In his life time, Martin Luther King, always stirred up opposition and controversy.  Today, the day of his Memorial Dedication in Washington D.C., is no exception.  More than 40 years after his death, Dr. King has stirred up, Hurricane Irene!  The high winds and torrential rains will not be able to overturn the 20 foot granite statue in his honor, but it has postponed the official Memorial Dedication, if only temporarily.  “In the words of Dr. King, "we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope." That’s what the Foundation in charge of the Dedication posted on their website, concluding, ‘With that in mind, let’s remember the spirit of the [King] Memorial - justice, democracy, hope and love.’ 

In the face of overwhelming odds, the civil rights campaign that MLK came to embody, accepted the mantle of ‘non-violence’ as a means of change.  Not a ‘turning of the cheek’ that is weak, or gives in to abuse, but from the tradition that Martin himself traced back through Gandhi all the way to Jesus.  Not a plan for change when it was convenient, but with a courage that professed ‘the fierce urgency of now.’  “Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all,” as our second reading from Romans says.  Some days, King, and his followers, paid the price with their blood, but never surrendered their dignity.  The picture of Dr. King linking arms with black and white, and with thousands of marchers behind and around him, is indelible.  And so it was on Bloody Sunday in 1965, in Montgomery, AL, where opposition was not only stirred up, but attack dogs and water cannons assaulted peaceful protestors, and Martin escaped with his life, for the time being, and a nation woke up to the brutality and racism, alive and well in our own people. 

“Let love be genuine,” St. Paul said, “hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good…outdo one another in showing honor.”  The civil rights movement with Dr. King as its spokesperson, embodied this very high standard. 

In my former parish, one summer we added an early service that became quite popular - with some – not everyone’s an early riser!  As we created the liturgy, we used a concluding Blessing, not yet in our green LBW hymnal, but which you can now find in our red ELW one.  It evokes the spirit, and much of the terminology of this passage of Paul’s letter to the Romans:

“Go out into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold to what is good; return no one evil for evil; strengthen the faint-hearted; support the weak; help the suffering; honor all people; love and serve our God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.” 

It’s a Blessing, and a charge to the assembly, at the Sending!  And when Kim and I delivered it, instead of staying behind the table, removed from the people as we usually did for the Benediction, we felt compelled to walk around it, down the steps, and into the middle of the gathering, to recite it.  Somehow, it just seemed like it had to be said in the midst of the faithful, as if we were linking arms – there, where it lives as an extension of Christ’s Spirit, and takes on flesh.  And then we all walked out into the world, renewed, and strengthened for the journey. 

The Martin Luther King Memorial is the first one on the National Mall in Washington D. C. that honors an African-American, and the first that honors anyone other than a U.S. President, which is a remarkable testament to the place of Martin Luther King, Jr. in our lives and history, as a country.  “The Stone of Hope,” or granite sculpture of King within the Memorial site, includes a number of quotes from his writings, speeches and sermons, including this one from December 1964: “World peace through nonviolent means is neither absurd nor unattainable. All other methods have failed. Thus we must begin anew. Nonviolence is a good starting point. Those of us who believe in this method can be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion. We can very well set a mood of peace out of which a system of peace can be built.”  
“If it is possible,” says Paul in Romans, “so far as it depends on you, live peaceable with all.”  That “you” is plural, by the way, as are all the you pronouns in this passage!  Like Jesus, Paul is charging the whole church, the ekklesia and gathering of the faithful, about how they are to interact with the world.  And this radical charge to “let your love be genuine” by ‘praying for and blessing your enemies,’ couldn’t have been made up by Paul, but could only come from his Messiah, from Jesus, who preached identical themes, we know, in the Sermon on the Mount. 
Again, this is not a private ethic, but, is charged to the believing community as a whole, to act out.  It calls for a kind of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to carry out, if you will!  Too often Protestantism has succumbed to an individualism which has made a mess of practicing non-violence.  The New Testament ethic was not meant for individuals to suffer behind closed doors at the hand of their abuser, turning the other cheek – becoming a punching bag for an abusive spouse.  According to Paul, the positive-directive in place of vengeance is, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink… Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  This is a peace plan, as Dr. King said, “a mood of peace, out of which a system of peace can be built,” and is charged to the community of faith.
When Americans began to wake up after Bloody Sunday, it was due to King’s non-violent movement “overcoming evil with good.”  Behind closed doors it would have been only violence and abuse.  Out in public, as a systemic movement of like-minded and faithful people, it became a turning point.  Repentance, and turning around in a new direction, were made possible, with a ‘genuine love,’ by ‘hating what is evil,’ and ‘blessing those who persecute you.’  Behind King’s non-violence, as with Jesus and St Paul, stands “love,” the font from which we have been named and claimed and sent out as ambassadors, with a faith active in love. 
And it’s the same love that originates from the one who broke bread on the very night in which he was betrayed.  Betrayed by one of his closest friends and disciples.  ‘This is my body given for you,’ said Jesus. ‘This is my blood shed for you,’ as he watched Judas slip out to hand him over to the authorities.  Jesus lived-out the love that he received from his heavenly parent, and taught it to us.  We eat and drink and ingest his life and love, every first day of the week, the new day of a new creation, to celebrate his resurrection and his making all things new for us.  We rejoice that we are loved, and that when we love others we feel more alive than ever.  It is not a ‘sentimental love’ as Dr. King reminded us, but a love that is genuine and holds fast to what is good, outdoing one another in practicing mutual affection, and in showing honor, which multiplies and strengthens us for the journey of loving non-violently in a violent world. 
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesus both stirred up opposition by their outspoken stand for the poor, and for justice, freedom, and love.  But there was nothing, not even a Hurricane, that could derail them, as long as the movement was blessed and empowered by our loving God.  We too stand for overcoming evil with good. 

