When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns. When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.” But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over–twelve wicker baskets full. Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children. (Matthew 14.13-21)
Our selection for this Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time has the distinction of being the only miracle story that is found in all four canonical gospels. That fact alone gives it special importance and requires us to look carefully at the story. It generally is referred to as the feeding of the five thousand. The miracle contained in the story has to do with Jesus multiplying the five loaves and two fish so much so that not only is the crowd fed to their satisfaction, but twelve baskets of leftovers also were gathered up after everyone had eaten.
As we begin our study of the story, I suggest we back up a bit in order to get a broader look at the context in which we find it. Always a believer in the argument that context matters, I think it is important for us to see where the evangelist–in this case Matthew–intentionally placed the story. In my mind, there was a deliberateness in the sequence of events that Matthew gives us and we miss an important lesson when we overlook that sequence.
The first verse in our selection today provides a transition between two very important stories. It reads, “When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” That simple sentence offers a link or a connection between the story of the beheading of John the Baptist and the feeding of the five thousand.
For reasons known only to those who made the final call on the selections that made their way into the common lectionary, the story of the beheading of John the Baptist was skipped over, allowing us only a peek at it in that singular verse that introduces the story of the feeding of the multitude. In short, we moved from the collection of parables that we have studied in recent weeks to the feeding of the multitude, bypassing the killing of John.
That is unfortunate. If the sequence in stories as Matthew had laid them out had been honored, we would find ourselves staring once again at a stark contrast, something we have already seen within many of Jesus’ parables, providing us once more with two ways to live, a moment of decision put before us, beautifully expressed in Robert Frost’s famous poem, “The Road Not Taken.”
If we need a reminder, the first stanza of that poem reads, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler, long I stood/ And looked down one as far as I could/ To where it bent in the undergrowth.” Of course, the lesson of the poem is found at the end when Frost writes these lines, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–/ I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference.”
The many contrasts that we find in Matthew’s gospel put before us that same decision, asking us which way we want to walk. Whichever direction we decide, it will define our lives and form us in one way or another. That is simply the hard reality of life. Our decisions matter. It is the same truth that Jesus’ parables have so often expressed and it is the same truth that we see at play in two stories that Matthew puts before us back-to-back.
The story of the beheading of John the Baptist is familiar enough that we need only be reminded of its broad strokes. Herod Antipas, the Roman stooge who ruled Galilee as a tetrarch at the time, had John imprisoned because of his open criticism of Herod’s marriage to Herodias, the wife of his half-brother Philip, the marriage being a violation of Jewish law. At first, Herod seemed content to let John rot in his prison cell.
But then Herod held a birthday banquet for Herodias’s daughter who danced for Herod and his guests. Drunk on wine and revelry, he promised the young girl anything she wanted. With the bug put in her ear by her mother, the girl asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Having made a public oath and a man filled with pride, Herod carried through with the promise, having John beheaded and presenting Salome the daughter afterwards with the head.
With those few facts at our disposal, it shouldn’t take much for us to see the sharp contrast between these two stories that are placed in quick succession. Herod’s party was an elaborate feast with tables loaded down with fine foods and rich wine. The meal that Jesus provided came from two fish and five loaves of barley bread. Seated at the table at Herod’s banquet were powerful men with deep pockets. Seated on the hillside where Jesus fed the multitudes were the poor and the sick, people with little to nothing.
At the center of the story of Herod’s lavish meal was a deep hatred found in Herodias’s heart while at the center of the story of the feeding of the five thousand was a deep compassion found in Jesus’ heart. The objective of Herodias’s destruction was to deal death. The objective of Jesus’ compassion was to give life. The host at the extravagant birthday party was a tyrant and an adulterer, drunk on power and pettiness. The host on the deserted hillside was a man set apart by God, filled with care and compassion.
And whereas Herod was only interested in his own self-image and self-promotion, Jesus’ gaze was on others and their well-being, not on his own. At the end of Herod’s meal, there was death, a prophet’s life brutally taken because of jealousy. At the end of Jesus’ meal, there was life, a hungry crowd given strength and sustenance for the evening ahead.
As we can see when the two stories are put side-by-side, the contrast could not be clearer. It is the same contrast we have seen in the parables of the weeds and the wheat, the dragnet filled with both bad and good fish, and the separation of the sheep and the goats. The only difference between the parables and these two events is that the parables are imaginative tales while these two meals are real-life experiences. They are not hypothetical, as the parables are, but are tragically real, as life is.
