“THE FEEDING OF THE - - -”
Saint Mark 8. 1-9
7th Sunday after Trinity: 7 August Anno Domini 2011
Fr Watson S.S.P.
Eating food in the Garden of Eden was for nourishment, but more importantly it was for pleasure and joy. Eating of the plenty of paradise was for intimate togetherness and satisfaction. Before the fall into sin man ate not from fear and hunger but from faithful fellowship.
The sin of Adam changed all that. Your sin changes all that.
The problems that our society, has with food are but symptoms of the problems that sinners have with God. While America sinks (almost literally) under an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, knee replacements and passive immobility; it likewise chases after the pagan idols of Botox, liposuction, face-lifts, jogging, running, and personal trainer equipped gyms. In Eden they may have played soccer, golf, and tennis for pure exhilarating FUN…. But they would NOT have done crunches so they'd look good in shorts.
And then there is starvation. Much of the world and many parts of this country people go without enough food. The only deluded Christians who think people are not starving are the ones who have not traveled or who know nothing save what the 'talking heads' tell them. This is not about politics or economics; this is about sin. Sin has twisted food into both a drug and a disease; both a weapon and a commodity to make one wealthy and powerful.
Jesus commands you to love your neighbor as yourself. If, when you starve some day for food, water, comfort, medicine, shelter, clothing, a kind word and a gentle hand, YOU WOULD DESIRE someone, some stranger, to help you out with a merciful gift…why then Jesus is informing you what you can do RIGHT NOW when your side of the teeter-totter is at the top of the…food chain.
All this is but the basic starting position for today's Gospel. Jesus simply had concern that the 4,000 person crowd was in need of food. His great fame and notoriety had produced a large throng of people who have traveled out and away from their villages to gather around Him for close to three days. He was the biggest thing that had ever happened to their country-side or to their own lives. They had not taken enough food from their kitchens to provide for themselves. They have been more like Saint Mary than like Saint Martha. They had listened and watched the Christ and had not been providing for their own physical safety, security and life-style. Jesus knew that many of them were faint with hunger and that bothered Him. Hunger and thirst of the most basic physical kind always concerns the Lord! It was never meant for His children to go hungry. It was never meant for His children to be indulgent gluttons or selfish pigs either. It was never meant for His Table to have absent chairs.
And while the Lord multiplied the fish and bread in order to feed this crowd its every-day "daily bread" so that they would be refreshed and sustained for their journeys home, the truest miracle was not in the multiplication.
The miracle was the Lord providing the forgiveness of sins. Which His words of teaching and preaching about the Kingdom of God did! Jesus forgives but does more than merely forget, remit, cancel, and wipe away. Jesus assembles His own into His sheep fold. Jesus rescues the lost and restores the damaged. Jesus calls, gathers and enlightens His wayward flock and then Shepherds them into the New House of Israel! Yes he provides you, and also the wicked, with "daily bread" as the Small Catechism explains in the 4th petition of the Our Father. Yes daily bread is all that belongs to the support and wants of the body. But it's more than body-the Lord rescues the whole person.
There are faithful Christians who from time to time endure horrible hardships including starvation and nakedness-Paul for example. There are Christians who die hungry, and some who die battling life-long obesity. There are some fellow saints who struggle with selfishness until they are called home.
But no Lamb of the Lord dies alone and banned; no member of the flock is away or apart or outside His loving arms and embrace. No Saint dies outside the City of Peace like Jesus did.
While the Christ fed the 4,000 with food for their bellies, He was showing the way (the "Type") of the Family Meal where He himself is the Meal and the Server. No, this multiplication of loaves and fishes is NOT the Sacrament of the Altar, but IT IS a picture of His overflowing Grace and Mercy to those Who He came to suffer and die for. He feeds you with bread but He also feeds you with the Bread of Life-the Bread of Heaven-Himself! As He multiplies seven loaves to feed thousands with but an intent and a thanksgiving, so too He is present in Sacramental Union at literally thousands of parishes and altars this very Mass Day!
Jesus Himself is Solomon to come-Peace. Jesus Himself is the ever-David, the Eternal King of a kingdom where the love and mercy never runs out and everyone can eat and drink to their hearts content without ever being gluttonous or greedy. Jesus Himself is the new Jacob, that is, the New and Only True Israel-the Son of God. And "in Him" all who by faith are also the New Testament Israel-the 'Sons of God' will receive forgiveness of sins. And where there is forgiveness of sins there is also life and salvation. Not just salvation one day distant at the Heavenly Banquet Table, where you will be joyful to break bread together with those you'd never thought you'd be able to even look at again, but there is also LIFE right now...this day…for In Christ we are all one body, one faith, one baptism, one people.
The real and lasting miracle, or "sign" is that Jesus left none behind for the carrion, the rats, buzzards, alley-cats, or demons. "…They took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets." The broken are always retrieved, no P.O.W.s and no fallen comrades are left behind. That is Good News. No one that the Father has given to the Son will be lost or left out unattended on the hill-side. The "12" were tasked with gathering up everything that was not consumed. Was this because Jesus 'gave a hoot and didn't want to pollute'-no it was not. Was this because Jesus wanted to be like social-conscious restaurants and eateries and make sure that the remnants could be shared with indigents down at the Salvation Army soup kitchen-no it was not.
Seven is the perfect number of Godly perfection. The Lord created all that is with His Word, the Blessed Son, in six days and rested on the Seventh, the Sabbath. Jesus is that blessed rest that eternal Sabbath in the Flesh. The seven baskets gathered together is you dear saints…not some of you…not the best of you…but all of you…all the Christians before, NOW, and hereafter.
You ALL are forgiven, you ALL are restored to Israel, you ALL are at Peace with the Father through the blood and merits and sacrifice of the Son. You now in the Spirit come forward to this Hillside of Holiness and feast again with the Lord.
In the Name of The Father + and of The Son and of The Holy Ghost