Sunday, August 3, 2014 | 4:00 p.m.

You Are

John W. Vest
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 14:13–21

I don’t want to make a generalization about all children, and I’m sure I probably did the same thing when I was a child, but lately I’ve been noticing something about my five-and-a-half-year-old son. Whenever he thinks he can’t do something—or whenever he simply doesn’t want to do something—he is insistent that my wife or I do it for him. And he generally has quite a sense of urgency about it.

His demands range from simple things like finding a toy he can’t locate or getting the remote control to work to more complicated things that he really does need us to do for him, like cooking dinner or lifting things he could never possibly lift.

I’m discovering that one of the arts of parenthood is knowing when to help and when to let him figure things out for himself. It’s an even more delicate discernment to know when to let him fail and learn from his mistakes. And though it’s sometimes nice to know that your son thinks you can do anything in the world, the frustration he feels when he realizes that even I can’t do everything is decidedly less pleasant.

But most importantly, I want him to discover that he is perfectly capable of doing most things on his own. I want him to have ownership of the situations he finds himself in and I want him to feel empowered to act on his own behalf and in certain circumstances on behalf of his younger brother—all within the realistic limitations of a five-and-a-half-year-old boy, of course. And I’m fully aware that this dance we engage in will only get more complicated, with much more at stake than a lost toy, as he gets older.

For now, when he asks, insists, or demands that I do something for him, when it’s appropriate, I like to turn it back on him and say, “No, you are perfectly capable of doing that yourself.”

A similar dynamic is at play in today’s scripture reading. It takes place right after Herod Antipas had Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist executed and as Jesus and his followers are traveling through Galilee spreading the message of God’s kingdom.

Jesus was no doubt distraught over the death of his cousin. Given the apparently close relationship of their mothers, I imagine that Jesus and John spent a lot of time together growing up. As young adults, they probably shared with each other their growing sense of divine vocation, each in their own way sensing that God was calling them to be and to do something special.

It was John, of course, who acted first. He put on clothing like that of the ancient prophet Elijah and went into the desert to proclaiming the message of God’s kingdom: “Change your hearts and lives! Here comes the kingdom of heaven!” He baptized people in the Jordan River as a symbolic covenantal act for those who responded to his message.

When he felt that the time was right, Jesus himself came to John to be baptized, and it was this act that initiated Jesus’ public ministry. He preached the same message of his cousin, announcing the good news of God’s kingdom. But he expanded this basic message and enhanced it with amazing signs and wonders.
He called disciples and was drawing a large following. Wherever he went, crowds would gather to hear his message and perhaps witness some of the incredible things they heard he could do.

So when Jesus heard that his cousin had been killed by the Roman-appointed ruler of Galilee, I’m quite sure that his heart broke. It was perhaps at this point that he also began to see that his own path was leading to a similar end.

With all of this swirling in his heart and mind, he needed to get away. He got in a boat and escaped to what he thought would be a secluded place to be alone. But it didn’t take long for the people to catch up with him. They figured out where he had gone and followed him there on foot. Soon there was yet another large crowd of people pressing in on him, desperately seeking to experience even a little taste of God’s kingdom.

At this moment, Jesus had every right to be frustrated. As tired and as heartbroken as he was, he deserved some time alone. He needed to be away from the craziness to process all that had happened, to regroup and recharge for the continuing mission that lay before him. Any one of us might have snapped when the crowds appeared once again and interrupted this much-needed retreat.

Yet Jesus responded only with compassion. His already broken heart still had enough room in it for the people seeking his presence. When this story is told in the Gospel of Mark, it is said that Jesus taught them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Here in the Gospel of Matthew, he healed those who were sick. He opened himself up to them and continued to give even when he himself was spent.

But at the end of the day, his disciples recognized a dilemma. They were in the middle of nowhere and the people didn’t have any food. In the same way that their spirits were hungry for what Jesus was offering, their bodies were hungry for sustenance. And the solution offered by the disciples was simple: send the people away to buy some food for themselves.

As tired and weary as Jesus must have been, we have to wonder if his first inclination was to follow his disciples’ advice and send the people away. It was the perfect opportunity to take back the solitude and peace he was searching for.

But instead, he does something unexpected. “There’s no need to send them away,” he tells his disciples. “You give them something to eat.”

From the disciples’ perspective, there couldn’t be a more ludicrous response. There were thousands of hungry people present, and all they had between them were five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus was asking the impossible.

