Matthew
14:13-21
What
Kingdom Do We Seek?
I hope you brought your bibles
today. I realized that what I really
need to do to encourage you to bring your bible is to point out that I could
cut at least 5 minutes out of every sermon if I didn’t have to tell you what
you can’t see when you don’t have a bible to look at. So here is the deal – when 50% of you bring a
bible, I will reduce my self-appointed length of sermon by one page. Deal?
Here is what I wish you could see
this morning: we are reading from
Matthew 14. Verses 13-21. What you can’t see by looking at the back of
the bulletin alone is what has been going on in the chapter before these 9
verses. I hope I won’t offend anyone if
I say that the order of the events in the Gospels is a construct of the writer
of that particular Gospel. The order of
events varies between Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – with each of the gospel writers
putting the story together in a way that helps them to emphasis what they
believe the major points to be. Order does
matters. So Matthew 14 needs to be read
with an eye on what was reported in the previous chapter.
Do any of you, with a bible (or
really good memory) want to remind the rest of us as to what has been going on,
in the 13th chapter of Matthew?
Chapter 13 is filled with
parables. We have been reading those
parables for the past three Sundays. All
of those parables coalesce around a central topic. And that topic is “The Kingdom.” Jesus is trying, desperately trying, to help
the disciples and his hearers catch a glimpse of the Kingdom he came to reveal. This Kingdom is like so many things, yet unlike
anything they have ever known.
And why is it unlike anything
they have ever known? Because it is so
different from what they are experiencing.
The first 12 verses of Matthew 14 contain a grand interruption to any
thought that the Kingdom is at hand.
Between those glimpses of the Kingdom in Chapter 13 and the events which
take center stage in today’s reading we have the retelling of how Herod’s
concern about this new Kingdom lead him to kill John the Baptist. The Kingdom which Jesus came to proclaim was
a concern, it was a threat, to the kingdom preferred by those who seek power
and control.
Matthew 13 is filled with
parables. Parables about “The
Kingdom.”
When Matthew tells these
parables, he speaks of the Kingdom of “Heaven.”
In Mark & Luke the same parables are told but here the reference is
to the Kingdom of “God.” I will say a
bit more about why Matthew does this, later.
For now, I want to address how this change has affected the way
Christians envision the “Kingdom.”
I had never paid much attention
to this difference until I started reading the writings of a Baptist Preacher
from New York City. Walter Rauschenbusch
pointed out that the shift from speaking of the “Kingdom of God,” to talk about
the “Kingdom of Heaven” allowed too many of his fellow preachers to pretend
that Jesus’ preaching was all about the sweet-by-and-by; that what concerned
Jesus was some realm out there somewhere, beyond the space and time we
currently inhabit. Rauschenbusch
disagreed. ‘Jesus had some things to say about the
kingdoms we seek here on earth,’ (my paraphrase.) The Kingdom of which Jesus invites us to be a
part begins now and is lived here.
The reason Matthew changes “God”
to “Heaven” isn’t because he thought Jesus was talking about what comes after
death. Rather, Matthew wrote for a group
which included a lot of Jewish converts.
He knew they would be offended if forced to say the name of God. So, he changes it. Matthew KNOWS that Jesus is concerned about
the here and now. Matthew understands that the Kingdom of which Jesus speaks is
to make a real difference in what happens to us here and now. That is why he organizes chapters 13 and 14
as he does.
There is really nothing new to
say about the parable of the Feeding of the 5,000. I decided early in the week that it was the
ultimate ego trip for me to think that I could come up with something
insightful and exciting that I had only recently discovered by way of deep research
or profound, prayerful meditation. You
know the story. You know what
happens. You know what is going to
happen even before the story gets going.
At issue, I want to suggest this morning, is not so much what happens,
rather the issue is whether we want to ask significant questions about what
this ancient story means for us today.
What does it say to us about our preoccupation with some future heavenly
kingdom, sought after at the expense of paying really close attention to the
kingdoms we build on this side of eternity?
