Feasting on the Gospels--Matthew, Volume 2: A Feasting on the Word Commentary

By Cynthia A. Jarvis and E. Elizabeth Johnson

Feasting on the Gospels is a new seven-volume series that follows up on the success of the Feasting on the Word series to provide another unique preaching resource, this time on the most prominent and preached upon New Testament books, the four Gospels. With contributions from a diverse and respected group of scholars and pastors, Feasting on the Gospels will include completely new material that covers every single passage in the New Testament Gospels, making it suitable for both lectionary and non-lectionary use. Moreover, these volumes will incorporate the unique format of Feasting on the Word, with four perspectives for preachers to choose from for each Gospel passage: theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical. Feasting on the Gospels will provide a special resource for all who preach, either continuously or occasionally, on the Gospels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Dec 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781611643589

Book preview

Matthew 14:1–12

¹At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; ²and he said to his servants, This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him. ³For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, ⁴because John had been telling him, It is not lawful for you to have her. ⁵Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. ⁶But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod ⁷so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. ⁸Prompted by her mother, she said, Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter. ⁹The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; ¹⁰he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. ¹¹The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. ¹²His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus.

Theological Perspective

Biblical scholar David Garland observes a fascinating parallel in Matthew’s Gospel between Herod and Pilate. Not only is it true that what happens to John the Baptist parallels what happens to Jesus, but it is also true that Herod’s reluctance to execute John (14:9) will be paralleled by Pilate’s reluctance to execute Jesus.¹ So one story foreshadows the other not only in the treatment of prophets but also in the deflection of blame: someone else made me do it. The deflection of blame and its counterpart, the inability to see our complicity in sin, is endemic to the human condition. It is as old as the story of Adam and Eve. When God confronts Adam about his disobedience, Adam deflects the blame to Eve, and Eve, in turn, blames the serpent. So this story of the beheading of John reflects an archetypal pattern that goes to the very heart of sin and our inability to acknowledge our complicity in it.

There is a most curious phrase in the Apostles’ Creed: suffered under Pontius Pilate. Why this mention of the governor of the region where Jesus was crucified? Some claim that it dates the history of the crucifixion, but surely there is more to the mention of Pontius Pilate in the creed that demands our attention, for this phrase is shorthand for the biblical story of Pilate who washed his hands of any complicity with the crucifixion of Jesus. The creed seems to acknowledge implicitly that blindness to sin is a disease of the human condition.

Just to offer one prominent example, how is it that when we come to the subject of America’s primal sin of racism, there is an almost universal tendency among most white people to distance themselves, itemizing, for example, antiracist accomplishments or racially other friendships, but rarely does one hear a confession of how they have been marked and scarred by the sin and how they might be complicit in it.

The biblical story, of course, will not abide any deflection of sin. What is intriguing about the phrase in the Apostles’ Creed is that, in spite of Pilate’s hand-washing, the creed allows the deflection—it acknowledges Pilate’s complicity in the suffering of Jesus and so, by implication, calls us to an accounting for our own complicity in the sufferings of others. One of the tragic ironies of Christian history is that the teaching of contempt for Jews was based on the claim that the Jews were Christ-killers—that they crucified God—when, in fact, the creed implies otherwise: that we all had a hand in the crucifixion of God. Moreover, God suffers again every time we fail to acknowledge our complicity with the sins of the world.

A fierce debate has been underway in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) about whether or not to divest financial holdings in Caterpillar, Inc., the heavy-equipment company with headquarters in Peoria, Illinois. Over the last several years, Caterpillar has become a lightning rod because its bulldozers have been used by Israel to construct illegal Israeli settlements, to demolish the homes of alleged Palestinian terrorists and their families, and to construct a separation barrier between Israel and the occupied lands. Human rights organizations have decried these practices. The official response from Caterpillar is, We can’t control how our products are used. We expect them to be used in environmentally responsible ways that are consistent with human rights, but we have no means for enforcement of these expectations.² In other words, they deny any responsibility for the how their equipment is used.

The story of Israel’s use of Caterpillar equipment is but one example of how easy it is to side with the Palestinians against the Israelis. Before giving into this temptation, it behooves Christians to realize that we are not innocent bystanders in this conflict, nor are we neutral observers of someone else’s dispute. The two-thousand-year history of Christian teaching of contempt for Jews is well documented: the stereotypes, persecutions, pogroms, forced conversions, ghettos, and multiple forms of discrimination. Whether or not Christian teaching of contempt for Judaism led to the Holocaust is a matter of debate; what is without question is that it played an influential role in what became the worst genocide of human history. In light of this, we need to be ever vigilant against anti-Semitic sentiments worldwide and the ever-growing hatred of Israel in the Middle East. This does not mean that we should turn a blind eye toward Israel, nor toward the Palestinian people. We should be both pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, but not naively so. The pro-Israeli/pro-Palestinian posture I recommend is grounded in a thoroughgoing acknowledgment of our complicity with the sins of the world.

There is a reason that Christian experience always begins with penance: there is something of Herod and Pilate in all of us. So any serious prophetic impulse arises from a penitential foundation, a base that draws our attention to all the crosses that litter the landscape of our lives, and then draws our vision toward the horizon and the arc of God bringing resurrection and life out of the crucifying patterns of our world. The prophetic impulse does not stem from liberal do-good-ism, because the fact of the matter is that we are not all that good! The prophetic impulse stems from a penitential theology grounded in the sure reality of a merciful God in whom alone is our help, a God who forgives, restores, heals, and empowers us for the prophetic task of healing the world.

