“Now
when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place
apart. But when the crowds heard
it, they followed him on foot from the towns. As he went ashore he saw a
great throng; and he had compassion
on them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to
him and said, “This is
a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the
villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus
said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They said
to him, “We have only
five loaves here and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to
me.” Then he ordered the crowds to sit down
on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to
heaven, and blessed, and broke and
gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the
crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And
they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those
who ate were about five thousand men,
besides women and children.”
--Matthew 14: 13-21
--Matthew 14: 13-21
This is a lonely place.
How often do Christians everywhere, every day feel that? Sense it? I
would imagine that even within the walls of the Vatican or some sacred
monastery or convent the bitter truth of the disciple’s words are daily
affirmed. This is a lonely place. To live for Christ yet still live in the
world is a lonely place. A vulnerable place.
To seek after Christ
with your whole heart and soul is a lonely place, because the world does not
approve, the world does not affirm, and sadly the world may hardly even take
note of such a life. And what is it
Christ demands that makes following Him such a lonely life? Only that we forsake home and family, even
our very self, and follow Him. And yet
there is (paradoxically) so much more to this “lonely place” than simply misery
and loneliness. And it seems to me that
in this passage from Matthew Jesus is revealing to the disciples the fullness
of His request –the mysterious fullness of His request, of this lonely
place. So, let us look again at the
story itself.
After learning of
the death of John the Baptist, Jesus withdraws to a lonely place, seemingly to
be alone. However, the crowds of people
who have been following Him, follow Him there also. And when they do, He spends
the day teaching and healing them. But as the day comes to an end, the apostles
realize that the darkness will find the people in a very vulnerable position.
They are out in a deserted place, a lonely place, where there is no comfort,
there are no amenities, there is no Cracker Barrel or Buc-EEs, no 24 hour rest
stops. The disciples realize that the people have followed Jesus into a
deserted and lonely and vulnerable place and so they –out of compassion for the
people—ask Jesus to send the people away. Send them back to civilization where
they can find food and shelter and a gift shop!
Seen in the light
of today’s church, the disciples are asking Jesus to not be quite so
demanding. They are asking Him to loosen
up on the people, go a little easier on them; to send them away from this place
of sacrifice and let them return to a place where there are comforts and sustenance
–because this kind of sacrifice is asking too much of the people –too much from
their weakness.
But Jesus says to
them: No. Don’t send them away. Let them stay and you guys feed them
yourselves.
But we can’t. By
golly, we don’t even have enough food to sustain ourselves! How can we take
care of this multitude (over 5000)?
Bring me what you
have, the Lord tells them. And have the people sit down –to stay put, to remain
faithful even when the world seems lonely—and I will show you how this
works. He takes the meager offering that
the disciples have to give (5 loaves and 2 fish) and He offers a blessing and
breaks the bread and tells the disciples to share it with the people. And
suddenly, miraculously, there is enough. More than enough –with overflowing
abundance left over.
What is the lesson
here? The pastoral lesson?
First, that
following Jesus is sometimes a very lonely place to live. He asks a lot from us
–in fact He asks everything. And the
world has no place for all that kind of junk, or mushy love your enemy turn the
other cheek or pluck out your eye kind of stuff. And the world doesn’t like the Cross or the
challenge presented by a life of faith. The world, even those who love us –our
family and friends; by golly even the ministers of Christ’s church will too
often tell us: be realistic! This is a lonely place. This place, this LIFE of
giving up everything to follow Christ is a lonely place. Why don’t you go back
to the real world where you can get a good cup of coffee and they have A/C and
free wifi and a comfortable place to lay your head. Just put down that cross
for a few hours and have a beer and watch some TV or read some Facebook posts
or tweet some Twitters. You don’t always
have to be SO faithful! Take a break –ease
up. You can follow Jesus tomorrow! Or later in the week. Heck, just follow
Jesus most of the time, but if it gets too challenging or makes people
uncomfortable or requires real and ongoing sacrifice –then maybe you should
ease up and go back to the city where you can find food and shelter and people
will accept you. This is a lonely place;
so why don’t you go back to the place in your life where it wasn’t so lonely.
Second, Jesus is
teaching the disciples that if they trust Him –trust Him fully—this lonely
place can be transformed. If they trust
Him fully, give themselves to Him completely, this lonely place will become a
garden overflowing with plenty –a land of milk and honey… or bread and fishes
(if you will).
Trust Jesus and
let the community find itself by following Him –even when it gets hard and
feels lonely—and He will bring great things out of their midst. Is it possible that the miracle of the loaves
and fishes involves the people simply sharing with each other from the supplies
that they brought with them (unbeknownst to the apostles)? Yes. I think that could fit right in with the
way Christ works. It seems to me, that
He constantly brings forth from our gifts (what we have, what we give
completely to Him) a glorious plenty that can sustain multitudes. We must trust
Him completely; we must give ourselves completely –give our gifts completely.
Surrender ourselves fully to Him. Follow
Him completely and always –even when He leads us to a lonely place. To witness the miracle we have to trust God
completely. We have to give ourselves to Him completely. God never imposes
Himself upon us. As the Gospel says:
Your faith has healed you; Your faith has made you whole (cf. Mt 9:22; Mk 5:34;
Lk 17:19, etc).
Let us be faithful
Let us be whole
Let us give
ourselves completely, that this lonely place may come to life and overflow
abundantly with life giving gifts and become not a lonely place but a garden
verdant and green where we can walk with God –following Him completely. And by losing ourselves completely, discover
that we are never truly alone.
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