Yet it wasn’t just that Jesus made a preposterous request of them. It’s really important to notice that Jesus’ first response was to ask the disciples to feed the people. He didn’t tell them to get ready for a miracle. He didn’t say, “Don’t worry: I’ll take care of it.” He looked them right in the eyes and said, “You give them something to eat.”

You.

Me? Us?

You.

Don’t we all wish that God would just go ahead and fix stuff for us? I mean, if God is truly all powerful, can’t God make our problems go away? When our relationships fall apart, can’t God find a way to reconcile us? When our health is failing, can’t God heal us like we’re told Jesus healed these people so long ago? Can’t God put an end to hunger in the world? Can’t God stop wars and bring about peace? Can’t God protect us from natural disasters? Can’t almighty God do it for us?

There’s a great pair of scenes in the film version of Dr. Seuss’ story of The Lorax. The Lorax, you may remember, is the guardian of the forest and speaks for the trees and shows up when the Once-ler starts chopping them down. The Lorax makes quite a magical entrance, with swirling clouds and thunder and lightning. The Once-ler, of course, misses the whole thing and is rather dubious of the Lorax’s abilities—much like those of us who find it hard to believe that Jesus actually did the miracles attributed to him in the Bible. When the Once-ler asks to see some of this magic, the Lorax replies, “Yeah, I could show you, but that’s not how it works.”

Later in the movie, right before the Once-ler finally cuts down the last tree and destroys the forest, the Lorax returns. Indignant, the Once-ler exclaims, “Look, if you’ve got a problem with what I’m doing, why don’t you use your quote-unquote ‘powers’ to stop me?” “I told you,” replies the Lorax, “that’s not how it works.” And when the forest is decimated and all the animals leave, the Once-ler looks to the Lorax as if to say, “Can’t you fix this?” But instead the Lorax silently ascends into the sky and the Once-ler is left alone.

Can’t almighty God fix things for us? Can’t God makes things right?

That’s not how it works.

“You give them something to eat.”

You.

Me? Us?

You.

What Jesus tells his disciples is amazing. “You are my closest followers. You are chosen from among your people to be a part of something special that God is doing in the world. You are an integral part of God’s kingdom as it comes into being. You are fully capable of doing more than you can even imagine.”

How different that is from the way Christianity eventually chose to talk about human beings. For much of Christian history, the starting point for our understanding of ourselves is that we are born corrupt and worthless. A classic summary of the Calvinism at the heart of our Presbyterian tradition begins with the total depravity of human beings. Born in sin, we have been told that there is nothing good that we can do.

Among others, the great Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu is helping us to shift the starting point of Christian theology and our self-understanding of who we are as human beings. Instead of beginning with our failures and limitations, Tutu—who certainly knows quite a bit about human sin and evil—begins with the notion that we are made for goodness.

“This is the essential truth of who we are,” writes Tutu. “We are creatures made in the image of God. At the core of our being is goodness. This is not to deny the reality of sin. Sin is real. Depravity and cruelty are real. Evil exists. But sin, cruelty, and evil are not our essential nature. They are aberrations. What is normative is goodness” (Desmond Tutu, Made for Goodness: And Why This Makes All the Difference, p. 194).

I think again of my son. What if all he ever heard from me is that he’s nothing but a big screwup? What if all he ever heard from me is that he can’t do anything, that he’s helpless without me? What kind of person would he become?

“You give them something to eat.”

You.

Me? Us?

You.

Jesus says that God’s kingdom is within you. You are a beloved child of God. You are created in God’s own image. You are made for goodness. You are prone to wander, for sure. You are apt to fail. You are going to sin. But you are redeemed. You are chosen. You are called. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

In the book and in the film, these are the last words of the Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better. It’s not.”

That’s the way it works.

“You give them something to eat.”

Now, in the story Jesus doesn’t leave the disciples alone. He invites them to participate in the miraculous feeding of the masses. He helps them, but only after he invites them to demonstrate some initiative and get in the game. He broke the bread, but then he gave to the disciples and they gave it to the people.

And when all is said and done, after everyone eats their fill, there are twelve baskets left over, one for each of those disciples.

Friends, our God is a God of abundance. Even though the problems of the world and at times the problems of our lives seem impossible to fix; even when our situation appears to be a no-win scenario; even when our hearts are broken and we are weary; even when we just want people to leave us alone and let us be; even when we are at the end of our rope—our God is a God of abundance.

“You give them something to eat.”

You.

Me? Us?

You.

Amen.