It is from this penitent and prophetic standpoint that we can be pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian, pro-Caterpillar and pro-Peoria, pro-black, pro-white, pro-brown, pro-yellow, pro–Occupy Wall Street and pro–Wall Street, pro-Democrat and pro-Republican, pro-conservative and pro-liberal, pro-gay and pro-straight, pro-human, and always, always procreation. We can be pro-reality because the God who made heaven and earth and is revealed in Christ crucified and risen, now rules the world with forgiveness and love.

ROGER J. GENCH

Footnotes

1. David Garland, Reading Matthew (New York: Crossroads, 1993), 154–55.

2. Mission Responsibility through Investment of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), General Assembly Mission Council document, August 2011.

Pastoral Perspective

There are some arrangements to which the reign of God is not open. Helping Christians see this is a challenge at a time when the value of openness is at an all-time high. A television advertising campaign of the United Methodist Church proclaims churches of open hearts, open minds. The United Church of Christ proudly announces that God is still speaking. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) speaks of a new openness in its Book of Order. The congregation I serve takes pride in being a church that is nonjudgmental. Certainly these statements offer important correctives as people in the pews examine the checkered history of the church’s treatment of anyone labeled different. Many contemporary Christians believe that today’s church must demonstrate that the news it proclaims is indeed good, not hateful or harmful to others.

However, no amount of marketing can rescue the church from the gospel’s willingness to say no to established power. That willingness means the church must always live ready to pay a price for its faithfulness. The fate of John the Baptist spells this out in graphic terms. Apparently John the Baptist had told Herod flatly, It is not lawful for you to have [your brother Philip’s wife] (v. 4). Herod was expecting the opposite answer. He was expecting the prophet to bless his choice, perhaps to make it fit into the faith he professed. History is replete with examples of secular power seeking religious sanction or resisting religious censure. The Church of England was born partly because King Henry VIII received a similar no when he sought permission from the pope to annul his marriage to his wife. In more recent years, President George W. Bush all but declared war on Iraq from the very pulpit of the National Cathedral, to the quiet discomfort of many religious leaders who had gathered to stand against using violence as a weapon.

One challenge for today’s pastoral leaders is that it is not always clear how to translate what is not lawful into contemporary ethical questions. The church’s report card is mixed in this area. Hindsight makes it clear, for example, that acknowledging that our planet rotates around the sun is lawful in the reign of God, while slavery is not. The church, or large portions of it, erred on both counts. Still, most church leaders are familiar with the stress created when gospel claims clearly conflict with individual or corporate choices. Pastoral leaders, so often gifted at empathizing with the strain presented by these kinds of choices, must also find ways to make it clear that following Christ comes at a cost.

For most people in the pews, that cost will not compare with John’s martyrdom. It could be something more like missing the promotion, losing the account, upsetting the child who wants to skip worship to go to the birthday party. Given the stress I have observed in myself and others over these kinds of decisions, I can imagine that John might have questioned the rigidity of his own convictions. Is it really necessary to give such a strong no in this particular situation? Matthew’s Gospel says yes.

Herod’s character provides a window into Matthew’s view of the dangers of corruption. In the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, Herod is the ruthless leader who orders children put to death to eliminate any possible opposition (2:16–18). One would hardly consider him a man possessing anything resembling a moral compass. Yet here in the middle of Matthew’s Gospel, Herod is also portrayed as one who reluctantly orders John’s execution because of an oath. An unscrupulous leader would be expected to do whatever serves his best interests, without regard to oaths or other matters of principle. Matthew presents a more complicated individual. This is not an irrational person, but a principled man whose principles have been purposely distorted to malicious ends.

The concern for the church is the possibility that we might slowly but steadily water down the reign of God through small concessions that, on balance, add up to a betrayal of the faith. This is heavy stuff, but it also means that the daily choices that people make matter. The youth who defends the kid who is bullied, the board member who questions big bonuses going to her company’s top management while jobs at the bottom are cut, the parent who raises questions over how the immigrant child is being treated in his child’s class: these are matters of faith that matter a great deal. Often we are tempted to believe otherwise. The costs of saying no to an employer, an administrator, a bully, or anyone else who has the power to inflict pain, seem to outweigh anything that could be gained. Indeed, John’s head on a platter seems to reinforce this point. Yet it is Herod who lives in fear: first fear of the birth of a king, then fear of John the Baptist, then fear of the crowds, then fear of John the Baptist raised from the dead, with even greater powers to wield.

Herod is wrong on this last point, of course. John is dead. However, the one who now proclaims his message will not only emulate John’s costly sacrifice; he will transform it into life that can no longer be silenced by death. This is the good news that a costly faith offers to us: freedom from fearful living. Even with all of his stately power, this is the one thing Herod cannot secure for himself.

During the Arab Spring of 2011, Gene Sharp, whose books on overthrowing dictators have been used by activists around the world, was asked if anything surprised him about the democratic upheavals in the Middle East. Sharp said it was hearing this testimony: We’re not afraid anymore; we’ve lost our fear. Once a regime is no longer able to frighten people, he said, then that regime is in big trouble.¹ The good news for the world is that the regime of death has already been overthrown. We are invited now to live as though we believed this is true.

ANDREW FOSTER CONNORS

Footnotes

1. Gene Sharp, interview with Mark Memmott, Morning Edition, National Public Radio, February 22, 2011.

Exegetical Perspective

The story of the death of John the Baptist is the only episode in the ministry of Jesus in which Jesus does not appear, and the only event in Jesus’ ministry that is reported outside the New Testament (Josephus, Antiquities 18.116–19). In Matthew it illustrates the proverb that prophets are not without honor except in their own country (13:57). It is also a flashback or analepsis, a report of something that has happened earlier in the narrative. Matthew has told the reader that John was arrested (4:12; 11:2) but not that he has been killed. Herod Antipas had scandalously divorced his Nabatean wife and married Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife (14:3), and Josephus reports that Herod arrested and killed John because he was turning public sentiment against Herod.

The story sounds familiar—and not just because we know it from the Gospels. It is yet another story of the tyrant persecuting the righteous: Pharaoh vs. the Israelites (Exod. 1:15–22; 5:1–23); Joash vs. Zechariah (2 Chr. 24:20–22); Nebuchadnezzar vs. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (Dan. 3:12–30); Darius vs. Daniel (Dan. 6:10–28); Antiochus Epiphanes vs. pious Jews (1 Macc. 1:41–50; 2:15–28), Eleazar (2 Macc. 6:18–31), and the seven brothers (2 Macc. 7); and Herod the Great vs. the innocents in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:16–18). Matthew also connects the story with Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel (1 Kgs. 18–22; 2 Kgs. 9; Matt. 17:10–12).

Only Matthew and Mark report Herodias’s role in John’s death (cf. Luke 9:7–9). The primary difference between the two is that Mark says that Herodias had it in for John while Herod sought to protect John from her. Matthew is less clear. Herod arrested John and wanted to kill him (Matt. 14:3, 5), but was grieved when Herodias manipulated him into killing John (14:9). Matthew typically abbreviates Mark where the two have parallel accounts, but in this case the editing is not consistent, with the result that Mark’s plot is both more engaging and more consistent.

Herodias’s daughter, presumably Salome, although she is not named in the Gospels, danced for Herod. Mark is unclear about the daughter’s identity, but Matthew 14:6, perhaps the earliest interpreter of Mark, reads the daughter of Herodias. Josephus says that Salome was the daughter of Hero-dias by Herod Philip (Antiquities 18.136). Salome would probably have been twelve to fourteen. We do not know whether the dance was innocent or erotic (as interpreters have often fantasized). Ambrose, for example, condemns the dance: Is anything so conducive to lust as with unseemly movements to expose in nakedness those parts of the body which either nature has hidden or custom has veiled, to sport with looks, to turn the neck, to loosen the hair? (Concerning Virgins 3.6.27).

The promise to grant whatever she asked recalls King Artaxerxes’ repeated promise to Esther (Esth. 5:3, 6–7; 7:2–3). Herod was trapped by his oath in front of his guests (the powerful men of Galilee, Mark 6:21), to whom he had no doubt also made promises.

Although some interpreters have regarded this story as an insertion that interrupts the flow of the Gospel, five observations clarify its place in the Gospel accounts.

1. John’s death foreshadows Jesus’ death. Jesus too will be killed by a tyrant who fears popular opinion (14:9; 27:24) and is manipulated into a killing he did not seek. While Herod’s wife prompted her daughter to ask for John’s head, Pilate’s wife urged him to have nothing to do with Jesus’ death (27:19). The report that John’s disciples buried his body takes on added significance later, when Jesus’ disciples are not present to give him a proper burial.

2. John’s death foreshadows the persecution that Jesus’ disciples face. Matthew develops the pattern that John preached (3:1–12), John was arrested (4:12), and John was put to death (14:1–12). Jesus preached, Jesus was arrested, and Jesus was put to death. So the disciples too will preach (9:37–10:42 [esp. 10:7]; 24:14), be arrested (10:17–23), and be put to death (24:9).

3. Herod’s banquet serves as the antithesis of Jesus’ meals. The banquets of the rich and the powerful were evidence of their wickedness. Origen reported that he found in no Scripture that a birthday was kept by a righteous man (Origen on Matt. 10:22), and the Venerable Bede commented: We hear at the same time of three evil deeds done: the inauspicious celebration of a birthday, the lewd dancing of a girl, and the rash oath of a king (Homilies on the Gospels 2.23). Jesus’ ministry, in contrast, is distinguished by his eating with outcasts and feeding multitudes. Jesus ate with many tax collectors and sinners (9:10). In contrast to John, Jesus came eating and drinking (11:18–19). He fed five thousand (14:13–21), then four thousand (15:32–29).

4. Serving John’s head on a platter anticipates the Last Supper. At the Last Supper Jesus offers his disciples his body and blood (26:26–29), inviting comparison with Herod’s banquet. Jesus offers himself; John is executed because of a rash promise. The head on a platter is a grotesque caricature of the church’s sacred observance.

5. Herod and his kingdom serve as the antithesis of Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom of God. Herod was a vassal of Rome, and all the kingdoms of this world are under the authority of Satan (4:8–9). Similarly, two meals are juxtaposed in the Gospel—Herod’s feast and Jesus’ feeding of the multitude. The true character of both kingdoms is revealed by these meal scenes. The rulers of the Gentiles are tyrants over them (20:25). Their festivities are excessive and violent. Herod (or Herodias) exploits the young girl, Herodias manipulates Herod, and Herod takes John’s life. Jesus has compassion on the crowd, cures their sick, and then feeds them. One is a kingdom based on privilege and coercive power, the other on compassion and service that ultimately leads to self-sacrifice. The kingdom of God is brought near by the laying down of life: the Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many (20:28). The gospel comes, therefore, with an invitation to a meal.

R. ALAN CULPEPPER

Homiletical Perspective

This is a provocative and energy-charged text. It is filled with guilty consciences, curious alliances, and promises that one wishes had not been made. It also invites reflection about the lengths we might go to in order to retain our security, avoid conflict, and please others. It is rich with the human story and the chaos that ensues when we encounter the Holy.

