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Miraculous Multiplication 8.2.26 · St. Paul Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone and welcome to the St.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Paul Podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Mark Needhammer, Senior Pastor at St.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Paul Lutheran Church, located in Davenport, Iowa, part of the Greater Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right here, each week, you will find beautiful music and a message of hope and good news to guide your life.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hopeful that this podcast can inspire you and help you on your journey of faith as you grow in love and trust in our God.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Today we hear about one of Jesus' most famous parables.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: It is one of the few stories that is told in all four of the Gospels, all four stories of Jesus' life and ministry.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Each one of these writers tells the story a little bit differently.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And as you listen today, listen for those things that surprise you, or a detail that might be familiar or unexpected.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: Often the story is called the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand people.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: But as you hear in this story, there were probably thousands more.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: Matthew says near the end that there were 5,000 men there, besides women and children.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: Only the men, I guess, were officially counted, but there were so many more women and children, in addition, eating fish and bread until they were full.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe it's better that we call this the miracle of the feeding of, I don't know, 12,000 people.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever the numbers are, we can trust that hungry people were fed.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And this is just what God does over and over again.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: God feeds hungry people.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: So let's listen to the story of how hungry people are fed from the 14th chapter of Matthew, beginning at the 13th verse.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Now, when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: When he went ashore, Jesus saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: Send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus said to them, They need not go away.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: You give them something to eat.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: They replied, We have nothing here, nothing but five loaves and two fish.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, Bring them here to me.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Then Jesus ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: 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, and all ate and were filled.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: They took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: This is the gospel of the Lord.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And now let's hear some more about this miracle of feeding.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Grace to you and peace, dear friends, from Christ Jesus, our Lord and our Savior.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: For those of us who drive automobiles, I think there are sort of two kinds of people.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: There are the people who fill up their tanks when it's about a quarter full still.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure that they never really get below maybe even an eighth of a tank.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: And then there are those of us who ride the car until the very last possible moment, filling up the tank when it is the little line is just below the empty line.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Two kinds of people in the world.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, there are those who drive electric cars who uh just smile at the rest of us needing to go to the gas station every week.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, there's a story goes that there's a guy who uh was among the ones who uh didn't go to the gas station until the last possible moment.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: And this time he just went a little bit too far.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: He was just blocks away from the gas station, and his car stopped.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: He put his car into neutral and just pushed his car a few blocks right into the gas station, filled up his tank, and he went inside, and the gas station attendant who had watched him go through all this said to him, Well, sir, um did you learn anything?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Did you learn anything from this experience?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: To which the guy said, Well, I learned I have a 15-gallon tank.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe not the lesson he could have learned.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I hope that uh most of us are capable of getting our car to the gas station when necessary.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: But most of us, many of us, I think, drive through our lives with our own internal tanks on empty.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's just the pace of life.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Perhaps it's long days caring for children or aging parents or sick partners.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's the demands of work or having multiple jobs just to pay the pills.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's just grief or worry or loneliness that lead to that empty feeling.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: It could just be the weight of all that's going on in the world.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: But we're not alone in this.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty sure that Jesus started our story today feeling pretty empty himself.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: You might have noticed that the first sentence of our reading today began when Jesus heard this.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: He went away to a deserted place.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: And perhaps you wondered, what did Jesus hear?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: What did he hear that caused him to need to retreat, to be alone and away?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what Jesus had just learned was that his dear friend, his cousin, the one we call Jan the Baptist, had just been beheaded.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: John was not just killed, but his head was served on a platter at a feast of Herod, a brutal and awful killing.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so heartbroken at the loss of his friend, surely worried that he might be the next one to be executed, Jesus takes a break, empty and grieving.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: He goes to his deserted place to the wilderness to be alone to pray.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: But Jesus is not the only empty one.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: We read that there was a whole crowds of others who also heard of John the Baptist's murder.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_02: And a whole crowd of people also heartbroken, lost.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: This one who baptized them, who taught them and inspired them, had been brutally executed.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so they too, in their emptiness, went to the wilderness to find Jesus.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: There were 5,000 men, plus women and children.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: So this thing we call the feeding of the 5,000 is more likely the feeding of 12,000, 13,000 maybe, a whole lot of empty hearts, soon empty bellies.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: All these people grieving and lost and worried spent the day together.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus cured their sick and comforted, they comforted each other.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to bet that by the time they were all sitting down on the grass, they were already feeling a little bit less empty just by being together.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: But then evening came.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's not like they could just, you know, order a pizza or call DoorDash or something.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: So these friends suggested Jesus send them out to go to nearby towns to find some food.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Those friends of Jesus were probably exhausted and empty.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: They just were ready for someone else to take care of the problem.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus said to them, Let you give them something to eat.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: When the disciples wanted the crowd to go away, Jesus drew them closer.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: To which they said, Jesus, we have nothing.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing, but five loaves and two fish.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: To which Jesus likely thought, Well, that's not nothing.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus took that nothing and looked up to heaven and blessed it and broke it and gave it away.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_02: And the hungry crowd was fed.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: That nothing was more than enough.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Those disciples, I think, had a pretty human response to the tremendous need that surrounded them.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: They wanted it to go away, to not be their problem.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it's not that the disciples didn't care about people.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: They were the ones who told Jesus that those people needed some food after all.