Yet, like the parables that Jesus told, these two lived experiences put before us a decision that will give direction to the whole of our lives, asking us which way we want to go. Do we sit at the table with Herod and his lackeys, our stomachs full and our eyes blind to the evil around us? Or do we sit with Jesus and the crowd on the lonely hillside, hungry as evening comes and calling upon the mercy of God?
It is a decision each of us makes, not once, but every single day that we live and breathe. For me, two key phrases stand out in the story of the feeding of the multitude. The first is at the start of the narrative when Matthew tells us that “when Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them and he cured their sick.”
While our text has chosen to translate the word as pity, most translations go with compassion. It is a description of Jesus that Matthew has already used in his gospel. Several chapters earlier, Matthew stated that “Jesus was moved with compassion when he saw the people harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” So, it is a word Matthew wants us to see as constitutive of who Jesus is.
The word compassion should not be understood as the same as sympathy. While both express a sentiment of care, compassion involves a close identification or oneness with the person who suffers, whereas sympathy allows a space between the giver and the receiver. It connotes a difference in depth of feeling, with compassion going much deeper.
The word compassion comes from two Latin roots, the first being com, which means with, the second being pati, which means suffer. In effect, compassion means to suffer with someone. The pain felt by the one who suffers is also felt by the one with compassion. If a person has compassion, he or she sits down and suffers with another in pain, no decipherable space between the two people.
All of which also explains why Jesus’ compassion moves him to action. Compassion is not content to do nothing. It is a love that reaches out to resolve and to get results. So, it makes perfect sense for Matthew to say after he has stated that Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them that he cured their sick. His compassion did not stay still, but resulted in his taking action, in this instance curing those who were afflicted.
But that was not the sum total of his compassion. Afterwards, when the disciples came to Jesus with a problem, namely the people were hungry and without food, Jesus’ compassion again moved him to action. He takes the two fish and five loaves, looks up to heaven, blesses and breaks the loaves, and gives them to the disciples to distribute.
In this way, Jesus proved yet again that his heart beats in unity with the heart of God, a heart described by the Psalmist as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in compassion.” So, in the same way that the Most High God took pity on the Hebrew slaves who were starving in the desert, giving them manna to eat, now Jesus takes pity on the multitude in this deserted place, giving them food to eat.
As we look closer at this story, we see that the disciples were not yet at the level of compassion. They obviously had concern for the hungry crowd, approaching Jesus with the situation and telling him to “dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” But their concern, real as it was, did not require any action from them.
Hence, we hear Jesus’ straightforward response to them, “There is no need for them to go away. Give them some food yourselves.” With those words, he urged them to show compassion, a step beyond concern, requiring them to take action and to do something themselves for the poor and for the suffering, not to pass the buck or to let the problem solve itself.
It is at that moment in the story that a second phrase stands out and it also is instructive. It comes from the disciples’ response to Jesus’ direction that they should give them some food themselves. Their response is as honest as it is heartbreaking, telling him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.” They are not offering an excuse for inaction, but simply laying bare the facts of the situation, doing the numbers in their head and knowing the impossible odds.
We should not be quick to judge them. If the phrase has a familiar ring to it, it should. Faced with the big problems in the world that we see every day, it is the same response that we give, feeling ourselves unable and incapable of doing anything, having too little on hand to address the overwhelming odds. “What can one person do?” we ask ourselves. “I have little to nothing to give,” we tell ourselves.
That attitude, of course, results in inaction, which means we have not moved to the level of compassion. We have stayed at the level of concern. We may feel uncomfortable, but we are not wholly invested in the other person’s well-being. Were we filled with compassion as Jesus was, we would feel the suffering around us and we would do something, anything to fix the problem, regardless of the fact that we hold in our hands only two fish and five loaves of bread.
Certainly, the story of the feeding of the five thousand offers us many lessons as we seek to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. As we have seen today, one of those lessons is the importance of choosing which path we want to take. Two ways are put before us. Do we want to sit with Herod and his cronies at their table, or do we want to sit with Jesus and the crowd in the deserted place in which they find themselves?
It may be the biggest decision we are called upon to make, because it changes everything. And truth be told, it is not a decision we can make once and never have to do again. Instead, it is a decision that we have to make every single time we find ourselves standing before a crossroad, two roads diverging in the woods, leaving us to decide which path to take and which path not to take.
–Jeremy Myers