As the text begins, one can almost imagine Herod pacing the chamber of his palace with dark circles under his eyes from many a sleepless night. He cannot possibly remain seated as one servant after another brings him word of a Galilean teacher who is inspiring the people and drawing energy and attention away from Herod’s own government and authority. It is a nightmare he has already lived once before, and the similarities to that debacle are frightening for him. His guilty conscience might be the cause of his assumption that this new teacher, Jesus, is simply a reincarnation of John the Baptist, whom he had beheaded not long before.

The text then recounts for us the awful mess that created this paranoid and fretful reality in which Herod now finds himself. We learn that John the Baptist has spoken out publicly against Herod’s marriage to Herodias. She had previously been married to Herod’s half brother, and Herod himself had been previously married and chose to be divorced in order to marry her. John spoke against both actions as a transgression of Jewish law. Furious at having his authority challenged, Herod has wanted to put John to death, but he also has had to contend with the public’s high regard for John as a prophet. Herod resolved to put John in prison and bide his time while he pondered his options.

It seems easy perhaps to point an accusing and judgmental finger at Herod. It would be easy to view him as a self-serving monarch, but a pause for reflection and humility might actually land many of us in a place where we resonate with Herod’s choice to silence the voice of God’s conscience. How often have we encountered God’s claim on our lives, or particularly convicting texts such as Go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor (19:21) or Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth (6:19), and because the claim and the call of those passages make us deeply uncomfortable, we ignore them or imagine they do not apply to us? Living as God’s people regularly challenges us to relinquish our desires in favor of following the Holy One, but we are loath to change our path when it costs us something we enjoy.

If we are honest, we can also resonate with Herod’s fear of losing power and control as Jesus ascends in popularity. The transformation we make as followers of God is nothing short of dying to self and surrendering to God. Our inner selves fight hard against such changes because we so desperately fear losing control and power, just as Herod fears the ascension of Jesus and John the Baptist before him.

Another character in this drama is Herod’s wife. She is not at all pleased with John’s disparaging remarks about her choice of husband, either. John is the mirror that shows how she truly appears to the world: as a self-promoting opportunist. She cannot bear that truth and plots with her daughter to silence the man who is calling her to remember God’s call to faithfulness. Where Herod seems to want John off the street and away from an admiring audience, Herodias wants him dead.

So Herod’s birthday celebration comes with great fanfare and feasting. There are jesters and musicians, and his own stepdaughter wants to honor him and the whole company by performing a dance. It must have been quite a dance, because Herod proceeds to promise her anything she desires in gratitude for her gift. Can you imagine the silence that falls over the room when she tells her stepfather that what she wants is the head of John the Baptist? I am sure Herod thinks she will ask for treasure, perfume, or gowns, but to ask for another to be put to death is a dark and bitter request.

Once again poor Herod finds himself torn between his own thoughts and desires and the court of public opinion. He has given his word that she can have anything. He just does not imagine she will ask for this. Matthew tells us he is grieved, but that since so many guests have heard his promise he cannot fail to comply. There is a piercing commentary on oaths and peer pressure here. While Herod is threatened by John’s prophetic call against whom he has married, he has not yet acted with finality and violence; but this oath to his stepdaughter places him in an untenable situation. Either he kills John the Baptist, or he is false to his word. Does he value public opinion so much that he is willing to end the life of another? The story tells us he does.

There is a staggering foreshadowing here of Jesus’ trial before Pilate. Matthew 27:17–27 tells us that Pilate was hoping to please the crowd as he handed Jesus over to be crucified. This tension between the desire of the crowd and the ones who stand for God is found throughout Scripture. From the early prophets to John and Jesus, the message of salvation and the call to holiness are not often well received. Perhaps it is the knowledge that in following God we will need to leave our places and habits of security in order to enter fully into life with the Divine that keeps us from leaping at God’s call when we hear it. So also Pilate’s wife is a foil to Herodias; rather than engineering Jesus’ death, she speaks up for his innocence (27:19).

At the conclusion of the passage we are left with a gruesome image of John’s head on a platter presented by the daughter to her mother. We see in stark relief that pleasing others is costly, and that speaking truth to power may at times have dire consequences.

LIZ BARRINGTON FORNEY

Matthew 14:13–21

¹³Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. ¹⁵When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves. ¹⁶Jesus said to them, They need not go away; you give them something to eat. ¹⁷They replied, We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish. ¹⁸And he said, Bring them here to me. ¹⁹Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. ²⁰And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. ²¹And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Theological Perspective

The Christian life has been described as a movement from the shallow end of the pool to the deep end. Theologian Sarah Coakley suggests three different levels of spiritual practice that enable this movement. The three levels are classic to spiritual theology: the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. The purgative is about ethics or establishing the boundaries of the Christian life. The illuminative involves identification with the manner, pattern, or way of Christ. The unitive is transformation by the long, arduous practice of reunion with God and others. All three describe what Protestants have called sanctification, or growth in the Christian life and practice.¹ All three levels can be employed in reading this story of the feeding of the five thousand from Matthew’s Gospel.

The purgative dimension of this story is the first thing that one confronts. The word purgative may sound off-putting, but, in fact, it is a very accurate description of the primal stage of Christian living; it is about differentiating oneself from the brokenness of the world, not for the purpose of isolation, but for ethics or moral reformation. So among the first things we teach children are do not steal, do not cheat, and do not bop your brother or sister on the head. The reason we teach these things is that the children are going to see plenty of examples of the opposite kind of activity.