“Go out into the world in peace; be of good courage; hold to what is good; return no one evil for evil; strengthen the faint-hearted; support the weak; help the suffering; honor all people; love and serve our God, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.”  

“Who do people say that I am,” Jesus asked his disciples at Caesarea Philippi?  It was an unusual setting for them: Here, where the springs of water gave life to the River Jordan, a swanky resort town for the rich and famous had been erected.  An entirely Roman city at the base of Mt. Hermon, on the northern edge of Palestine, it was constructed by Herod’s son Philip, as a gift of thanks in honor of Emperor Caesar, because he had made Philip the governor of this northern Israeli region! 

So, these 13 Galilean peasants walking into Caesarea Philippi, must have appeared like country bumpkins coming to the Hamptons!  Together, they had walked all over Galilee, from farms, to villages, in, on and around, the Sea of Galilee, but never before to this resort complex.  Now, at the mid-way point in Jesus’ ministry, he comes to this ritzy retreat center, not to get a room and order champagne, but to take stock of his progress, checking in with his closest followers, on their mission.  ‘I know others think I might be John the Baptist or Elijah come back to life, or maybe on par with Jeremiah or one of the prophets, “but what about you?” he asked, “who do you say that I am?”’

And Simon Peter – that gregarious, and natural but impulsive leader, who all too often ends up with a throbbing thumb – actually ‘hits the nail on the head’ this time, answering Jesus’ question with that now famous confession of faith: “You are the Messiah, the anointed one, the Son of the living God.”  

But this bold confession seems to come out of no where, and raises the question, what response was Jesus really hoping for from his disciples?  Maybe what he was after was, just some honest talk.  Where do you see me on a scale of leadership: from prophet, to game-changer, to the real deal, the Son of the living God?  Maybe Jesus was only expecting a mid-career answer, ‘a prophet for now, with good future potential?’  In the feeding of the 5,000, the disciples didn’t quite get it.  In the storm on the Sea of Galilee, Peter tried to step out of the boat to join Jesus, but didn’t last long.  Let’s sit down and process this!  That might have been Jesus’ intention. 

But you also have to wonder if Jesus was, just maybe, hoping to rub shoulders with the rich and famous while he was in Caesarea Philippi.  Or, maybe he came to this Roman outpost of opulence to deliberately make a contrast.  Here in Caesarea Philippi, everything shouts, ‘Caesar is king.’  Here the choice was clear.  Jesus, a unarmed leader, poor in earthly possessions, a wandering preacher with no where to lay his head, didn’t look anything like Caesar, a commander of limitless power by the sword, rich in possessions, a leader with expensive homes scattered throughout the empire.  And so, in this setting, Jesus asks his closest followers: “who do you say that I am?”  Of course, Peter would enthusiastically declare Jesus, not Caesar, is LORD!  ‘He hit the nail on the head!’      

