being a disciple.
But the sharing doesn’t just have to be about the things we can hold in our hands. God has given us countless gifts that aren’t tactile, but need to be shared. Consider the gifts and abilities that you have. Maybe you’re really organized and good with numbers, or you love to paint or draw. Perhaps you’re particularly handy and love working with your hands, or you have the ability to quickly get to know people and develop relationships. Maybe you find it easy to talk about your faith and pray with others, or you have a knack for writing and communicating in creative ways. Whatever it is, find ways to share them, in this community and beyond. Don’t just leave the work to others that might be “more” qualified than you. Trust them to Jesus in a spirit of prayer, and see if just maybe he might be calling YOU to use them to be a part of what God is doing in the world, reaching out to others in compassion and love. Don’t leave those gifts in your lunchbox.
Do you know what happens if you leave something in the lunchbox too long? Especially in this Georgia end of summer heat? It spoils. It smells. It becomes unrecognizable and likely inedible. It ends up wasted in the trash. The same is true of the gifts we have if we just tuck them away in a box, never to see the light of day. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have baskets of leftovers than a lunchbox of spoiled remains.
Friends, God has packed our lunchboxes full. We have more gifts and skills and abilities than we realize. Even if all we can look down and see is two fish and five little loaves of bread. God sees something bigger, and God can do big things even with the smallest gifts. As disciples, we continue to go to Jesus with the problems of our lives and our world, and Jesus responds time and time again not just by waving some magic wand and fixing things, but by engaging us and working through us to make incredible things possible; things like an entire hillside full of people fed. Our job is to open our lunchboxes and share what’s inside: with God, with each other, and with the world. Amen.
~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
August 6, 2017
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[i] Dock Hollingsworth, “Homiletical Perspective: Matthew 14:13-21,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).
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Benediction: from Saint Teresa of Avila:
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
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