Matthew 14:13-21 But When
As a stressed and exhausted single working mother I remember how easy it was to pull
up to the drive-thru on the way home from work and school to order eat-on-the-go hot
food for myself and my hungry children in the back seat. How many kids live on chips
and sugary sodas to keep them going because there are no carrots or apples to munch
on as snacks? How many young parents haven’t a clue how to cook leafy green
vegetables? I don’t blame the moms who are just trying to survive day to day. (Tomorrow
I’ll go to the store and find something good for the kids, but I’ve got to just get through
today…) Once the kids are addicted to the good stuff, they won’t eat the carrots and
apples anyway.
I can’t fully understand Jesus multiplying loaves and fishes on the lovely Galilean
hillside. Am I mad at Jesus? No. I think Jesus manifests God’s love in the abundance of
this satisfying and sacred meal. Additionally, the scene on the hillside means to teach
humanity how it’s done – so that we can do the same thing.
I suppose thinking of myself giving my kids now grand kids drive-thru meals – which they
liked, by the way. And I also enjoyed all the mother-bonding in the car. Maybe it is the
bridge between the generosity of God as expressed in the miracle of the feeding of the
five thousands and the convenience on United States the consumer’s part.
And in our Scripture reading for today, Jesus’ hands takes common bread and a couple
of fish, and as he touches it, it multiplies. He breaks the bread for all to see and eat.
Before, the crowds could only stare at the few loaves and fish held, as they drooled with
the thought of having a few bites. But there was not enough for five thousands or even
fifty. Actually, the number of those present was more like fifteen thousands or twenty
thousands because there were five thousand men, not counting women and children.
Women and children weren’t important to most people, but Jesus wasn’t most people.
Here was a God who was not looking down on the world trying to see what he could get
from his subjects and control them, but a God who was genuinely touched by human
need.
I was struck as I read this passage several times this week at how it begins. Jesus
withdraws to a deserted place to be by himself. He has been pressed on every side for
days, weeks and months. And it is worse than being pursued by people who only want
to take a picture, because people are not only following him everywhere he goes, but
everywhere there are outstretched hands, often grabbing hands, are always around
others fantasize about. No noise, no voices, no people, just to be alone for a little while.
And pleading voices rising out of a sea of sorrow, sickness, pain and need. Everyone
wanted something from him, and he had been giving to everyone who came. So now he
has an opportunity to be by himself, to rest, to take a deep breath, to think and pray.
These are the kind of moments that busy people who are clergy has a need for a break.
But as I began to read the next sentence again , I was struck by two words: “But when…”
“But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. And it is

followed by the words, “When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had
compassion for them and cured their sick”. There is an interruption. The plan of getting
away for some alone time has been sabotaged. The people are running along the shore
as they keep an eye on the sail of Jesus boat on Galilee. They followed him on land. He is
off in his boat so he can be alone, but they are not going to let that happen. Their needs
are too great. As he lands, the people are already there waiting for him.
You might expect that he would be upset, but instead the Bible says, “When Jesus
landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” If it
were most of us, we would have had irritation, but he had compassion. He put his needs
aside and ministered to the needs of those around him. What he wanted did not come
before what everyone else wanted. He was not self-centered, but centered on the needs
of those he loved people he did not even know personally.
And so, once again, he ministered to the people all day. He listened to them and healed
them. He must have been exhausted. It was now evening. He is hungry and he knows the
entire crowd is hungry. These are people who live near the edge of starvation. It is just
how life was at that time. The disciples understand this and say to him: “This is a remote
place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages
and buy themselves some food.” This would have been a great way to get rid of the
crowds and have a little down time. No one would have questioned it. But again he has
compassion on the people.
Jesus turns to his disciples and says to them, “They do not need to go away. You give
them something to eat.” Can you imagine how startled the disciples were? They said,
“We have nothing here but five loaves of bread and two fish.” They lived in a small world
of limited possibilities, but Jesus lived in a world of unlimited possibilities. They realized
they had very limited resources, and the crowd had unlimited need. They knew they had
nothing to offer. But then Jesus, referring to the five loaves and two fish, said, “Bring
them here to me.” Now if we were reading this story for the first time, our hearts would
begin to beat a little faster and our curiosity would peak as we would wonder what Jesus
was going to do. What could he possibly be thinking? Who would have dreamed what he
was about to do. Certainly not the disciples. Even in the very next chapter where Jesus
feeds another 4,000 people, the disciples seem perplexed about what to do, for they say,
“Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?” Where
indeed!
But we are not any different from the disciples. We still see impossibilities when God is
wanting us to see possibilities. We, like the disciples, need to see that the situation is not
in our hands, but in his hands, and when they are in his hands everything changes. We
look at our meager resources and say to God. We are in this same shape today we are in
a time of economic crises. Times are hard. Money is funny.
But what are these among so many?” And he says to us, “Bring them here to me.” He
places his hands upon our pitiful resources and everything changes. This is the formula:
We bring God our meager offering and he places his hands on our small gift and causes
it to grow thousands of times over. We never have the resources to meet people’s needs.
We have nothing, and all we can do is bring our nothing to Jesus and have him turn it
into something.
Jesus has the people sit down and prepare to receive. They want to begin the walk to the

