Overwhelm

Propers: The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 18), A.D. 2020 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Sometimes it feels like we’ve got nothing left—like we’re hanging on by our fingernails. Sometimes it feels as though the world were on fire, and we’re all just supposed to go about our business in the midst of an inferno.

I mean, the constant litany of bad news is hard to bear, week after week, month after month. What’s open, what isn’t? Why isn’t anyone wearing a mask? How long until we see some of these vaccines we keep hearing about? Our government is divided, our people are polarized, our economy’s tanked, and many of us are worried about school and jobs and housing payments. And while most of the world is opening back up, we’re getting ready for Round Two.

What is a soul to do in the face of such challenges, such change?

In our Gospel reading this morning, there isn’t enough to go around. Christ finds Himself surrounded by a vast multitude of desperate people, a flock of shepherdless sheep. They have come on foot from all the nearby towns, out into the desert, into the wastes, seeking guidance and healing and hope—seeking the Messiah. And Christ has compassion on them. He heals them, teaches them.

Never mind that He had come all the way out into the desert in order to be alone. Never mind that He was in fact mourning the death of His cousin and His friend. You see, just before this point in the narrative, Jesus had learned of the murder of John the Baptist, Forerunner to the Christ. Now, if you know anything about John, you know that it was his job to lead the way, to make straight the paths of the Lord.

Whatever Jesus did, John did first. He too had a miraculous conception announced by an angel—the same angel, in fact. He too preached in the desert, baptized in the Jordan, and gathered a cadre of disciples, many of whom became Christ’s own. John’s birth and life foreshadowed Jesus’ own. And so too does his death. When Jesus hears of John’s execution, He knows that His end too must soon be at hand.

And the manner of his death is, quite frankly, grotesque—the inspiration for generations of artists hereafter. John is arrested for chastising Herod, chastising a rich and powerful man, for his blatant adultery. He is then executed as entertainment for a dinner party, with his severed head literally served up on a platter in the midst of a state-funded banquet. It would be hard to top such a fiendish spectacle—save of course for crucifixion.

In response to this casual destruction of human life in the palaces of the wealthy, Jesus retreats to the desert, to the wastelands. He wants to be alone, to grieve, and to prepare, for what He now knows must come next. And it is into this context that the people come, unbidden and uninvited. They come simply by word of mouth, by rumor, and they come in droves. 5000 men, we are told, plus attendant women and children.

Nor are these the wealthy, mind you. The great division between haves and have-nots in the ancient world was security of food. In times of famine, war, or plague, the poor went hungry—even the skilled laborers, the comfortably well off. The rich did not. They always had plenty to eat. They always had excess. Common people ate what they had, not what they wanted. To be filled, to eat until you are satiated, was a rarity, a special occasion, reserved for weddings or festivals.

Now Jesus has a quandary. 5000 men, maybe 10- to 12,000 people all told. In the desert, late in the day, with nothing to eat. “They have to go home,” the disciples implore. “They must return to their villages to buy something to eat.” But Jesus tells them—jokingly, one might think—you give them something to eat. You, disciples. You Twelve. “We?” they reply. “We have but five loaves and two dried fish between us. It’s barely enough for a dozen, let alone for thousands.”

Yet Jesus takes what they bring—five loaves, two fish—blesses it, breaks it, distributes it, and the disciples pass it all out to the crowds. And somehow, miraculously, everyone has enough. More than enough, in fact: everyone has their fill. And the leftovers gathered together fill twelve bushel baskets full!

What to make of this? Well, much ink has been spilled, and much hot air spake, regarding all the numerical symbolism and biblical allusions here present. The five loaves recall mana in the wilderness, or Elisha multiplying bread, or of course the Eucharist yet to be established. Some say the five loaves represent the Five Books of Moses, and the two fish—well, there’s debate on that part. But the Twelve, we’re all pretty sure, are the 12 Apostles, the 12 Tribes of Israel.

Still, the number that jumps out for me is that 5000 figure, and specifically men. Because 5000 men, give or take, is the size of a Roman Legion, the most dangerous and adaptable fighting force of Jesus’ day. And they were raised, mind you, by private Roman citizens, authorized by the Senate, of course, but paid for out of the coffers of the rich. That’s how you really knew you were the top-tier of Roman society: if you could pay to raise an army.

No, scratch that—if you could pay to feed an army. If you can feed 5000 fighting men, plus support personnel, then you have yourself a Legion.

And so we have here this remarkable episode in which Jesus responds to a lavish, garish feast of death with a spontaneous feast of life: a feast of healing and feeding and superabundant excess. In effect, He raises an army—and then sends them home. Home, to spread the Gospel. Home, to tell of the Kingdom. Home, to glorify God and to proclaim abroad the Word of His utterly absolute liberation.

It reminds me of other stories in which the biggest, scariest things of the ancient world raise up their heads, only to have Jesus dismiss them with but a word, barely an afterthought. The old pagans feared the storm gods as the strongest beings in heaven; Jesus calms the storm with but a gentle rebuke. The Judeans feared demoniacs out in the tombs, but Jesus banishes them with but a word, with a strong yet simple command.

Storm gods are scary. Demons are scary. How scary then is the One to whom they pose no threat, to whom they are a joke? Aye, the Legions of Rome are scary, no doubt. But what of a Man who can raise up a Legion, feed them their fill—and dismiss them for home with no loss to Himself? Whatever the challenge, whatever the threat, Jesus strides calmly overtop of them, as though walking upon the surface of the waves.

That’s the thing about Jesus. He doesn’t care about power. He doesn’t bother with violence. He has no track with fear or death or threats. They are to Him as children’s playthings, diaphanous as the wind, ephemeral as smoke. He is infinitely beyond any power as we know it—and thus utterly unstoppable, inexorable, all-conquering. If we cannot scare Him, if violence cannot stop Him, if crucifixion cannot keep Him dead—what then have we left with which to fight?

He is beyond our power to resist, beyond our power to deny. And He has come to break our shackles, to rend our tombs, to harrow hell from deep within. And there is nothing we can do to stop Him. Lord knows we’ve tried. The truth is that with all our wickedness and sin, with all the evil in the cosmos, we could barely even manage to slow Him down. And thank Christ for that.

Evil seems ascendant, I know. Chaos, injustice, tyranny, poverty, pandemic. It all seems too much, too overwhelming. But to Christ it is nothing. Just a blip on the screen. A temporary bump upon the highway of the Lord, to be tread firmly flat beneath the sandals of His feet. All that afflicts us, all that torments us, He will dismiss with but a wave of His hand. And at the last, at the Resurrection and the remaking of this world, all of this vast wrong He will impossibly make right.

Whatever little you have, little patience, little money, little resources or reserves—take heart. Entrust it to Jesus. Place all things within His piercéd hands. For no matter what occurs, what hardships may come, what mourning in the desert we may encounter on our way, Jesus will return to us a superabundance of life in such excess that we will have no choice but to share it with all who are in need.

Sin and death and hell are dead. We know it, even if they themselves have not quite realized this as yet.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit.