Sermon for August 2, 2020 - The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 13A - The Rev'd Elise A. Feyerherm

Isaiah 55:1-5 – Psalm 145:8-9, 15-22 – Romans 9:1-5 – Matthew 14:13-21

It has been impossible for me to hear the readings for today without remembering, so long ago it seems now, this community gathered around the altar at St. Paul’s, our hands reaching out to receive the body and blood of Christ.

When you heard the words from Isaiah, “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat,” did you find yourself recalling and longing for Holy Communion? I did.

When you heard the evangelist Matthew describe Jesus blessing and breaking the loaves, and giving them to the disciples, did you see in your mind’s eye the host being lifted up, broken, and shared among us? I did.

This Sunday’s feast of scripture is full of Eucharistic images, even if none of it is explicitly describing the Holy Eucharist. The lesson from Hebrew scripture is from Second Isaiah, a prophet writing in the tradition and lineage of the original Isaiah. This oracle is meant for the people of Israel, who had been driven from their homes, exiled to Babylon, and who had been living under foreign rule for several generations. These are the people who wrote Psalm 137 – “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered you, O Zion.” They hadn’t seen, let alone worshiped in the temple in Jerusalem for almost fifty years.

Our exile of almost five months can hardly compare – but we know something of that heartache, nonetheless. Three years ago a commentator urged preachers to ask themselves, “In what sense are our congregations experiencing exile? In what sense are they looking to go home?” In 2020, it is not difficult at all to answer this question. We know exactly in what sense we are experiencing exile. We know exactly how and where we want to go home. We want to go to church, on the corner of St. Paul and Aspinwall streets, or wherever those of us out in Zoom and Facebook land call our church home.

The story of Jesus and the hungry crowd is also tinged with fear and exile. The gospel portion for today omits Jesus’ reason for withdrawing in a boat to a lonely place apart – it is because he has heard about the cruel execution of John the Baptist, his head served on a platter to King Herod. The world is not a safe place for those who preach and live out God’s reign of justice and peace. And just like the people of Israel in exile in Babylon, Jesus and his people are once again under the domination of an empire that, craving power, has cut off the people from their roots.

When Matthew writes his gospel, the temple in Jerusalem has been destroyed – again – for decades. Christian communities are expecting Jesus’ return, but it has been several generations, and Rome is still in charge. It is not only the people in the story, but the early Church community that is hungry, and waiting, with no clear sense of when the waiting will end. With only five loaves and two fish, how can the people possibly be fed and nourished for the journey ahead? When will the waiting be over? How long will the people thronging to see Jesus – the Church – have to go hungry?

Both Second Isaiah and the evangelist Matthew have something to say to people who are hungry and waiting. They have something to say to us, exiled for now from our places of worship and hungry for each other and the food of the Holy Eucharist.

The prophet of ancient Israel brings an invitation from God, a reassurance that God has not abandoned us, and is ready to shower down upon us all manner of abundant love. Jesus’ gestures of blessing, breaking, and giving bread are acts of hope and resistance against the empire’s message of fear and scarcity. Even when prophets are being silenced and access to holy places is limited, people are being fed, in body and in spirit.

Another message I hear in these readings is the reassurance that what we have is enough. It does not feel like enough, any more than five loaves and two fish seem like enough for more than five thousand people. We have not celebrated Holy Eucharist and shared in communion for almost five months – we are hungry. Yet we cannot forget this one thing, that we are still being nourished by all those times we gave thanks, blessed, broke and gave the bread. There is no expiration date for the Body of Christ that is now within and among us.

It is not enough, I know. But it is enough. I promise, because this is what God has promised.

It is not enough, and it is enough. Enough not only to nourish ourselves, but also enough to send us out into the world. God’s invitation to come to the waters and feast on rich food leads naturally to a mission for the people of God. In Isaiah’s words, the everlasting covenant with David is a covenant with the whole people of Israel to be a witness to all the peoples. The feast is not for us alone, but for the whole world.

It is not enough, and it is enough. We are not enough – and we are enough, just as the disciples in their doubt and lack of imagination were enough. Those disciples believed they had nothing to give the crowd, and yet with Jesus’ blessing they were able to serve every person there, with more to spare. They were not enough – and they were enough.

My friends, we are enough, because God is enough.

Let us pray:

God of compassion,

whose heart goes out

to the hungry and destitute;

who takes our lack

and transforms it into much:

give us the bread that satisfies,

the food without price,

that our lives may be freed

to share your overflowing love;

through Jesus Christ,

the breaker of bread. Amen.

(Collect for Proper 13A by Steven Shakespeare, Prayers for an Inclusive Church. New York: Church Publishing, 2009).