This story from Matthew is a textbook case of differentiation or purgation. It begins, Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there (v. 13). Heard what? Well, Herod had just thrown a big banquet on the occasion of his birthday, and the daughter of his sister-in-law danced before Herod and so pleased him that he promised her anything in return. She asked for and was granted the beheading of John the Baptist. So upon hearing this, Jesus differentiates himself. Matthew tells us that he retires to a deserted place, as did the ancient Hebrews in the wilderness, purging themselves for readiness to be the people of God. When the crowds follow him, Jesus embodies the ethics of God; he differentiates himself from Herod by showing compassion for the needs of the crowd. Jesus teaches by example; he reenacts the wilderness wanderings by purging the way of Herod (and Pharaoh) and teaching the way of God.

However, as any teacher of ethics knows, it is one thing to teach morality, and it is quite another thing to acquire moral vision. So we come to the second level of depth, classically called illumination. The disciples are in this wilderness; it is growing dark and they are without food. They know the story of their ancestors’ wandering in the wilderness without food and of God’s provision of manna for them to eat. Like their ancestors, they murmur. The disciples come to Jesus and say, This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves (v. 15). Then Jesus astounds them, saying, They need not go away, you give them something to eat (v. 16). The disciples are dumbfounded because they have meager provisions. The disciples may know ethics, but they do not have moral illumination. They must be illumined by the generous heart of Jesus.

The generous heart is the illuminating core of this story; it is the miracle of the story. Some would disagree and identify the miracle of the story as the multiplication of food; but this story is more than a food miracle. Another interpretation of the story suggests that once the sharing of food began, others responded in kind. In this version, the upshot of the story is that we must learn to trust in the resources of our communities. There is a good insight here, but I think the story goes deeper still.

H. Richard Niebuhr taught that in every encounter with another person there is a moment of self-transcendence; that is, we move out of our insularity in the encounter so that the other can expand our horizon. He adds that in every encounter, there is a third involved, making it a trialogue. The third does not come to rest until the total community of being is involved.² The third, of course, is God, the often forgotten one in every encounter, the one reality with which we have to do in every moment of our lives. Note how the third is critically involved in Matthew’s story: Taking the five loaves and the two fish, [Jesus] looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves (v. 19). The blessing is an illuminating acknowledgment of the generous heart of God, an acknowledgment of the transcendent element in every relation, an acknowledgment of the third.

The blessing is also the moment of the final level of depth—the unitive. The blessing is an acknowledgment of the deep unitive connection of all beings with one another and with God. The blessing is an acknowledgment of the generosity that connects all beings in God. The blessing is an acknowledgment of the source of all of life, the livingness that we know. As such, the blessing is a means of union with the deep in which we live and move and have our being.

The act of saying a blessing may seem rote, but saying a blessing over and over brings its own blessing. The blessing can move us from the shallow to the deep, from purging ourselves of all that is broken in our lives, to the illumination of generosity at the heart and core of all that is. The blessing unites us with the generous heart of God who does not rest until all are redeemed and blessed. The act of blessing (at a meal, at a celebration, even before a church meeting, or the encounter with another) acknowledges abundance amid seeming scarcity, and inches us ever more fully into the deep.

ROGER J. GENCH

Footnotes

1. Sarah Coakley, Deepening Practices: Perspectives from Ascetical and Mystical Theology in Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life, ed. Miroslav Volf and Dorothy Bass (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 78–84.

2. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Responsible Self: An Essay in Christian Moral Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 87.

Pastoral Perspective

Jesus liked to eat. The disciples of John the Baptist noticed enough to question why he did not fast. His enemies noticed enough to ask his disciples why he ate with tax collectors and sinners. They labeled him a glutton and a drunkard. His parables are often about wheat, or fruit trees, or banquets, or vineyards. If he had not traveled by foot so far and so often, it is quite possible that Jesus would have been a little chunkier than he appears in most stained-glass windows.

Eating is rarely listed as a spiritual practice, but it should be. Some of the best stuff in ministry happens over meals. People share shockingly celebratory and devastatingly painful news. Creative ideas are hatched. Relationships are formed and edified. Substantial commitments are made. Every pastor ought to have an expense account to be used to fund the pastoral ministry of feasting. It may be more important than paying the light bill. Mealtime is often where ministry happens.

Jesus knows this well. He says to the disciples, You give them something to eat (v. 16). Unfortunately for them, Jesus is referring to a crowd of thousands. The pragmatic disciples recognize that they have been asked to do the impossible, to feed thousands of people with next to nothing.

This seems to be the normal situation in which the church finds itself today. People are hungering all around us, hungering for a deeper connection with God and each other, hungering for purpose and meaning, hungering for hope in a stagnant economy that was deeply divided long before it was driven into the ditch. Many are hungering quite literally for their next meal. The church has been called to feed all these hungry people with fewer loaves and fishes than we have ever had before.

The disciples are right to notice the limitations. We are not equipped to do what we have been charged to do. We do not have enough. The wise thing would be to send people elsewhere to whoever is serving some helpful fare at the local yoga studio, the coffee shop, the movie theater, or the pub. However, a closer reading of Jesus’ words here is helpful: you give them something to eat. The church is not asked to fulfill every need, is not asked to figure out how a few loaves and fishes are going to feed everyone. Jesus tells the disciples to bring what they have to him and share it. The miracle of the meal with baskets full of leftovers is not the church’s miracle; it is God’s. The church is as much an observer of that miracle as the people it is called to feed—and perhaps no less amazed.

