Questions I Can’t Answer in Sunday’s Sermon

This Sunday, August 6, the Gospel text of the day is Matthew 14:13-21. It is the first of two feedings of the multitudes recorded in Matthew and one of six times the story is told in the four Gospels. This is a BIG deal in Jesus’ ministry; the only other story that appears in such close detail in all four Gospels in the crucifixion. (There are others that appear in recognizable but significantly changed variants, but these are the big ones that share substantial similarities.)

Here’s the passage, from the New Revised Standard Version at http://bible.oremus.org: 

¹³Now 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. ¹⁴When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. ¹⁵When 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.’ ¹⁶Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ ¹⁷They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ ¹⁸And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ ¹⁹Then 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. ²⁰And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. ²¹And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

I can’t answer several questions about this story, though I have some ideas:

Why this story, of all the miracle stories?

Several commentators point out that hunger was a daily and familiar problem for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Roman Empire. I agree with their speculation that this one made an impression because the people went away satisfied. For people who were always hungry, this must have been a miracle in and of itself, never mind HOW it happened. But I don’t know for sure.

How big were the loaves and fishes?

Here’s where the different tellings of the story get us mixed up. Sticking with this particular passage, we’re told the disciples had only five loaves of bread and two fish, which I personally hope were already cooked or otherwise preserved. Jesus doesn’t seem the type to serve sushi. Anyway, if this combination was to serve as the meal for 13 grown men, then I hope the ones who got 1/7 of a fish were to get a little more than 1/3 of a loaf…

How did the miracle happen?

We don’t know. 

We. 

Don’t. 

Know. 

Lots of people have posited that the disciples’ willingness to share (which is not exactly how I’d put the exchange with Jesus, but we’ll go with it for this purpose) prompted others in the crowd who had come with their own meals to share with those who didn’t. But here’s the problem with that hypothesis: Even on the lakeshore, not everybody is going to bring bread and fish for a meal, and that’s what we’re left to think is what’s leftover, broken pieces of bread and fish that fill 12 baskets. I have to think that if the leftovers included fruit or jerky or olives or cheese, one of the stories might tell us that. But none of them say that, particularly Matthew’s version here.

Perhaps this is one of the actual inexplicable miracles recorded in the Bible. Jesus, in the breaking and sharing of bread and fish, showed the abundance of God to people whose lives were circumscribed by scarcity. I can’t do it, but I know that when food is shared lovingly, there always seems enough plus leftovers…

How many women and children weren’t counted?

We have no way to know. There are no overhead shots of the crowd from which the National Park Service can make estimates—though neither would Jesus complain if his crowds were shown to be smaller than those of John the Baptist, whose head was just served to Herod on a platter in the scene before this story. The best we can do is make some wild guesses. The passage says there were “about five thousand men” in attendance. Let’s say, for easy math, that 4000 of them brought their wives (here I’m assuming that polygamy was no longer the norm, so only one wife per husband). If their wives came, then their children had to come; lets say that 3000 couples had children too young to leave behind. We know families usually had many children, as often as every 12 months but probably more like every 18-24 months. Let’s say that 500 couples had five children, 500 had 4 children, 1000 had 3 children, 500 had 2 children, and 500 had infants who were their first child. That’s 4000 wives and 9000 children. Or 18,000 people.

From five loaves and two fishes.

(In case you’re wondering, the answer to why the women and children weren’t counted is that they didn’t count in society, which is the same reason that so few women and children are named in the Bible. They only get names if they make a difference to a man’s life or become men whose story is told!)

Why can’t we feed our own hungry people if this was possible back then?

Well, I do actually have answers for this question, and all of them are indictments of us collectively. If I were preaching in a church where I was the pastor, I would probably choose one of these and add a lot of nuance, but since I’m doing pulpit supply for a church without a pastor right now, it’s not my place to play scold, even when I’m shaking my finger at myself much as anyone else.

1. Even if we say we don’t believe it, many of us act as though people who are poor and thus hungry bring it on themselves. We make judgments about people based on their outward status without hearing their individual stories and without looking at the systemic issues which contribute to their poverty and hunger. Our hearts are hardened by addiction, criminal histories, perceived poor choices, classism, and racism (don’t even try to deny it; we all have that to work out with fear and trembling).
2. We don’t believe that people we know might be hungry. We take people’s outward appearance and word that everything is okay because we don’t want to be intrusive, but sometimes we need to take the risk of asking. Especially when we know that circumstances have been hard, it can’t hurt to ask gently. People might be embarrassed to answer truthfully, especially if the scarcity is new to them, but asking might make it easier for them to ask for help later.
3. We support band-aid solutions to hunger rather than systemic changes. Food pantries and soup kitchens address the needs but do nothing to solve the problem. Our goal should be that no one ever needs to go to a food pantry or soup kitchen because they’re hungry and can’t afford food.
4. We participate in a system that continually disadvantages people for no good reason. Much hunger in America would be eliminated if we were willing to advocate for living hourly wages. Or universal healthcare. Or guaranteed minimum income. But most of us won’t because we perceive that those things hurt our own checkbooks. It’s the same reason our infrastructure is failing and our schools are underfunded. We look only at the short-term, not the long-term. Ending hunger might cost more in the immediate future, but the long-term benefits to doing any one of those three things–or any number of other solutions that assure access to healthy and nutritious food)–enrich all of us. We could contribute 1/3 of a loaf and 1/7 of a fish to the effort without missing it, but combined with everyone else’s fraction of a loaf and fraction of a fish, lots of people will be not just fed but satisfied.

Having gotten these out of my system, maybe now the communion liturgy and the rest of the sermon will fall into place!