Jesus has been telling parable
after parable about the Kingdom. Some of
the images he uses get an agreeing nod from us; some throw us for a bit of a
loop. If you were here two weeks ago,
you heard my rant about the so called “interpretations” of the parables. Those are little more than attempts on the
part of the young, developing Church to soften the bite of Jesus’ words. They worked really hard to make Jesus seem
more like a wise grandparent than like the embodiment of God’s insistence that
justice be done on earth.
Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom
stand the world on its head and reverse the understanding of what is important
and who is important.
Jesus knows that it will be
difficult for us to hear these parables; nearly impossible for us to
understand. So he asks them in Matthew
13:51, “Have you understood all this?”
What are they going to say? Are
they going to say, “No, Jesus. You are a
lousy teacher - whose style of using cute little stories rather than telling us
directly what you mean leaves us wondering (and often arguing) about what it is
that you want us to do.” So, they
answer. “Yes, we understand.” But they
don’t. If you want proof that they don’t
understand, look at Matthew 14:16 (this one is on your bulletin.) Jesus has been talking about the coming of
the Kingdom. But when there is an
opportunity for the Kingdom to be experienced by these 5,000 men (plus all the
women and children) those who had just answered, “Sure, we understand,” are
ready to send those 5,000 souls off to fend for themselves.
Note if you will – there is no
little boy in Matthew’s story, offering to share his lunch. There is no little boy in Mark or Luke
either. You only get that sweet,
innocent child in John. “Sweet?” “Innocent?”
Naïve and stupid is more like it.
5,000 men plus who knows how many women and children; you are the only
one whose mother loved them enough to send along a bag lunch, and you are going
to just hand it over? It takes a lot of
trust in the Kingdom of God to risk sharing one’s bread.
Jesus tells the disciples, “You
feed them.” Jesus exposes that their
lack of confidence in the unfolding of the Kingdom of which he has spent so
much time talking. They have heard his parables
and said they understand but they continue to believe that the Kingdom of which
Jesus speaks may come someday, but not this day.
Jesus says, “You feed them.” “You make this Kingdom in which all God’s
children have their bellies filled to overflowing real for these 5,000
men. And you do it NOW!”
There is nothing as powerful as
giving a meal to one who is hungry.
There are few things as well received as the assurance that another will
provide for us. The story tells us that
these 5,000 are in a deserted place and the hour is late. Panic will soon set in. “Send them away,” the disciples tell
Jesus. “Let them go back to their
ramshackle homes where they might have enough barley to scrape together a
biscuit or two. “Tell them to go,” the
disciples insist. This is a deserted
place and the hour is late.
But it is the place where Jesus
is. It is the place where talk about the
Kingdom has attracted a huge following.
It is the place where all the talk about the Kingdom is going to be made
real in action.
“You give them something to eat.”
So long as we don’t have our
bibles, it is way too easy for some slick talking preacher to pull a few verses
out, print them on the back of some piece of paper, and tell you that “this” is
what the story means. I realize that my
comments this morning also represent an attempt to encourage you to think maybe
this story means “that.” Decide for
yourselves. Read, and re-read these
chapters. Remember that the insertion of
chapters and verses was added much later to the original story, first penned by
Matthew.
But I realize that the truly
challenging thing about this morning’s message isn’t about literary criticism
of the Bible, it is this insistence that we completely miss the point when we
read these parables and allow ourselves to think they are only talking about
what happens after we die, or after Jesus returns. The stories Jesus tells about the Kingdom are
not comforting words intended to appease our fear of death. They are instructions on how we are to live
the lives we have on this side of the grave.
The kingdom of heaven may be
about such things. The kingdom of God is
about what happens to us today, tomorrow, and all the days in which we draw our
breath. The invitation from Jesus is to
live in this Kingdom – Now. And living
it in such a way as to make it a reality for all those who find themselves in
deserted places and a late hour.
Jesus is saying to us - “You feed
them.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment