October 23, 2011

• Nehemiah 5:1-13
• Matthew 14:13-21
  Sunday's readings will be from the new Common English Bible.
• Bread for the World Sunday

Sunday's message: Multiplying bread

Our procession of special Sundays brings us this week of Bread for the World Sunday, an occasion to talk about hunger and its causes and some solutions. There's certainly sufficient warrant in the scriptures to talk about those things.

Consider the passage from Nehemiah. There's a context to this story related to the return of God's people from exile. But you really don't need to know the exact context to get into this story. It sounds like some of the things that are happening around us today. Folks are making difficult choices about allotting their meagre resources, about having enough food. They are, to use the current parlance, "food insecure". In our own country

Eighty-five percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2009, meaning that they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (14.7 percent) were food insecure at least some time during the year, including 5.7 percent with very low food security. In households with very low food security, the food intake of one or more household members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food. Prevalence rates of food insecurity and very low food security were essentially unchanged from 14.6 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively, in 2008, and remained at the highest recorded levels since 1995, when the first national food security survey was conducted. The typical food-secure household spent 33 percent more on food than the typical food-insecure household of the same size and household composition. Fifty-seven percent of all food-insecure households participated in one or more of the three largest Federal food and nutrition assistance programs during the month prior to the 2009 survey.
Household Food Security in the United States, 2009, United States Department of Agriculture

According to the story in Nehemiah these people were food insecure, ready to sell themselves and their children into slavery, as a result of others doing well for themselves. There's nothing in scripture that says it's bad to make money or to live comfortably. But there are repeated warnings about the dangers of wealth, especially when the wealth is at the expense of others.

Through Nehemiah and others God had set God's people free from slavery among the nations resulting from the exile. Not to mention the great story of God bringing slaves out of Egypt under Moses, creating for God a people who had been no people at all. And now God's people are selling themselves and their children back into slavery, just in order to have food.

Something isn't right about all that, and Nehemiah joins us readers in being "very angry" about it. Nehemiah confronts the officials and officers, bringing charges against them. He calls a large assembly to hold them accountable for what is happening to God's people. If you remember Tallahassee Equality Action Ministry (TEAM) you will recognize this as a Nehemiah Assembly.

I'm not sure that we can say that the officials and officers whom Nehemiah confronted were evil people, that they had set out with the intention of doing harm, that they even knew about the result of their actions. They were simply out to take care of themselves and to make a buck. But in the kingdom of God taking care of ourselves and making a buck, not evil in themselves, are nonetheless tempered by and active concern for community, especially for the poor.

Which brings us to the Jesus story in Matthew 14. Jesus has just received word of the brutal slaying of John the Baptist. He seeks time alone; who can blame him? He goes off in a boat to a deserted place. But the crowds sniff him out, and follow on foot, so that he arrived to find them waiting for him. At this point the story challenges me. Jesus lives the compassion of the kingdom of God all the time, even when he is need of alone time. I'm not that good. On Sunday I'll tell you a story about that.

His retreat interrupted, Jesus shows compassion for the crowd and heals the sick. It takes a while. Finally, when evening is coming, the disciples (also showing compassion) suggest that they send the crowd away lest they find themselves in this deserted place at night with no food.

But Jesus says, "There's no need to send them away. You give them something to eat." Come again?

The disciples have with them only five loaves and two fish — their own provision against hunger. At Jesus' word they bring him these, their own hedge against food insecurity. And he blesses and breaks them. And then he does something remarkable. Jesus gives the blessed and broken resources back to the disciples. It is the disciples, and not Jesus, who feed the five thousand. Out of their own meagre resources, which Jesus has blessed back to them. Their five loaves and two fish are more than enough.

I'm convinced that this well-know story is not about the "miracle" per se, but about the disciples and how one follows Jesus. I'll say more about that on Sunday. I'll see you there.