10th Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 13) – August 6th, 2023
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Matthew 14:13–21
“Food From Heaven”
Theme: Jesus provides earthly food for our bodies and spiritual food for our souls.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Feeding miracles are really unique miracles. What makes them unique is that new things are being created basically out of nothing. Jesus did many miracles, but most of them are corrections of the effects of sin. He healed people with diseases, disabilities, and infirmities. He cast out demons. He calmed seas that were troubled by storms. He even raised the dead. You get the sense that he’s bringing divine peace and life to a world troubled by sinful chaos and death. We’ll pick up this theme next week, but today, Jesus is making something out of nothing.
There’s a few things that are absolutely unique about this miracle. First, it’s the only miracle included in all four Gospels. We should pay attention to this. This miracle is key to Jesus’s ministry in a way that the others are not.
Second, we don’t get this information from Matthew but rather from John, but this was a miracle for both believers and unbelievers. John reports how people wanted to make Jesus a bread-king after seeing this miracle. Jesus tells them that they must eat his flesh in order to have life in him, but many people end up leaving. In fact, while most of Jesus’s miracles are for people who are believers or who would become believers after the miracle, this miracle actually ends up with fewer followers of Jesus.
Third, this is the miracle of abundance. First, we should note what a spectacular miracle this is. There are some similarities like it in the Old Testament. The clearest connection is manna in the wilderness. While the people of Israel were wandering, God caused bread to rain from heaven every morning except the Sabbath morning. It fed the people of Israel for forty years as they wandered—it was miraculous food.
Second, the widow of Zarephath gives the prophet Elijah the last food in her house, and God rewards her by refreshing her jar of flour and jug of oil during the whole famine.
What Jesus is doing is connecting his work to the work of God in the OT. He’s the one who cares for his people as they follow him—even into a deserted place. When they are out of food, he does not make them go to the villages to buy food for themselves, but he has mercy on him, as Elijah did. We shouldn’t miss that little word: He had mercy from the gut. You could say that he hungered for them to be filled.
Jesus wants to fill the people in two ways: with his teaching and with food. The version of this story from Mark says this: “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things” (6:34). There is a connection between spiritual feeding and physical feeding.
There is an old adage “you are what you eat.” If you think about your body in materialistic terms, this is certainly true. You eat proteins or carbs, and your body uses them to function. If you have any deficiencies, sometime doctors will tell you to eat more or less of particular foods.
This phrase is also true spiritually. What are you feeding your soul with? God desires you to feed on his Word—read and meditate on the Bible. It’s good to have a plan to read portions of the Bible and remember them throughout the day.
We take in so much information by other means. Think about other things that you take in though.
Every time you watch TV, are you taking information into yourself?
Every time you scroll social media, are you feeding your soul?
Every time you talk with other people, are you being fed?
Yes, to all those questions.
Some of that food is neutral—it’s why we talk about the weather when we don’t know what to say. Some of the food is poison. Our media especially love feeding us stories that corrupt our minds or make us afraid or twist the truth. Here’s a simple question that will make all of us feel guilty: do you spend more time in front of a screen or in front of the Bible? I’m guilty as well in this.
You are what you eat. We must all eat temporary things that enter our ears or mouths, are consumed, and pass through our system. What if we eat eternal food though, food that enters us and does not just leave but stays with us day after day—even into eternity? I do wonder what it would do for a whole group of people to be committed to reading the Bible fervently and meditating on it and talking with one another about it. How would that change us?
We as Lutherans also have the wonderful knowledge of the reality of the Lord’s Supper. We do get a bite of eternity—our Lord’s body and blood. We eat with our mouth the bread and wine, and in, with, and under that bread and wine is God Himself. How might this eating change our perspective on life?
I said last week that those who are spiritually-minded are also those who are of earthly good. We do see some encouragement for Christian living in this passage too. Jesus has compassion on the crowds. This compassion leads him to teach and to provide.
We ought to have compassion as well on those who need to hear the truth of God’s Word, starting with our children and branching out to friends and family. We ought to have compassion on those in need of our earthly help too.
Jesus did not leave the people only with his Word, but he filled all of their needs—God has placed many in our paths who need our good works. Jesus gave the bread and fish to his disciples to distribute, and he does the same for us, giving us much for us to distribute as we are able.
Compassion is like throwing a rock into a pond. You have large ripples where the rock first hit, but then they get diffused as they spread out. God calls us first to have compassion on those around us, but then those ripples diffuse as we move outward. Help those closest to you first—your family and the poor that you will always have around you. Then support causes in your community and state. Sometimes national causes are worthwhile.
Finally comes international causes if God has given you the means to help the poor overseas. We get an example of this in Acts and Romans as Gentile Christians in Greece sent money to those in Jerusalem who were undergoing a famine. But those are distant ripples. Good may come of it, but do not withhold your hand from those closest to you in favor of those who are an ocean away. If you are able to do both, then praise be to God for that. Nonetheless, God will provide for them and you in his own way and out of his mercy. Trust that God will care for them as he cares for you.
After all, God has compassion on us. He wants to see you with full hearts and full bellies. He teaches you. He gives you daily bread. For all that, we thank him. As we eat both eternal and temporal food, we recognize that he gives both to sustain us. We are what we eat. God’s providence is bountiful for all His creation. He sends rain upon the good and evil alike, but may we who know him recognize his gives as flowing from his steadfast mercy.
Now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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