But what about in our context, where we live with far more shades of grey?  What does it mean to confess Jesus as Messiah, or Son of God?  Is it the words that make it real?  Does saying it make us acceptable?  Is it enough to confess the creed?  Or must we say it from the heart, stand up and really mean it, be able to use it in our own words?  And, if we don’t say the right words or have the proper passion, are we disqualified, unacceptable, not disciples?  And even if we do, but then fail to live in the light of Christ, live a life not worthy of the Son of the living God, what then?  Every denomination of the church of Christendom has come up with a slightly different answer to these questions and debated them, and where has it gotten us? 

After his disciple ‘nails it,’ Jesus blesses Simon, and gives him a new nickname, Petros, or Peter, which means Rock!  “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”  Not literally build a stone church on Peter’s back, but metaphorically, he is the foundation, or cornerstone.  Peter is a spokesperson for all 12 disciples, and a stand-in, you might say, for all us that become followers and disciples of Jesus after him.  We are all stones, building blocks, on which Jesus, the master builder, forms the church, year after year, century after century, in cities and villages, across countries, and around the globe.  We, the baptized believers, who all too often end up with throbbing thumbs – are actually able to ‘hit the nail on the head,’ not because of our true confession, but only because Jesus, despite all our erratic hammering and yammering, is a builder that can create from nothing, and connect us to one another, and form us into one body, that we hadn’t even thought possible before. 

In these times of great change, in every way, and especially in this economy, as the gap continues to widen between rich, and shrinking middle class and poor, Jesus asks us which god we bow down too?  The god of Caesar is a perennial temptation, the one who wields power by military and monetary coercion, acquiring friends through “pay to play” schemes, who lives high off the hog, and speaks of peace, surrounded by his conquered conscripts.  Jesus offers something else.  Not a glamorous or glitzy facade built with slave labor.  It doesn’t involve an armed militia, or a federal reserve bank – only true peace, through justice for the least of these, and a life of joyful service, building life-giving relationships based on the power of the ‘good news.’  One is found in Caesarea Philippi and in high places everywhere, and the other is found ‘nailed’ to the cross, opening his arms to all. 

The church is not the stones of our building, but the believing stones that cry out, ‘Hosanna in the highest, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD.’  And the word for church, that Jesus is building on Peter, is used only here in Matthew, no where else in the gospels.  Church, or ekklesia in the Greek, had meant, the “assembly” of the people that were “called out” to act together as one body.  We are that assembly, the church, called out, so Christ, the Son of the living God, can build us up.  And we become living stones that create new possibilities for God’s work to be done, a work of resurrecting ‘hope and faith and love’ in these very uncertain times, so that new jobs in the realm of God are opening up and being created right here for the assembly of believers. 

“Who do we say that Jesus is?”  The short answer is Peter’s – the Messiah.  “Blessed are you,” says Jesus, “for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but our heavenly God!”  And over the long haul, to “nail it on the head,” we assemble as the living stones, so that the Messiah, the Master Builder, can ‘call us out,’ for the up-building, of the life of the world.  

Today we have seen God’s bounteous grace in the baptism of little Madie!  God has blessed us, in blessing Madeline Katherine – naming her as a child of God, and inviting her to “bear the creative and redeeming word of God to all the world.”  A miracle in her parents’ eyes, beaming with the light of love and grace, she has been born into the everlasting realm and kingdom of God before our very eyes, here at this font.  And we, God’s children, though we have; grown and doubted, wizened to the ways of the world, wandered in the wilderness, fallen by the wayside, willfully disobeyed, and been tempted to give up, have also come through the waters of baptism and been saved, once and for all – for our whole lives – and have been gathered into the everlasting arms, arms of miraculous grace – a kind of Christmas miracle – and been made children of the one God, forever. 

And for this kind of gift, Psalm 67, a Psalm of praise and thanksgiving, was composed for congregational singing, from ancient of days.  It has also been sung, from then until now, at Jewish worship, as a concluding hymn.  Christians too recognize it for the blessing called, the Aaronic blessing, used at the end of our worship: “The LORD bless you and keep you, the LORD’s face shine on you and be gracious to you, and the LORD look on you with favor and give you peace.” 