Preachers know this well. Countless sermons have been offered with weak ingredients and not enough seasoning, stirred together quickly with not enough care in preparation. Yet a week later, someone calls up the preacher and tells her that he has decided to quit his job and work in an orphanage, or become the artist he always knew God wanted him to be—because of some sermon. Amazing transformations happen in a church that has been given very little in the way of substantial sustenance.

The task of disciples today is not necessarily to pretend that we really do have some amazing food to serve a hurting world, but to share what we have been given, trusting that it is enough. Share it freely, wildly, irrationally with others, expecting that God can take our limited, feeble resources and make of them a feast to serve thousands. Perhaps this is where we often get stuck, especially in anxious times. Seeking desperately to name what is wrong with the church and its ministry, we end up creating a fearful environment where people are timid about sharing what they have been given. Their gifts seem too weak, too inadequate to be of any value to a church facing such enormous needs.

This is why we need to eat together more often, why we should examine our schedules and replace committee meetings with more dinners. It is hard to imagine Jesus ever attending a committee meeting. He preferred banquets and picnics, chats by the watering hole, and conversation over good wine—perhaps because sharing food sets the stage for all kinds of other, deeper sharing that most people yearn for.

I had a professor in seminary who used to shatter the quiet of Communion distribution with words encouraging more healthy appetites. As members of the seminary community, pious and pensive, filed prayerfully forward, carefully tearing off a tiny bit of bread, he would shout, Go on! Get yourself a big ol’ hunk of grace! Although this disturbed a number of students and professors, a handful of challah filled me much better than the cubed Wonder Bread I dutifully ingested during my youth.

I remember one weekend in college, when a minister invited several church dropouts down to a beach place for a retreat. He had taken an interest in students who had abandoned the church to become spiritual, but not religious, kids who were rejecting the usual tracks because they wanted to live with the poor, or struggle for change, or organize for justice—kids shaped by the church, but no longer feeling connected to it. I do not remember anything about the weekend except the dinner—good food leading to deep conversation leading to a circle and a loaf of bread, and a jug of wine. Words of Jesus spoken that night certainly did not sound like words of an institution. I just remember thinking, if this is what the church can be—a meal where everybody is filled with good food that leads to deep sharing and a desire to give more—then maybe there is still a place for me. I used to marvel that this minister knew exactly how to reach kids like me. Now I know better. When you have no idea what else to do, plan a meal, invite as many as you can, offer what you have, and prepare to be amazed.

ANDREW FOSTER CONNORS

Exegetical Perspective

The feeding of the five thousand declares the fulfillment of Moses and the prophets, the new order of the kingdom, and the good news that under God’s rule there is enough for everyone.

The traditional site of the feeding, identified by Helena, Constantine’s mother, in the fourth century, is Heptapegon, or Tabgha, the seven springs located south of Capernaum, where pilgrims stopped to eat and rest. A beautiful mosaic of the loaves and fish (mid-fifth-century) still identifies the spot.

Matthew gives particular emphasis to the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets through fulfillment quotations in the birth accounts and through Jesus’ declaration in the Sermon on the Mount (5:17). The miracles that Jesus does are typically wonders like those performed by Moses and Elijah or Elisha. This is certainly the case with the feeding of the five thousand, the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels. Matthew lacks some of the connections drawn by the other evangelists, however. Mark draws a connection to Psalm 23 by saying that Jesus had compassion on the crowd because they were like sheep without a shepherd (cf. also Num. 27:15–17) and by adding that Jesus commanded them to recline on the green grass (Ps. 23:1–2). John connects the feeding with Elisha’s feeding of more than one hundred men with twenty loaves of barley (2 Kgs. 4:42–44) by adding that the loaves brought to Jesus were barley loaves (John 6:9). The details that Jesus fed the crowd in a wilderness place, that they had bread left over after all had eaten, and that they collected twelve baskets full, invite comparison with Moses’ provision of manna in the wilderness (Exod. 16:13–35; Num. 11:1–35). The fact that they had some left (cf. 2 Kgs. 4:43–44) underscores the wondrous bounty of God’s provision.

The report that the disciples took up twelve baskets of fragments has evoked various interpretations. The number twelve is often associated with the number of the tribes of Israel, but in this instance it can mean simply that each disciple collected a basket full. The size of the baskets is not specified, but they were probably large baskets used for produce. A basket was standard equipment for the infantry in the Roman army (Josephus, Jewish War 3.95), and baskets were so characteristic of Jewish life that Juvenal uses them as a symbol for the Jew in his Satires (3.14; 6.542). The count of five thousand men may be related to the Israelite practice of counting men only (Exod. 12:37; Num. 1:2, 20, 22), emphasizing either the exodus or the military overtones of the story. Matthew 14:21 adds besides women and children.

The strongest resonance is between the feeding of the five thousand and the Last Supper, where Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body’ (26:26). In contrast to the variations in wording in the rest of the accounts of the feeding, the Synoptic Gospels report the blessing, breaking, giving, and eating of the bread and fish with almost word-for-word agreement. The verbs of the Eucharist echo the feeding: Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples (v. 19). Luke draws on these same verbs in the account of the meal at Emmaus, where Jesus is recognized in the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:30, 35). Taking, blessing, breaking, and giving become the signature by which the risen Lord is recognized, just as it was the pattern of the earthly Jesus’ ministry (cf. Matt. 15:36; 1 Cor. 11:23–24).

Through the feeding, the people were connected to a heritage that stretched back to the provision of manna in the wilderness, that would reach its revelatory pinnacle at the Last Supper, that would be celebrated ever after by the church, and that points ahead to the great messianic banquet at the end of time (Isa. 25:6). The feeding of the five thousand is also a lesson for the church. The issue is how we can find sustenance in the wilderness. What do you do when following Jesus has led you to the end of your physical and spiritual resources? What do you do when you do not have what you will need to sustain you on the way home? Translating the situation to the context of the church, where can the church find what it needs to survive in the wilderness?

The good news starts with the notice that Jesus had compassion on the people. He saw their need and was moved to respond to it. When we find ourselves in the wilderness, we are not alone. Jesus does for his followers what they cannot do for themselves. What do you do when you find yourself in the wilderness, a long way from home? What do you do when the challenges you face are greater than your resources for meeting them, when what you hold in your hands is so meager and the need is so great?

The first thing Jesus did was to ask the disciples what they had. Often we have more than we realize, if we will only offer it to God. Just five loaves, but when they were offered to God in thanksgiving, they became part of an unlimited treasury of blessing—enough to sustain the people in wilderness, with plenty left over. When we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, therefore, we recall this great tradition of blessing, and we testify that even in a few loaves of bread there is more than enough for our needs. They are God’s gift, they carry the life of our Savior, and they remind us that God has always provided for the needs of the faithful in times of crisis and distress.¹

R. ALAN CULPEPPER

Footnotes

1. See R. Alan Culpepper, Mark (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2007), 280.

Homiletical Perspective

What Jesus has just heard in this passage is that his good friend and mentor John the Baptist has been beheaded by Herod as a party favor for his daughter. It is no wonder he needs some time alone to pray and, doubtless, grieve. Jesus is not the only one to hear the gruesome news. We are told that the crowds also hear the news of John’s demise at Herod’s hands. The people are understandably frightened and are seeking Jesus for both comfort and guidance. Thus, while he is out in a boat on the sea, they follow him on foot from the shore.

One can imagine Jesus sensing his own death is nearer now with John’s death, and in that anticipation come thoughts about how to prepare for the future of God’s ministry among the people. What we encounter in this very familiar passage may be just that: one of the primary messages of what it means to be disciples and to carry Jesus’ ministry forward in his absence.

Jesus comes ashore and sees a great crowd. He sees their grief. He sees their fear. He sees their longing for hope and a word of encouragement, and he has compassion on them. He knows what they are feeling, so he reaches out and heals their sick. He spends the day in conversation with them and night begins to fall.

In the next movement of the passage we encounter our own human failings as the disciples try to dodge the responsibilities of ministry. They know the people have expectations and needs. Rather than lean into Christ with faith, they begin to drown in their own fear of insufficiency. They ask Jesus to make an announcement sending the people home. They do not want to deal with the mess and the hunger. It seems overwhelming, and the responsibility seems too great.

Jesus is quick and clear in his response. In one short set of phrases he communicates a vision for community and a trust in the disciples. They need not go away; you give them something to eat (v. 16). The first half of the phrase, They need not go away, is a call to remain together, even when the needs of the group might seem too great. In community we will find what we need; enough to meet our needs and often more. Ephesians 4:12 tells us that each has been given a gift for building up the body of Christ. Rather than supporting a posture of every one for herself or himself, Christ invites us to stay with one another and discover another way to collaborate. In remaining together, we may find possibilities none of us could create alone, and surely we will find comfort and companionship in sharing the experience, be it hunger or cold.

The other half of his command, You give them something to eat, is a profound shift in responsibility. Frequently Jesus himself has done the healing and transforming, but in this moment he calls the disciples to step up and reject the myth of scarcity. Although at first the disciples are still paralyzed by fear and stuck in their limited human imaginations, Jesus is patient with them. They balk and protest about limited resources. There is not nearly enough to go around. There is no way this can work out. They seem to have forgotten the many miracles they have already witnessed.

We know this intersection in our lives so well. We know the familiar feeling of being overwhelmed by what is expected of us. The needs that surround us seem insurmountable. Pick an area of suffering—cancer, global hunger, wars, domestic violence, addiction—and the needs seem beyond our resources to respond. We revert to our own narrow minds, forgetting the expanse and freedom promised by God. So paralyzed by anxiety are we that we forget the thousand other times that God entered in unexpectedly and made a way when there seemed no way. From parting the Red Sea to stilling storms, with manna and miracles abounding, our memories are short when our bellies are empty and night is falling.

Finally Jesus gives them the solution that they need. Bring them here to me, he says, calling for the five loaves and two fish (v. 18). Bring them here to me, he says, and you can almost hear the disciples breathing a collective sigh of relief and lowering their eyes in embarrassment that they did not think of turning to Jesus for help sooner. Bring them here to me, he says, and one wonders if he is talking about the people themselves, or the loaves and the fish. The disciples obey, and Jesus invites everyone to be seated for the bounty that is about to be poured out upon the hungry hill.

It really is that simple. Faith tells us that the antidote to the toxic doses of fear and blaring messages of insufficiency is found in taking the meager bits and pieces of what we have and inviting Jesus to bless them and make them more. Over and over again, this invitation and promise are echoed in Scripture: My grace is sufficient, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). Our primary limitation is not a lack of resources but our amnesia, our forgetting to offer up what we have been given to the One whose desire it is to bless us. God in Christ stands ready to heal, redeem, restore, and reconcile; our role is to take responsibility in offering up our part and seeking, with all that we are, to collaborate with God.

In this passage we are shown a new way forward. We learn about our responsibility for one another and about God’s trust in us to provide, with God’s help, for the needs of the community. We see the miracle that comes when we renounce the message of scarcity and turn to God in faith, offering what we have and allowing God to bless and multiply even the smallest of gifts.

LIZ BARRINGTON FORNEY

Matthew 14:22–36

²²Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. ²⁵And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. ²⁶But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, It is a ghost! And they cried out in fear. ²⁷But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.

