Matthew 14:13-21
Proper 13 (18) - Year A
I am remembering The United Methodist 2000 General Conference with the religious-right organized defeat after defeat for any sign of hope that the church would hear the cry of Christians who were oriented toward their own gender. Head after head rolled at each vote. Finally arrests were made.
There was a need to get away, to lick the wounds.
Yet the need to work on behalf of those who keep coming with bent and broken pride remained. In pity for those harmed by the world/church, Reconciling Ministries and Affirmation have continued to do their work.
When we are feeling faint ourselves and desire to send the workload away so we can leisurely catch a bite and a nap, let us remember the disciples. Jesus reoriented their fatigue. First they needed to feed those present as if they were in their care. Blessing goes through such earthly, tired folk as you and me. So, if our ancestors in the faith could stick in there with heads rolling and crowds getting hungrier by the moment, so can we.
Then, right away after this, like the disciples, we can take the leftovers and sail away into other storms.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/august2002.html
It is GOD's desire that all be fed. Both in the first (Eden) and second (Noahic) creation stories we are told what is permissible to eat. The Mosaic Law outlines what is to be eaten. The prophets are concerned with the justice of who gets to eat and who doesn't. Jesus participates in feasts and wines and dines others. Peter has a wonderful vision of inclusive eating.
There is enough food. We are missing the miracle of distribution and the wonder of sharing.
When stomachs are unsatisfied long enough we will eat dirt for whatever nourishment it provides. When stomachs are unsatisfied long enough we will steal bread (if you have not already, read all 365 chapters of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo). When stomachs are unsatisfied long enough policies will be questioned and revolutions fomented.
Follow what Bread for the World is doing and The Society of St. Andrew and your favorite feeding program (local or global) are up to.
To be involved with food is to be involved with GOD.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/july2005.html
In this world of rabid differences between nearly every creed or non-creed, nation A or B, and even within families, it is a quite radical understanding to say, "They need not go away." There has been a push for purity within my beloved United Methodist Church in recent years. This has led to threats to walk out by one group or another and those same groups threatening to send others away. The difference seems to be whether they are feeling more threatened or more in charge.
What a breakthrough it would be for all involved to affirm of the other side, "They need not go away."
No, I don't think this is a utopian, final state. This will not change the perceptions and responses by anyone, other than their need to use the strengths of one another to build a better world and their need to avoid the weaknesses of one another, thus staying out of the way of blocking unexpected blessings.
I really wrestle with this one because I am not willing to be beat up any more by folks who have no intention to engage, only to win me over and expect me to kowtow (have my head knocked empty). And yet choosing to either vigorously rebut their false images or to only affirm the wisdom given me comes to be a false choice. My rebuttal does not change them and my affirmation still takes place in the context of their controlling behavior.
"They need not go away," means more than avoidance or compromise. This is a word of hope for crowd and disciples, for you and for me. Let's listen to it repeated during the day, in the different settings we find ourselves. We may yet learn its quiet lesson in the midst of a story so large and loud that it tends to be drowned out.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/july2005.html
Jacob wrestles with an angel; disciples wrestle with a crowd. In both instances they learn something very important.
For Wrestling Jacob (in the Wesleyan Tradition) G*D is identified as Love. The disciples learn their perceived limits are not so - an ordered method allows folks to sit together and look at one blessing and see within it an abundance not previously glimpsed.
In the midst of everyone looking every which way (searching for their own best advantage), two loaves (loves) and five fish seem mighty puny. When, together we look (and see them identified as a blessing) - things change.
- - -
when we awake
we shall see righteousness
and be satisfiedwhen will that be
that steadfast love
will be recognizedhow do we help one another
perceive grace and mercy
as ever presentso often there is such need
hungers are so high
we can't spare the timewe anticipate a zero-sum game
driven by competition
and miss compassion's presenceattend to our night cry
wrestle with us
til day breakslove dawns
blessing abounds
we go on together
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
Getting away to a deserted spot is never easy. At the very least along come memories of triumph and regret, the last thing we heard before leaving, and visions of dragons yet to be slain.
Jesus, sometimes successful in sending folks ahead while he remained or walking through a hostile crowd, here was brought an opportunity to serve.
For those who tend toward Jesus having a plan for every moment, suspicions might arise about his withdrawing to a deserted place where folks in droves would be waiting. (Was that one person who noted his going minion of the tempter to see how he would deal with a conflict between wanting to be away and a commitment to mercy or just an observant person on their way for a healing who caught a glimpse of Jesus disappearing around the corner ahead of him?)
The news Jesus had just heard was terrifying and the last thing one needs in such circumstances is to be alone for fears to grow and temptations to return.
We might consider that continuing deeper into his ministry, particularly a ministry of mercy, would trigger a remembrance that such is still possible in such a terrifying world. This may have been the most healing thing Jesus could do for his sorrowful soul – to arrange a mercy moment on a large scale.
How is it with you?
Are your withdrawal times a source of energy-building or draining? Is this a time of practice of your particular ministry focus?
Are you glad for not being alone even when you had planned for the alone? Under what circumstances? Do you find ministry opportunities to show up alongside your non-ministry intentions?
How would this incident of mercy feeding have been received if it had been done as street theatre response to John's death in a busy spot rather than in a deserted spot on the sly?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html
Compassion fatigue is real. Compassionate action is still possible even when fatigued.
Jesus hears of cousin John's senseless execution. His reaction, like yours and mine, was to head off to get his head and heart back on. How is one to make sense of this other than to know our own day of demise is growing closer and closer?