In our baptism service then, the first question that is asked, is: if you “trust in the grace and love of God, do you desire to have your child baptized into Christ?”  Do we?  Do we trust in the grace and love of God?  Are we ready to sing God’s praises? 

Surely grace and blessing are intimately woven together in our understanding of God.  As Lutherans we hold dear the confession that, “we are saved by grace through faith.”  As biblical professor Rolf Jacobson says, “God's blessing is by grace alone because God blesses whom God chooses, when God chooses, for the reasons God chooses. God's blessings are gracious, surprising, unexpected gifts.  This is clear throughout the biblical narrative.  One need think only of Sarah.  God announces to Abraham in Genesis 17 that, ‘I will bless [Sarah] and will surely give her a son by you.’  Abraham then laughs at God and counter-offers, ‘O that Ishmael [the son I have by Hagar] might live in your sight.’  God does answer Abraham's prayer and blesses Ishmael.  But God goes Abraham one better and saves the most surprising blessing for Sarah.  A free gift of grace.”  Abraham and Sarah become parents to Isaac in their 90’s, and God has the last laugh.  And the chosen people – through whom we are also called today in a new covenant – are launched on their way, and God’s promise is resurrected from what had seemed dead!  Every blessing is a surprise, and perhaps, a wake up call. 

The gift of grace given to the Israel, God’s chosen people, continues to grow in surprising new ways, through Jacob, and Hannah, and David, just to mention a few.  The realm of God finds a fertile soil for life, and becomes incarnate in, conniving patriarchs and cave dwelling prophets, in shepherd-kings and unclean foreigners.  Until one day, it comes also to a maiden in Galilee.  An unmarried and unsuspecting teenager who is called “blessed.”  Mary becomes highly favored, the God-bearer, laying the Son of God in a lowly manger, as a wayfarer, a refugee in Bethlehem.  “Let your word be with me just as you say,” says Mary to the angel Gabriel. 

Despite the shock, is Mary faithful to this sudden unbidden announcement?  It would seem so!  Is she able to believe in this miracle?  She says she is!  Will she be remembered for the utter lack of her ability to control how she receives this gift and promise?  Ya, exactly!  And we are Mary’s children too, as we are children of Abraham and Sarah.  The promise and gift is passed down to us, and we have no control over this life we have been given, this gift of faith that has grabbed hold of us, unbidden; this new family called the church, which the Holy Spirit has enlivened, and made us members of. 

We only really know that our faith is strengthened when we remember to count our blessings.  And so we sing with the Psalmist: “Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you.”  This is our refrain.  This worship is our gift, given back.  A response, though God’s grace can never be repaid.  There is not even any interest we can repay on the “principle” of this gift we have received.  The surprising gift of grace is free, like the Woman of Wisdom in Isaiah who hawks us, and all passers-by, to ‘Come: eat and drink without money,’ it’s all free!

Do we give thanks?  For all the blessings we receive, we will never have enough songs to properly give thanks!  So, what is the point, then?  The question must be restated: Do we realize what we have?  And, do we have so much, that we don’t remember where it comes from?  Instead of living in mind-games, can we live out our thanks after the song, in lives of thanksgiving, not letting ourselves be overwhelmed, by work or loneliness, or too much fun in the sun!

"The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, has blessed us," says the Psalmist, reflecting the bounty of our blessings!  Everything we have comes from God!  We can, and do forget, unless, unless we have a song, or a prayer, or a liturgy to call them to mind for us.  Which is the first step to living lives of thanksgiving in faith, and the very threshold to the gates where we enter the joy, and the experience of grace, that God has given us.  “The earth has yielded its increase,” reminds us of the bounty of the earth that feeds us, but also, the social institutions that bind us together, the formation and traditions of our family, the healing care of doctors and clinicians, the musicians and artists that color and inspire our world, and the hope that lives in a new generation.  The list of blessings is endless.  When we take the time and effort to name them, they begin to take on flesh and become incarnate in and for us – blessings that are God-given. 

