Proper 13A
Jesus the host.
Matthew 14.13-21
Courting first introduced me to the quarter bread bun sandwich—the shape of the half a slice of cucumber on top of the salmon matching exactly the shape of the quarter of a bread roll on which it sat. I'd never seen anything like it before - it went with the wafer thin current bread (twenty slices where I only made six!), and the careful measurement of at least one of everything on the table for each person present. There were lots of rules that were strange also - no pop until all the food was eaten, no second helpings until everyone had had their firsts of each thing, no moving on until every plate was absolutely clear, if there was competition over one portion left it had to be divided and the ones who didn't do the diving had the first choice of the segmented portions!
We are talking catering here - that's why it came as a shock to me - I was an only child in a household where guests at meals only appeared at Christmas - I had what I like when I liked, and my mum encouraged me in huge meals and loads of helpings - the house I went to had four children in it, and every meal had guests as well, or so it seemed to me - a never ending stream of people to be fed.
We are talking catering - and in catering, so they tell me, portion control is all! Certainly vast fortunes are being made through just such control. Mass catering is really big business - do you know how the company that used to provide sandwiches on BR trains decided what to put in them - one of their managers went down to the local Marks and Spencers to see what was left, and they didn’t make that! I don't know whether it's true or not, but I do know that's it's true there juggernaughts speeding along our motorways simply full of sandwiches - the simplest of ready meals - and no one thinks it at all strange anymore.
Mass catering is big business - but even McDonalds would blanch at the sight of 5,000 hungry people advancing on them at short notice for a meal in the middle of nowhere!
"They need not go away; you give them something to eat," said Jesus. We are talking catering here - a catering problem. How could they be fed? Some think that the theme of this story is how Jesus created food from nothing, like a conjuror, but I think there are more important things going. Let's work on just one of the many rich seams in this story.
Did you notice that Jesus ordered the crowds to sit down? I went on a time management course once, and one of the things we were encouraged to do was to let a person know non-verbally when you haven't got time to deal with them - we were told to stand up, and that would sent most people on their way! It wasn't a course designed for clergy, and I'm troubled by the pastoral sensitivity of it, but nonetheless it's an interesting point. Standing up moves people on, and sitting doesn't. One large company has recently removed all the chairs from its executive conference rooms. All meetings are held standing up—a lot less waffle, better planning, and faster execution.
Well, that's not what Christ is about here - it's not a business meeting, there is no agenda, no worry about efficiency, no hurry, no competition. Sit down and be with the Lord. Stop the rushing around—be!
Be with him. Most of the time Jesus was somebody's guest. He had no home of his own. But here he is host to others, and he will be again at the last supper. His compassion for the crowd goes beyond teaching, beyond healing, he wants to show how much he loves them. Table fellowship is a good way to get to know people better.
There comes a stage in a relationship when you say, "Let's eat together, come round for a meal." That's how we indicate that we want a relationship to develop; to get closer. It's all very well chatting to people, at work or socially, but if you really want to get to know them, you share a meal - that's why the family meal is the focal point of Christmas - all those office and club and organisation meals - they are about renewing and deepening the way we know each other. The TV meal hunched on our knees, or the lone burger on a plastic stool leaning on a bench in a brightly lit room where even the decor shouts eat quickly, those meals say something quite different.
The questions this story provokes in me are important because they are similar to those that are often asked about the worship of the church: Why come to church? What happens in the Eucharist that makes any difference to us today?
The first thing we must realise when we come to the Eucharist is that it can have no relevance if we are not 'hungry'. If we truly feel satisfied (that is, self-satisfied) and content with life then the Eucharist can make no difference to us. For when Christ told us that he had not come to call the virtuous but sinners, he was recognising that to those who were self-sufficient he had nothing to say or give. The hunger of the crowd was the starting point for Jesus to begin his work.
The second thing to realise when we come to church is that it has nothing to do with making demands. Our own appearance at the Eucharist must mean that we are hungry; in crude terms we want more bread, more love, more happiness. But telling God that we will turn our backs on him unless our needs are supplied will get us nowhere. We do not come here to do business, but to enjoy a relationship with Jesus.
We meet together in this Eucharist to sit down with the Lord. We sit down with someone to discover more about them: to be with them. And, as we learn more about Jesus, we begin to discover, too, more about ourselves. We begin to discover, for example, that happiness is not to be found in always receiving more from other people; it is to be found, rather, in self-giving. When we concentrate on giving rather than demanding, we discover, as St Paul writes, that God will fulfil all our needs in Christ, as lavishly as only God can.
We come to the Eucharist to give and to share. We unite ourselves with Christ's self-sacrifice by bringing our sufferings and concerns to church and placing them, as the disciples placed the five loaves and two fish, into the hands of Jesus. And he transforms them into an offering which is satisfying for everyone who takes part.
