Not Enough

Matthew 14:13-22

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there 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; 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.” 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, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Immediately he made the disciples get into a boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

Sermon

Today we have another one of the “greatest hits” of the Gospels. This is a story that many of us have heard more than a few times. There’s good reason for that. If I had to wager, this story has captured our imaginations for centuries because it’s comfort food. There’s no complicated moral or tough pill to swallow. Nope – just hungry people, a compassionate Jesus, and a feel-good story about loaves and fishes.

Let’s let this story be comfort-food for us today. The world is a stinking, hot mess right now, and there are more than enough thorns in our lives to make us wonder if there are any roses at all. Rest assured, this is definitely a story that speaks to our stinking, hot messes, and the thorns that seem to be closing in.

After all, what is the location of this story? We hear that Jesus withdraws to a “deserted place.” So this isn’t ordinary soul-food; it’s soul-food for lives that are in trouble. Jesus intervenes in the lives of these people who are definitely tired and worn-out. To really round this out, we hear that Jesus is healing the sick. I don’t know about you, but I’m a really bad patient when I’m sick; if someone is willing to go on foot into the wilderness while sick, they must be out of every other option. These are people who have nothing left to lose, and seemingly nothing left to gain.

But if we zoom in, we see something else: this has echoes of Jesus in the wilderness all over it. This time, however, the main character isn’t Jesus: it’s these ordinary, tired, worn-out people. Now, these people find themselves heading out into a deserted wilderness. Now, these people find themselves marked by the pangs of hunger. They might be faced with a similar temptation as Jesus: should we leave this wilderness out of hunger?

“This [story] isn’t ordinary soul-food; it’s soul-food for lives that are in trouble. Jesus intervenes in the lives of these people who are definitely tired and worn-out.”

And yet, we know that despite the parallels, this is a very different story.

What do we see?

Jesus doesn’t make these people endure the same wilderness he did. He doesn’t expect them to eek it out, or go home, or push through their hunger until they keel over. Instead, what do we hear? Jesus has compassion on them. He heals them. He feeds them. He loves them.

He doesn’t make the bar his own perfection, but rather knows the weaknesses of those in front of him. He knows they can’t live up to his way of life, or be as spiritually strong as him, or pretend-away their own limits. Jesus doesn’t need them to martyr themselves in the futile and ironic effort to be strong. Jesus lets them be weak. Jesus lets them be hungry. And he meets them there with compassion.

Which begs the question: what are the struggles and battles we’re fighting that don’t need to be won? What parts of our lives are we trying to conquer, when Jesus doesn’t need us to conquer?

I know one of these battles comes up in hospital rooms. I would hear patients with stage three or four cancer say they couldn’t go on any further, but felt forced to, because they couldn’t “let cancer ‘win.’” Or they needed to be a “fighter” for their family, even if it only meant prolonging their suffering. This wasn’t the kind of person who had treatment options and tools at their disposal; it was the person who had the option of palliative care or experimental treatments.

But the reality is that they didn’t want to fight their weakness as much as they wanted to befriend it. They wanted to make peace with the reality of their cancer, its pain, its prognosis, and the dying process. They didn’t want to try and conquer something that was unconquerable. They wanted Jesus to walk with them through their limitations and their frailty, rather than struggling to hide their weaknesses to prove something to God.

“[These people] are faced with a similar temptation as Jesus: should we leave this wilderness out of hunger...? But Jesus doesn’t need them to martyr themselves in the futile and ironic effort to be strong. Jesus lets them be weak. Jesus lets them be hungry. And he meets them in their hunger with compassion.”

Jesus knew they were hungry, so to speak. Jesus knows we are hungry, so to speak.

So here’s that soul-food for us:

We don’t have to measure up to Jesus. We don’t have to be as strong as him, great as him, smart as him, or spiritual as him. If we try to, we’re going to end up dragging ourselves into a pit and likely drag others with us, too.

All we have to be is exactly who we are. We can be weak. And hungry. And sick. And tired. And exhausted because one kid was sick last week and now the other one is sick this week. We don’t have to conquer the inconquerable, or die trying to do so. I promise you, God has enough martyrs.

So let yourself be human, and hungry, and whoever you really are; let your body and mind and soul rest in that compassion of Jesus, who knows all of who we are, and knows the finitude and frailty of our lives.

I want to close with a poem by Mary Oliver. Perhaps her most well known poem. Here it is: “Wild Geese.”

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.