Mary was called “blessed.”  But you’d have to say that she was also a blessing to us, for her response in song, and her life lived for Christ.  We too live lives for Christ, counting our blessings.  Sometimes, when things are good, and we begin to take our lives for granted, or when they are not so good, and we likewise become separated from God, we need a wake up call.  Today, this very morning, in this baptism, this splash of cold water, we have been awakened by this gift, this miracle of Madie to her parents, and now also, to all of us.  For in her, in her incarnate little 4 month old miraculous self, shines forth a gift so obvious, we are bowled over and driven to tears, for all the blessings of God poured down on us! 

“Let the peoples praise you, O God, let all the peoples praise you!”  

How much faith do you need to be successful at it?  Is walking on water a good test for our faith?  What are the rough waters that get in the way of our faith? 

As the three of us, me, Kim and my mom, returned to the dock in our pontoon boat, I jumped out and secured the ropes on both bow and stern, but it was a loosely configured arrangement, and the boat readily drifted away a few feet, making the step from boat to dock, a rather large one.  “Hang on to my glass, while I get off, my mom said.”  But as I looked down at the water, I feared there was a danger lurking there, even greater than the deep waters we had just traveled over around the lake!  It was a step just big enough to miss, like there needed to be a little bridge across.  “I’ll be alright, just hang on to this,” my mother insisted.  But my reaction was to jump to the dock and pull the boat closer, so that, even with glass in hand, on her 83rd birthday, she could walk easily from one to the other.  Fear of falling in, was on my mind, for sure!  While my mom, despite a bum knee, seemed to have complete confidence, and faith, in her ability. 

There was no storm that night.  In fact the lake was like glass, not a ripple to be seen.  I could easily imagine Jesus walking across the lake to us.  A Hollywood set with stepping stones just beneath the surface would have done the trick - for any of us!  But walking on the water for Jesus is not a question of a trick.  And for the gospel writers, it’s clearly a symbol of his divinity: The Son of God came to conquer the chaos of the seas, and the place where the sea monster, that great Leviathan lived, and continually threatened to wreak havoc on the world.  Jesus, the Word made flesh, can and does, command the seas, which God has made, through him. 

For the disciples, it’s either “Jesus walking toward them on the sea” that they see in the storm, or, “it is a ghost!”  But either way, they are justly “terrified” and “call out in fear!”  The storm was raging, and the wind was against them all night long, as they had tried to cross Lake Galilee.  But they couldn’t bridge the impediment keeping them from the other side.  “Do not be afraid,” Jesus reassures them.  “It is I,” not a ghost!  Stay in the boat.  I’m coming to you!   

Peter, as usual, gets all excited!  ‘He’s like the kid who sits in the front of the classroom and raises his hand, hops up and down in his seat, and shouts, “Me! Me! Pick me!” to every question the teacher asks.’ [CC: Living Word Blog: http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2011-08/why-faith-so-difficult]     “Command me to come to you on the water.”  ‘If it’s truly you, I know I can follow you,’ says Peter!  ‘I want to be your brightest and best Disciple!’  So, at Jesus’ call, Peter is off into the stormy waters, eyes on the prize, focusing on his master.  But also like us, easily distracted, and, to be fair, not without reason: it’s a big step into the wind and the waves, and there he loses his mojo, and just as quickly begins to succumb to all the challenges none of us ever want to consider in our own lives: challenges that Jesus calls us to; all the naysayers who seek to pull us down; and all the mistakes we inevitably make.  And with his attention averted, his eyes off the prize, Peter panics, and finds himself at the end of his rope, a drowning man.  All he can do is call out to the one who is the Living Word, who was with God from the beginning at creation, the commander of sea and land: “Lord, save me!” 

And so, Jesus, bridges the gap, and “immediately he reached out his hand and caught him.”  Jesus is the repairer of the breech, the one who holds us, the bridg-er of the gap of our faith and doubt.  Jesus brings Peter safely back into the boat again, another symbol not lost on Matthew’s original readers, for the boat or ship was the universal symbol for the church, and not just the building.  Like Noah’s ark, it was thought to be a symbol of bringing the people through the rough waters raging all around, and into salvation.  But for Jesus and the disciples, of course, the church was the people, not a building.  So it is not strange at all that Peter wanted to get out of the boat as an extension of his life of faith.  