nearest village so they can get something to eat, but he tells them to sit and wait on him.
And then he looks to heaven and says a simple prayer of blessing. And as he does so, he
takes two fish, and 5 little flat loaves, something like pita bread, and feeds thousands and
thousands of people who are in the middle of a wilderness.
We have nothing to give people without Jesus. We have nothing to say, nothing to give,
nothing to offer. What we do have is something to offer to Jesus. We take the little bit
that we have, that we were saving for ourselves, and give it to him — all of it. He takes
our pitiful little offering and turns it into something that can not only satisfy the needs of
other people, but abundance beyond that. A little in my hands becomes a lot in Jesus’
hands.
It also reminds us that Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never
go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Jesus can make
bread because he is the Bread of Life. At the last supper, the Bible says, “While they
were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples,
Saying, ‘Take it; this is my body.’” (Mark 14:22). It is in this setting that Jesus not only
breaks bread, but he transforms it. This is the real miracle. Jesus not only meets our felt
needs, the needs of the body, but he meets our real needs, the need of our soul. He gives
us living bread. He gives himself. Too bad that we are hungry for so much other than
God.
How often we want to just have life become a little bit better. We want a therapeutic
gospel that will help us feel better. We want to feel safe and secure. We want a better
government. We want our relationships to be better. We want our finances to improve so
we will be more comfortable. We want God’s material blessings and think little of what
God really wants to bless us with.
How little we understand our real needs. How little we want to understand our total
dependence on God. He is our Creator. He is the source of all things. He is the One on
whom we are dependent for all things in this life. We cannot find life anywhere else. But
this is the very thing that people today do not want to acknowledge. We do not even want
to acknowledge that we are dependent on him for rain or food. We can do all this
ourselves — thank you very much. We do not even want to acknowledge that he exists.
We make it illegal to pray.
So where does all this leave us? It leaves us with a need to acknowledge our dependence
on God. It leaves us with a need to realize what our real need is: to know God and accept
his gift of the Bread of Life. It means we stop looking in all the wrong places for the
things that we think we need. We stop looking in all the wrong places for what we think
will ultimately fulfill us. It means that we rest, truly rest, in the God who can meet all of
our true needs. We turn from fear and turn to faith. Jesus said, “So do not worry, saying,
‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ But seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day
has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:25-34).

BUT WHEN — We are in the wilderness
BUT WHEN — We are hungry
BUT WHEN— We sit and wait
BUT WHEN— We trust
BUT WHEN— We are miraculously fed by the hand of Jesus
BUT WHEN — We discover that the food he offers is himself.
BUT WHEN— We eat and find life.
Be Blessed!