Don't Send Them Away

Matthew 14:12-21

August 3, 2014

Walter Bruggemann, the really great

Hebrew Scripture scholar

has an interesting take on the framework of the

stories of the Hebrew scriptures

which I’ve read a couple of articles and heard at a conference.

I’ll summarize it for you in my own words.

He says that we start out in Genesis 1

in the beginning, it is a story of God’s generosity

Genesis is a hymn of praise to God’s abundance.

It keeps saying, “It is good, it is good, it is very good.”

Bruggemann calls it an orgy of fruitfulness, everything multiplying,

overflowing goodness that flows from God’s creative spirit.

Abundance is all around.

And Even after Adam and Eve eat from the forbidden tree,

God still goes on with abundance

and God blesses Sarah and Abraham

and tells them to be a blessing to others and to bless the people of

Feeding of the Five Thousand
John Reilly

all nations, God makes the 

gift that keeps on giving.

All is abundant, some small family scuffles,

but nothing too serious.

But then in the 47^th chapter of Genesis Pharaoh,

the leader of Egypt, has a dream.

Pharaoh dreams that there will be a famine.

So, with the help of financial wizard, Joseph, Pharaoh

organizes to administer, control, and monopolize the food supply.

Pharaoh introduces the principle of scarcity into the world economy.

 

For the first time in the Bible, someone says,

"There might not be enough. Let's get everything."

This principle is born out with fear.

The fear of want from a man who has plenty.

Eventually,the Israelites are selling themselves selves

into slavery just to survival.

They become slaves in Egypt.

That is where God and Moses find them at the beginning of Exodus

groaning under the weight.

They are slaves of production, making bricks.

When they complain, they’re told to make more bricks.

They live for many years under the illusion

that they are what they produce.

And although with the leadership of Moses,

they get out of bondage in Egypt,

The people of God never quite grow out of

this illusion of scarcity while they’re in the desert,

they want to go back to Egypt

they never reall trust the food and water that God gives,

Eventually, they end up selling themselves out

over and over again.

Finding themselves in bondage to their fear

forgetting about God’s abundance

believing in the principle of scarcity.

This is certainly the principle that

we are still living in now.

The story that we are operating under.

The fear that there will not be enough.

For most of us, there’s not even any

evidence that there is not enough now,

but we worry there may not be enough later,

so let’s get and keep everything we can.

In the US, we are maybe the wealthiest,

most comfortable society

in all of history, yet we still need more.

More, and when the sheer glut of it doesn’t work for us,

then we need it to be fancier, more artisianal, beautiful,

organic, simple, we need craftsmen to spend hours on it.

And yet, there is not enough to give people health care,

there is not enough to give people food stamps,

there’s not enough to give people in Detroit running water.

We have to cut all that and yet we have to keep giving

big corporations more and more.

We see the principle at play in our countrie’s reaction to

children and families coming to the US,

fleeing for their very lives from gang violence and poverty.

People in our country are yelling at them

when they are taken places on buses,

We’re not yelling “Give us your tired, poor and

huddled masses yearning to breathe free”

Or, “We were once immigrants too””

but angry screams demanding that they be sent back,

many to certain death.

We see this principle in countries at war,

Israel, Palestine, Iraq, The Ukraine, Countries in Africa,

There is not enough for the both of us to exist peacefully,

so the solution is to blow the whole place up.

If I can’t have it all, no one is going to have.

Always in the name of peace.

I see it in myself. I sometimes look and see,

how much meat is in my freezer?

How many cans of corn and tomatoes?

Why exactly. I go food shopping almost every week.

Just in case. Just in case what?

The principle of scarcity,

the one which runs our government,

politics, advertising, buying, selling, our very lives

is at its root a lack of faith.

The principle of scarcity –

or as Bruggermann calls it, “the story of Nike”

says there are no gifts to be given

because there's no giver.

We end up only with whatever

we manage to get for ourselves.

And this story ends in despair

But the feeding of the crowds that we read today,

is an example of the giver breaking into our world of scarcity.

When they are told by Jesus

to feed the crowd of 5,000 people,

plus of course, the women and children -

The disciples react the same way that all of us would.

“Really, you have to be kidding.

There will not be enough for them.

We’ve only got five loaves and two fish.

And certainly not enough for us and we’re getting hungry.”

 

But Jesus didn’t want to send them away.

And so Jesus took, blessed, broke, and give the bread.

The four verbs of our sacrament -

And he made a Eucharist,

in other words a thanksgiving, a gratitude.

With that, Jesus showed that the world is filled with God’s blessing.

When bread is broken and shared, there is enough for all.

And in this, Jesus didn’t just do some parlor trick

any magician could do something like that.

With this, Jesus is subversively, reordering the world’s reality.

It’s safe to just think that Jesus is talking about church things,

just talking about bread and wine and the sacrament

and stuff that stays safely in our buildings.

It’s safe to think that Jesus just did a miracle

and because of that we should worship him. The end.

But Jesus is talking about the economy,

the government, public welfare, foreign policy,

Jesus is talking about you and me and our habits.

Jesus is talking about our wallets

Jesus is talking about our lives.

And what Jesus is saying is

“Don’t send them away,

you go and feed them.”

There is enough.

God will give us enough.