And like Peter, our faith is tested in the stormy seas that surround us every day, or else it is not faith.  For faith is, by definition, dynamic: living and growing, changing us, taking us to depths we hadn’t known possible before.  Jesus never meant that our entire faith experience would be contained within the walls of a church building.  Just the opposite!  Hear we worship Jesus, in our little boat, just as the disciples did in theirs.  But Monday through Friday we get out of the boat, risking our lives in the world where storms blow up, often when we least expect it.  If our faith is not connected to the mission Jesus is calling us to, it becomes static and lifeless.  “Faith is the bridge that connects us to Jesus,” says Teri McDowell Ott …Faith is our “hope in the face of despair; love in the face of hatred; peace in the face of violence; beauty in the face of ugliness; … and courage in the face of fear. Faith is the spirited force that moves us from the place where we are, to the place where we ought to be.”  [CC: Living Word Blog:]

How much faith do we need to be successful at it?  I prefer to see Jesus instruction to Peter as playful, rather than scolding.  “You of little faith, why did you doubt,” Jesus asks Peter, still dripping, shocked and shaking in the boat?  Jesus knows that none of us is greater in faith than the daring of Peter.  But why should that worry Jesus, the one who said, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘move from here to there,’ and it will move.”  Our doubt and “little faith” is just an opportunity in waiting!  We can go from fear to confident “walking on water” in a moment.  We can be transformed and changed over night!  Faith multiplies! 

How?  Not by our own volition, but by the power of God.  And, if we take a queue from Jesus, by prayer, and a life of gratitude for the grace and love of God.  Whereas Peter, and all of us, tend to wait till we’re drowning, at the end of our ropes, and then call out to God for help, Jesus intentionally goes to a life of prayer before striking out into the world.  “Jesus went up the mountain by himself to pray,” Matthew tells us, before the storm. 

And likewise, Jesus is there for Peter, and graciously reaches out a helping hand to catch him.  He doesn’t demand that Peter increase his faith first, but saves him, no questions asked, then, together, they can begin to work out his faith life.  Jesus bridges the gap, grasping the hand of the wild-eyed and coughing-up-water disciple.  Then lovingly, but truthfully, Jesus says: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” 

Jesus saves us first, then invites us to greater faith.  Grace is a gift, freely given, despite the size of our faith in following our teacher.  Jesus gives us wide steps in which to confidently find a place to stand, even in rough waters, and invites us to keep our eyes on the prize; to focus on Jesus as the Word of God, the Spirit and Creator of all, who was there in the beginning, and walks with us still, bringing us to salvation every day.  We are strengthened in the boat we’re in, each of us empowered to be church, part of a saving boat for others, out on the rough waters of the world.  

This gospel story, the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, or feeding of the 5,000, is the passage that informs our Unity Vision Statement: …that, “we are an urban green space, welcoming everyone into a holy encounter, where we are changed, that all may be fed as Jesus feeds us.” 

In this miracle of the loaves and fish, Jesus feeds the crowds, enacting the power of God, something like Moses in the wilderness when God commanded him to feed the thousands of Israelites, ‘manna from heaven.’  But here, Jesus himself commands the feeding, as God’s agent on earth. 

Joseph Sittler once called the miracle stories in the Gospels, “enacted parables.” For while parables announce “what the kingdom of heaven is like” in earthy stories, the miracles that Jesus does, are “enacted parables.”  The kingdom of God comes alive, takes on flesh, and lives in our presence.  The meaning of the parables, happen before our eyes, in the miracles of Jesus! 

The multiplication of the loaves and the fish is just the first of a series of miracles in Matthew chapter 14, which follow a chapter full of parables that Jesus has just told, with one exception.  The little transition story, that is neither a parable nor a miracle, but sticks out like a sore thumb, the beheading of John the Baptist.  John, of course, is Jesus’ kin, his cousin perhaps.  John had his own disciples and followers.  Before he baptized Jesus, some thought John might be the long expected Messiah.  As it turned out, he was “the forerunner,” the one who “made the paths straight for Jesus,” the one who was “not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.”  John was a fierce truth-teller.  He was a wild prophet in the wilderness.  And suddenly, he was dead, killed violently by the rich and reckless Herod.  Herod had had an unhealthy fascination with John, eagerly listening to John in prison while he named Herod’s sin, his illegal marriage to his brother’s wife, knowing on some level that he was telling him the truth, but keeping him locked up none-the-less.  And then, as a resolution to his conundrum, he fulfills the wish of his wife’s young daughter after she danced for him on his birthday, that is, her request for “John the Baptist’s head on a platter,” sacrificing the prophet, to clear his own conscience!”  

