A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, July 19, 2009
Proper 11 - Isaiah 57: 14b – 21; Psalm 22: 22 – 30; Ephesians 2: 11 – 22; Mark 6: 30 – 44
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
If you’re anything like me, it’s probably been quite awhile since some serious thought has been given to the meaning of this line, from the Lord’s Prayer.
Why did Jesus include this petition in the model prayer He gave us to pray?
Ever wonder about that?
Let’s spend some time thinking about bread, and about the ways in which God feeds us, in our sermon time together today.
We begin, as we often do, with the gospel text for today, from Mark’s gospel account, chapter six, as we consider the setting for the event before us today.
Setting the stage for the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, we need to recall last Sunday’s reading, in which Jesus had sent out His twelve disciples on their first mission trip. Now, in today’s passage, we see that many who had been reached by these twelve men have followed them back to the Sea of Galilee region, where they congregate.
The pace is picking up in Mark’s gospel account…notice in today’s reading the mention that “many were coming and going, and they had no leisure, even to eat.” Word is getting out about Jesus’ teaching, and about His miraculous healings. More and more people are hearing about these wonderful demonstrations of God’s power, and they are responding to Jesus’ ability to heal their physical infirmities, and to Jesus’ teaching, which fills the vacuum of leadership that was prevalent among the Jews of Jesus’ day. Recall that Mark tells us that Jesus had compassion on the crowds, because they were like “sheep without a shepherd”.
And so, today, we find that Jesus and the twelve have what seems to be a minor crisis on their hands: how are they to feed so many people in this “lonely place”?
What ensues is the multiplication of five loaves, and the two fish. For the crowd sitting on the grass that day in that lonely place, it was their “daily bread”.
Now this miracle is recorded in all four gospel accounts. In fact, though Luke and John record only one such feeding, both Matthew and Mark record two such events, this one in which 5,000 were fed, and another feeding of a crowd of 4,000. Obviously, the early church took this miracle to heart, and the echoes of the meaning of this miracle continued to resound in the hearts of those early believers, and in the church’s collective consciousness.
Today’s miracle has connections to other times in which God provided His people with bread. It also has connections which stretch into the future, into our lives today.
Let’s back up then, and take a look back at another miraculous feeding, the provision of manna in the wilderness, as we find it recorded in Exodus 16.
Today’s event and the provision of manna are connected by the following themes:
- Wilderness setting: The Greek word which is used to describe the setting (wilderness) is eremos, usually translated as “desert” or “wilderness”. Today’s text uses this word, translated as “lonely” to describe the setting for the feeding of the 5,000, while the Greek version of the Old Testament uses the same word to describe the Desert of Sin.
- Bread is provided miraculously: In the Exodus account, manna falls from heaven. Here, in Mark, Jesus multiplies the loaves and feeds a large crowd. In each case, the bread is provided to people who did not labor for it.
- Leftovers: In both accounts, there is an amount left over….In the wilderness, God’s people were able to collect enough of a surplus to last them through the Sabbath day, but no more (it was truly their “daily bread”). Here, we see that twelve baskets of food were left over.
But today’s event is also connected to future events. Here, we think of the Last Supper, and then, of the Holy Communion. These events are connected by the following structure of four verbs/four actions which describe the actions of Jesus in today’s miracle and in the Last Supper (and the celebrant during Holy Communion):
- Take: Jesus takes the five loaves. At the Last Supper (see Mark 14: 22 – 25), Jesus took the bread and the cup. We do the same thing during Holy Communion.
- Blessing: Jesus blessed the bread, giving thanks, we are told. In the same way, He will give thanks for the bread and the cup at the Last Supper, which we do as well every time we celebrate the Eucharist.
- Breaking of the bread: Jesus breaks the bread in today’s action, as He will do at the Last Supper, and which we will do this morning together, as well.
- Giving of the bread: Jesus gives the bread to the crowd, as He will also give the bread and the cup to the twelve at the Last Supper, and as is given this morning in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
All of these events are tied together. The setting of the provision of the manna and the feeding of the 5,000 tie both events together in the theological and spiritual meaning of the two feedings. Similarly, the feeding of the 5,000, the Last Supper, and the Eucharist are all tied together by the actions of taking, blessing, breaking and giving, which continue the Lord’s feeding of His people until the end of time.
And, so, in today’s Gospel we encounter the God who feeds His people, even as God fed His people in the wilderness during the days of Moses, and as God will continue to do until the end of time in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
Thanks be to God!
AMEN.