²⁸Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. ²⁹He said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. ³⁰But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me! ³¹Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, You of little faith, why did you doubt? ³²When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. ³³And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.

³⁴When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. ³⁵After the people of that place recognized him, they sent word throughout the region and brought all who were sick to him, ³⁶and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.

Theological Perspective

My childhood faith was framed by kind of naive literalism about stories like Jesus’ walking on the water. Jesus became for me something akin to a superhero who could perform wondrous deeds. As I have matured, I have come to appreciate the symbolic power of the biblical stories. For example, the boat and the disciples in the storm-tossed sea were, for Matthew, symbolic of the tormented church wrestling with conflict within and conflict without. To be sure, the church has always had a conflicted existence. Church history is not a story of smooth sailing.

Given this tortured existence, it is not surprising that Matthew characterizes discipleship as a mixture of faith and doubt. Throughout the Gospel, the church is a mixed bag of believing and doubting. Note that Peter himself attempts to emulate Jesus and takes a few significant but faltering steps on water, but then sees the tempest all about him and begins to sink. Thus Jesus says to him, You of little faith, why did you doubt? (v. 31). These words are important, because in Matthew when Jesus speaks of little faith, he conveys both judgment and encouragement. The latter can be seen when Jesus promises, If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you (17:20). In sum, little faith may be a hindrance at times, but a little faith can also enable one to do amazing things, like move mountains and walk on water.

Serene Jones tells a story that illustrates both aspects of faith. She was serving on a long-range planning committee of her church at a critical juncture in the church’s life. They had decided to reenergize various ministries of the church, but initial enthusiasm waned when the implementation of the ministries proved difficult. Negativity overtook the leadership of the church. Finally one of the newer members of the church asked, Is this what it means to be church, believing you should do all these things, and then feeling worn out and guilty because you can’t? Is this the Good News we celebrate?¹ The question was pointed enough that they decided to put their work on hold until they could gain some perspective. It was a teaching moment in which the committee began to talk about classic notions like justification and sanctification.

Sanctification is a term John Calvin and others used to describe the gift of grace to be faithful, that is, to perform the faith. The word Serene Jones uses for this form of faith is adornment, to be clothed in forms of behaviors, actions, attitudes, and specific practices that conform that person to Christ.² Yet sanctification is a form of faithfulness that many Christians emphasize to a fault. Many of us are so concerned about being good Christians that we have lost sight of the fact that we are frail children of dust. Sanctification without justification, the acknowledgment of the free gift of love and mercy, can lead to the belief that practices of faith alone justify us before God and others. We need continually to be reminded that we are saved by grace alone.

Justification is the term used to describe what happens when we realize that God loves us and forgives us, despite the fact that we are most unlovable. Yet the unmerited, unconditional nature of the gift of mercy is counterintuitive and countercultural in a world in which everything we do is based on what we have earned. Meritocracy, one of the tyrannies of modernity, leads us to believe that we can save ourselves through our striving, our doing—in our vocations, avocations, education, and relation building. We may be aware of our failures and deceptions about who we are, but nonetheless we strive to earn value and status the old-fashioned way, by earning it. Eventually we must come to terms with the fact that we cannot do so and that God loves us still. This is the judgment side of little faith. The encouragement side of little faith is the assurance that once we begin to ponder the God who loves us still, we are freed for the faithfulness of sanctification.

Once we come to terms with the free love of God, it changes the way we perform the faith, the adornments of the faith that we wear. This realization alters the way we understand and perform ministry, for our ministry embodies an interrelated tension between gift and performance. The phrase Jones uses for this relationship is adorned in freedom; that is, faith is both the strenuous work of putting on Christ and the freedom of living out of a love that one does not earn.³

Both of these aspects of faith (gift and performance) are reflected in the story of Peter’s walking on the water. Let us not forget what happens in the story. Peter does walk on water—albeit only a few tentative steps—and he does it in a storm. Jesus does not chastise him for attempting to perform the faith amid a storm at sea. Why? Because God in Christ does not lead us away from the struggles and the tensions of life, but right into the midst of them, armed with the gift of forgiveness and adorned with the spirit of Christ, who empowers us to follow God’s trajectory into the world. Finally, Jesus does not say to Peter, O you of little faith, why did you think you could walk on water? but, rather, O you of little faith, why did you doubt [that you could]? (v. 31). So it is also for each of us and for our ministry: adorned with the mercy and power of God, we are not to doubt that we can!

ROGER J. GENCH

Footnotes

1. Serene Jones, Graced Practices: Excellence and Freedom in the Christian Life, in Practicing Theology: Belief and Practices in the Christian Life, ed. Miro-slav Volf and Dorothy Bass (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 51–53.

2. Ibid., 61.

3. Ibid., 65–70.

Pastoral Perspective

Advocates for nurturing spiritual practice are quick to point out how often the Gospels report Jesus withdrawing from the demands of daily work to pray. What they do not acknowledge, however, is that these times often correspond to the disciples’ getting themselves into trouble. Upon hearing of John’s death, Jesus withdraws, only to have the crowds grow into the thousands. The ill-equipped disciples find themselves overwhelmed with sick people and their hungry family members. Jesus sweeps in to the rescue. Later, Jesus sends his top leadership in a boat to the other side of the sea and dismisses the crowds, retreating up the mountain for solitary prayer. Then another crisis erupts, proving again that without Jesus the disciples are a fearful, feckless bunch. The church is not too much different.

In planning a memorial service recently, the family of the deceased indicated their desire not to have Scripture read at the memorial service. A