Unfortunately halos the size of Jesus' are difficult to hide. [One of Jim Post's songs has a line in it about Jesus' halo - "nobody else wears a hat like that".] Word got out about Jesus and alternative routes were located by which many, too many, people gathered and Fire Marshall Disciples were upset at the overcrowding.
Coming out of his response regarding John, his need for compassion to be shown to him, Jesus is compassionate and saving/healing/reorienting went on for many who came asking for such. Compassion fatigue is being compounded, no matter how much good is done, so much more is needed.
Those Fire Marshall Disciples thought they saw Jesus' compassion coming to an end and, knowing they still needed theirs, they stepped in to disperse the never-ending story of needed care - "Send them away, compassionately, of course."
Jesus attempts to engage their compassion as an alternative way of responding: join-in, rather than send-away. Their response, "Who? Us? We've got nothing. It's all about you, Jesus."
So a compassionate one simply shows them that they have much more than "nothing".
This may be a choice of the day, decade, eternity - compassion or intolerance. It will not only say something about us, but about what we believe. Does compassion fall within an abundance model, or not?
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This may be a choice of the day, decade, eternity - compassion or intolerance. It will not only say something about us, but about what we believe.
This is an apt and completely appropriate choice given the general center of gravity of the culture in which we live. We have to learn this, and then we will have to unlearn it in order to evolve again.
So I have questions, not at all in argument, but in challenge to that center of gravity:
Compassion or intolerance: is "compassion" therefore "tolerant?"
What of those situations where "intolerance" is actually "compassionate?" For example, the (appropriate) intolerance of intolerance? This is not word play. It's really not OK to tolerate intolerance, but that creates an intolerable system crash in the minds of the tolerant.
For example. who needs to be compassionate or tolerant of those "poor" wealthy privileged powerful emotional troglodytes currently running Congress? How does it help to be tolerant of idiocy or ignorance or sexism or greed or heterosexism or bigotry or ideological fanaticism?
Compassionate: maybe, when such "poor" have been irretrievably broken by their life circumstances. But tolerant? NO, NO, NO.
The tricky part is to be intolerant of such things out of a higher/deeper/truer context and not just another ideological "my dog's bigger than your dog." Maybe that is what Jesus was trying to get across...
Does compassion fall within an abundance model, or not?
Three questions hiding in the apparent One.
"Does compassion fall within an abundance model, or not?" is to ask
1. Is compassion and its action sustainable: if we keep compassioning at current rate how soon will we use it up?
2. Is compassion and its action renewable: if it is something that can get depleted (fatigue) then how do we renew it? Planting trees to replace harvested ones seems easy in comparison...
3. Can compassion and its action be regenerative: can it draw on some inexhaustible source outside/larger than ourselves and actually create/generate more than is used? Like a regenerative building that runs its electric meter backwards and pushes excess power back out on to the grid...
Jesus did indeed wear a hat unique and unmistakable. But I do not for one minute believe he was embracing a "black hole" (from which even light does not escape) when he went to the cross. He was not tolerating the intolerance that nailed him to that course. I believe his compassionate action was regenerative: If the Christ event is whenever and wherever the Word becomes Flesh, then the resurrection event is wherever and whenever death, the singularity sucking relentlessly at every life but present in legion forms in every moment, does not prevail.
This, I believe, is the great challenge before us in this day, decade, eternity: can we evolve spiritually as a humanity so that what is now seen as heroic and remarkable and rare (deep abundant sustained compassion and embrace that does not tolerate intolerance in a way that does not also cause a cognitive system crash) is a baseline characteristic of what may yet become the next stage beyond Homo Sapiens: Homo Compassionatus.
Tom
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Thanks for the unpacking, Tom. The question about the level of which, is important. This reminds us that we can't look at the surface or presenting response and know whether it is compassionate or intolerant. There are ages of background and generations of consequence to play with. I'd be interested in other responses to unsimplifying these two. They are much too easy to turn into technique or judgment and be subverted by New Speak.
Wesley
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/07/matthew-1413-21.html
One unrealistic expectation of a lectionary is that folks will know what comes before and after a particular passage. Having only a slice of the larger story leads us into a literalistic approach to the words selected. A pericope comes with an implied moral.
As we hear the transition words that begin this segment,“On hearing this. . . .”, we need to remember what has just gone on: Baptizer John has just been beheaded.
In the concluding action we can hear a reprise of Jesus in the wilderness after his baptism. With no bread around he was tempted to turn stones into bread and did his Jesus judo by saying we don’t live by bread alone and that he had “bread” unknown to others. Now, with “nothing” to eat for 5,013 men (no “women and children first” here) the disciples respond “we have but enough for ourselves”.
It is not until we get down to not having enough for ourselves that we begin to trust an alternative reality. The Disciples hadn’t hit bottom yet, they were just on the fringes of wilderness, not immersed in it.
Can you hear Jesus saying a different blessing than the expected one, “The Body of John has been broken for us, let us break into a fast in remembrance of him.” And the five loaves and two fish were taken to all. And the people, one by one, remembered they had sustenance previously unknown. [Note: this does not speak to those amazing details of multiplication or eating or left-overs, only to a blessing beyond standard blessings that reframes where we are, who we are, and what might yet be possible.]
From here we can go on to a dry place with water all around and an invitation to “Courage” and a bidding to “Come”.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/07/matthew-1413-21.html