So, when John’s disciples come to tell Jesus the news, he immediately makes plans to retreat into the desert, the place where John lived, to grieve for his kin-folk, and his mentor, this bell-weather for his own life.  For the violent death of John is but a fore-shadowing of Jesus’ own death on the cross – a death and a glorification, for his truth-telling, but of course, for more, for the charge of sedition, that he is the anointed one, the King of the Jews, and savior of the world.  Just so, Jesus’ time of grieving is cut short too.  “When he went ashore,” the crowds of people were waiting, some who were followers of John perhaps, thronging his arrival. 

I imagine, if it were me, that Jesus would get out of the boat and want to tell them all to go home and put on black, and grieve John’s death with him.  Or, maybe like Jonah, he’d want to sail away in the other direction to the other side of the Sea.  Or, maybe he’d want to invoke his 2nd amendment rights and organize a militia to get back at Herod!  But Jesus has “compassion” for them.  Jesus “reaches out” in care and concern, healing their sick, binding up their wounds and broken hearts.  Compassion is an interesting term here, considering its root once referred to the blood-animal sacrifices in the Temple, and other cultures.  It had meant, a “reaching in” to rip out the heart, a meaning which Jesus subverts and transforms into, ‘his heart went out to them.’  Jesus, our sacrificial innocent victim, demonstrates how to end the need for any further innocent victims: by compassion for one another.   

And when he has spent all day with the crowds, compassionately healing their sick, the disciples urge him to get rid of the crowds, and let them go rummage for their own food.  “They need not go away,” said Jesus, “you give them something to eat.”  But eyeing up the 5 to 10 thousand people, the disciples reply, “we have nothing here but 5 loaves and 2 fish.”  This is our human temptation every day of our lives, is it not?  To live under the power of Herod, without justice, without choice, in the poverty of “not enough,” instead of in the realm of God Jesus brings that shares and feeds all?! 

So Jesus welcomes everyone to sit down on the green space. “Taking the 5 loaves and the 2 fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves.”  Matthew is already seeing this enacted parable, this meal, through the eyes of his churches Eucharistic meal they celebrated in worship together, the same communion we still share today at our table.  Jesus gave the bread to the disciples, and the disciples gave pieces of the loaves away to the gathering; “that all may be fed as Jesus feeds us.”  For the early church, Matthew’s allegory is clear: Jesus has commissioned the apostles to celebrate communion after he is gone, that it should be open to all, that all will be fed and filled on this ‘bread of life.’ 

The multiplication of the loaves and fishes is an ‘enacted parable.’  It is not just about testing our modern sensibilities. whether a miracle can really happen or not.  But this ‘enacted parable’ is about our ‘hearts’ and what they believe in.  Who is the true king and savior in our lives?  Who is the one who feeds us and abundantly provides all that we need?  Have our hearts been filled with the bread of life, Jesus body and blood, so that we too can reach-out in heart-felt care for our neighbor?  Is the allegory of Jesus passing the bread to the apostles, who pass it on to us, enacted in our lives?  Do we have a compassion that can heal the neighborhood around us? 

In Israel last week, it was the price of cottage cheese, not bread, that finally brought the Arab Spring to their shores.  I guess the deal with cottage cheese is, that, as the most common product served on Israeli tables, it has naturally become their symbol of the high prices and inflation they are fed-up with.  Prices are artificially high in Israel, due to a lack of competition, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very few.  The protests in Tel Aviv, which began with only dozens, quickly blossomed to tens of thousands, and has the Prime Ministry scrambling still to find a satisfactory deal, after offering a few feeble attempts to make it all go away.  And so, food is the symbol, but the real complaint is fairness in being fed spiritually, and with compassion. 

Jesus feeds us with bread, not just to fill our stomach’s, but to fill us up so that we will lack nothing.  “We come to the hungry feast: hungry that all hunger cease;”  and for the enacted realm of God to come down and take residence in and around us, making us one in Christ, that we share all that we have in a miracle of multiplication for the whole world.  “We welcome everyone into [this] holy encounter, where we are changed, that all may be fed, as Jesus feeds us.”