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: They knew enough to care, to want to do something.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: They take into heart Jesus' teaching about compassion.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: But in the face of so much need, they felt too empty.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: They figured that they didn't have enough.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so those disciples said that we have nothing.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And yet they did have something.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: Five loaves, two fish.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: But in the face of that crowd, that great need, it was as good as nothing.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: But not to Jesus.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus can do a whole lot with nothing.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think we're in some ways like those disciples.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: We've come to know that following Jesus means responding to the needs of the people around us.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: We read scripture and see what Jesus does, and we know that by following him, we're called to feed hungry people, to give away what we have for the sake of the world, to advocate for the marginalized and welcome the stranger and the foreigner.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: The Bible tells us this over and over again.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: We know this is who we are supposed to be, but all too often the need just feels so big, and our own capacity just feels so small.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's like looking at a crowd of 12,000 people and having only two fish in your hand.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the forces of violence and injustice seem so enormous.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: What after all can we do?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: The sheer scope of the need leads us to paralysis or cynicism or apathy.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: After all, I have nothing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: I am nothing.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're empty.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: But if this feast on a deserted place tells us anything, it teaches us that the power of God plus people, trusting in that power equals a feast.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: We might say I have nothing, but we all have something.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: And together we can do incredible things.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Our tiny loaves of resources or courage or abilities can do incredible things.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: Together with God, we are more than nothing.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this is such good news for us for so many reasons.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the first is that God can do a lot with our nothing, with our seeming emptiness.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we might say, I have nothing.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: My life is so busy.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: I have no time.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe just one evening every once in a while, which is enough.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: To come together with others and make and share a meal down at Zion Lutheran Church for so all may eat.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: We might say I have nothing compared to these incredibly talented musicians, but I do like to sing, which is enough to jump into the cadre of singers and our mini choirs around here.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: We might say, I don't have much.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: I have very little to share.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: My recesses are so small.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: But I do have two cans of tuna, five sleeves of crackers, which added along with the groceries of others, can be just enough to feed thousands.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we say I have nothing, I am nothing, but I really care.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so when we come together and speak up about what matters, we become a chorus.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: When we give what we have to organizations that do incredible things, their capacity expands.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: When we add up our seemingly nothing together, it becomes a miracle of goodness, multiplies in ways that counter all that evil.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And those things that God has this way of taking our nothing and bringing about miracles of goodness for so many.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, here's the thing on that day so long ago, the people were fed, they were filled up with baskets full left over.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to think too that for those people, maybe for Jesus too, and those disciples, it was not just their empty bellies that were full, but also their empty and grieving hearts by being in community, by sharing, by being together.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: In some ways, that meal was a little bit like our own funeral lunches around here.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: A bunch of hungry and grieving people came together and they were filled up.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: At our funeral lunches here, people gather in the space for worship to commend their loved ones to God, and then they step out of these doors and turn down and fill their plates with ham sandwiches and potato salad and chocolate fluff.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: And their faces are tear-stained.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: But as they sit down and begin to eat and tell stories, they begin to laugh.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: They're filled up and healed by food and by memories by monster cookies.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: I remember one luncheon, a funeral luncheon many, many years ago, and there's a couple who are part of our funeral lunch serving team.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think Dick and his wife and I said how much it meant to their to these families that they were there to serve.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: And he got tears in his eyes, and he said, It's really my pleasure.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: I see how being together helps them.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: You can see in their faces that it matters.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I get filled up too just by being here.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: This is the crazy thing that happens when we show up for others, when we share what we have, when we give of ourselves, when we find ourselves being filled up and sharing, somehow our emptiness is smaller.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: We are nourished by the stuff that actually satisfies in loving others, we receive love.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: In giving, we receive.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: In pouring out, we are filled up.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_02: I own I honestly don't understand the physics of it all, but I've seen it.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: I've experienced it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And then there's this one more meal.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: One more feast that feeds and fills an empty heart.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you heard those words in the story today that echoed the words we say at this table every Sunday.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: How Jesus, when he was with that crowd, took those loaves of bread and blessed them and broke them and shared with his friends.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: He did that very same thing on the night before his death, feeding his friends, telling them that whenever they break bread together, he be with them, feeding them, forgiving them, filling them up.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so now we do the same thing.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_02: We come to this table and we'll receive the tiniest wafer, the littlest bit of wine.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: It might seem like nothing, and yet it contains a multitude of grace.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: We come to this table maybe with our own emptiness and grief, maybe with joys and gratitude, maybe with the weight of the world on our shoulders.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: But we take part in this feast and we remember how Jesus took bread and blessed it and broke it and shared it.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: And this time it is us who are fed.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: Reminded that in Christ we are not nothing.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: We have, we are more than enough.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: The hungry are fed, and we are filled with the abundant love of God.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Give us today our daily bread.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_02: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us, save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and forever.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Dear ones, God has this way of taking our nothing and turning it into more than enough.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: So trust that God's miraculous multiplication will take place in your life.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Through God's own generous goodness, God fills you with love until overflowing, so that you can live with generosity yourself.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: So now step into this day, trusting that you are loved and blessed by God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: We hope that in a good way you feel a part of that reach.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Tune in next Thursday for another edition of the St.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Paul Podcast.