Christ's invitation is to "sit down." The original invitation was to be seated on the grass by the Sea of Galilee; today it is to gather at his table—the Lord's Supper. He is the host, if we are alive to what is happening: we are filled with what alone can satisfy our deepest longings—the love of God.
Let us sit down with Jesus, our host, our Lord. He caters for us.
We are talking catering here - that's why it came as a shock to me - I was an only child in a household where guests at meals only appeared at Christmas - I had what I like when I liked, and my mum encouraged me in huge meals and loads of helpings - the house I went to had four children in it, and every meal had guests as well, or so it seemed to me - a never ending stream of people to be fed.
We are talking catering - and in catering, so they tell me, portion control is all! Certainly vast fortunes are being made through just such control. Mass catering is really big business - do you know how the company that used to provide sandwiches on BR trains decided what to put in them - one of their managers went down to the local Marks and Spencers to see what was left, and they didn’t make that! I don't know whether it's true or not, but I do know that's it's true there juggernaughts speeding along our motorways simply full of sandwiches - the simplest of ready meals - and no one thinks it at all strange anymore.
Mass catering is big business - but even McDonalds would blanch at the sight of 5,000 hungry people advancing on them at short notice for a meal in the middle of nowhere!
"They need not go away; you give them something to eat," said Jesus. We are talking catering here - a catering problem. How could they be fed? Some think that the theme of this story is how Jesus created food from nothing, like a conjuror, but I think there are more important things going. Let's work on just one of the many rich seams in this story.
Did you notice that Jesus ordered the crowds to sit down? I went on a time management course once, and one of the things we were encouraged to do was to let a person know non-verbally when you haven't got time to deal with them - we were told to stand up, and that would sent most people on their way! It wasn't a course designed for clergy, and I'm troubled by the pastoral sensitivity of it, but nonetheless it's an interesting point. Standing up moves people on, and sitting doesn't. One large company has recently removed all the chairs from its executive conference rooms. All meetings are held standing up—a lot less waffle, better planning, and faster execution.
Well, that's not what Christ is about here - it's not a business meeting, there is no agenda, no worry about efficiency, no hurry, no competition. Sit down and be with the Lord. Stop the rushing around—be!
Be with him. Most of the time Jesus was somebody's guest. He had no home of his own. But here he is host to others, and he will be again at the last supper. His compassion for the crowd goes beyond teaching, beyond healing, he wants to show how much he loves them. Table fellowship is a good way to get to know people better.
There comes a stage in a relationship when you say, "Let's eat together, come round for a meal." That's how we indicate that we want a relationship to develop; to get closer. It's all very well chatting to people, at work or socially, but if you really want to get to know them, you share a meal - that's why the family meal is the focal point of Christmas - all those office and club and organisation meals - they are about renewing and deepening the way we know each other. The TV meal hunched on our knees, or the lone burger on a plastic stool leaning on a bench in a brightly lit room where even the decor shouts eat quickly, those meals say something quite different.
The questions this story provokes in me are important because they are similar to those that are often asked about the worship of the church: Why come to church? What happens in the Eucharist that makes any difference to us today?
The first thing we must realise when we come to the Eucharist is that it can have no relevance if we are not 'hungry'. If we truly feel satisfied (that is, self-satisfied) and content with life then the Eucharist can make no difference to us. For when Christ told us that he had not come to call the virtuous but sinners, he was recognising that to those who were self-sufficient he had nothing to say or give. The hunger of the crowd was the starting point for Jesus to begin his work.
The second thing to realise when we come to church is that it has nothing to do with making demands. Our own appearance at the Eucharist must mean that we are hungry; in crude terms we want more bread, more love, more happiness. But telling God that we will turn our backs on him unless our needs are supplied will get us nowhere. We do not come here to do business, but to enjoy a relationship with Jesus.
We meet together in this Eucharist to sit down with the Lord. We sit down with someone to discover more about them: to be with them. And, as we learn more about Jesus, we begin to discover, too, more about ourselves. We begin to discover, for example, that happiness is not to be found in always receiving more from other people; it is to be found, rather, in self-giving. When we concentrate on giving rather than demanding, we discover, as St Paul writes, that God will fulfil all our needs in Christ, as lavishly as only God can.
We come to the Eucharist to give and to share. We unite ourselves with Christ's self-sacrifice by bringing our sufferings and concerns to church and placing them, as the disciples placed the five loaves and two fish, into the hands of Jesus. And he transforms them into an offering which is satisfying for everyone who takes part.
Christ's invitation is to "sit down." The original invitation was to be seated on the grass by the Sea of Galilee; today it is to gather at his table—the Lord's Supper. He is the host, if we are alive to what is happening: we are filled with what alone can satisfy our deepest longings—the love of God.
Let us sit down with Jesus, our host, our Lord. He caters for us.
