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Our gospel today is a two-parter: Jesus feeding the five thousand, and Jesus walking on the water. The latter is told in three of the gospels, all except Luke. The miraculous feeding is told in all four. So these stories are important to the collective memory of the early church. They’re big stories, with big meaning. I’ll share a way I’ve seen this meaning turn up in my life, and I’ll bet you’ll be able to see it in your own as well.
But first, the stories. Immediately before the beginning of today’s gospel, Jesus had been in Jerusalem, where he’d really let the religious leaders have it. Not only did he put himself on a level with God, not only did he talk about his intimate relationship with God, but he called their own relationship with God into question: “You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you…” (5:38); “I know that you do not have the love of God in you” (5:42). So things are heating up in Judea.
Consequently, we now find ourselves back in Galilee, at the “Sea of Galilee,” AKA the “Sea of Tiberias.” According to the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, Tiberias was built in 18 CE by Herod Antipas on the site of an ancient necropolis (“city of the dead”). This was contrary to Jewish law, in which contact with the dead made one ritually unclean. So the whole city was unclean, along with everyone who lived in it. But it was on a major trade route, which not only appealed to wealthy Gentiles but also offered opportunity to poor Jews.
So part of the crowd who were fed by Jesus that day were people who’d had to trade their standing in the Jewish community for economic security. By being chronically unclean and therefore unable to participate in synagogue worship and other things basic to Jewish life, they were pushed outside Jewish society. Like lepers, or the woman with the twelve year hemorrhage, their situation made them unclean, almost by definition, and forced them out. And that separation from the collective life of God’s people had to create a hunger within them–a hunger that probably often felt like resentment. It would have been a hunger that included but went well beyond the physical and even spiritual hunger of others in the crowd who’ve been listening to Jesus all day without a lunch break.
So in many ways, this is a hungry crowd, a hangry crowd, a crowd of Galilean pilgrims who are looking to Jesus with hope. They’re gathered, they’re excited. There are 5,000 men in this crowd (the Greek specifies “men,” so also women and children), who know about the signs he’s been performing, and who may well know that he’s being opposed by the authorities in Judea. These people all hate Rome, but the Galileans from Tiberias may be almost as frustrated with Jerusalem as they are with Rome, because the Jerusalem authorities are in charge of the system that excludes them.
Looked at this way, these 5,000 men start to look like the beginnings of a guerilla army. And when Jesus produces a meal for them all out of next-to-nothing, they see in him a leader who can conjure up unlimited provisions for an army. A meal so abundant that there are twelve baskets of leftovers. Twelve. Just as with the twelve apostles, this is messianic imagery, as one of the tasks of the Messiah in restoring the kingdom was to gather the twelve tribes of Israel. And the crowd, at least some of them, must have counted those baskets. And wondered.
So it’s not exactly surprising that they were ready to “take him by force to make him king.” And Jesus, seeing that they’ve gone from a crowd to a mob, withdraws. He escapes. Being the king they want is not on his agenda. The author of this gospel will remind us of that when Jesus appears before Pilate and says, “My kingdom is not from this world.” If it were, my followers would be fighting. But I am not that kind of king.
Once the pilgrims have become a mob, there’s nothing much Jesus can do with them. So the next part of the story focuses on the disciples. And in this part we see more of the evangelist’s skilled use of symbols.
The disciples are in a boat. As Lex pointed out a couple weeks ago, this is an ancient symbol representing the church. It’s reflected in our language (“nave”) and our architecture (the ceiling: like a hull). We’re in a boat, they were in a boat–the church is a boat. So they’re in this boat, and it’s dark. The contrast between light and darkness is a major theme in this gospel: we heard it first in the prologue (“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”). And we also hear it when Judas leaves the Last Supper to betray Jesus, Satan having entered into him. The author comments, “And it was night.”
Not only is it dark, but they’re at sea, which, for ancient Jews, was not their happy place. The sea represented chaos and danger: remember the beginning of Genesis? “Darkness was on the face of the deep.” God will bring order and beauty out of that chaos, but the chaos itself is a fearful thing.
So they’re in this boat, far from shore, and it’s dark, and a storm comes up. And the essential thing is: Jesus is not with them. The disciples are separated from him–not generally a good thing. They’re separated, and they’re in danger. By the time this gospel was written, probably late in the 1st c., the church would have been experiencing hardship and persecution. So this kind of scene would’ve been something they could symbolically relate to.
Back to the boat. Imagine what the disciples must have been feeling. We’ve found the Messiah! We’re going to help him usher in the kingdom! Only now we’re in this storm, and we’re gonna drown. We’re not going to be among Israel’s great heroes, because we’re going to die an utterly banal death on this stupid lake. Also, we’re terrified.
And then they see a figure approaching the boat, and they’re even more terrified. Until Jesus calls out, “It is I; don’t be afraid!” “It is I,” not “It’s me,” because of course the Son of God would speak correct English. In Greek, it’s Ego eimi, literally, “I AM,” the sacred Name of God first given to Moses, and Jesus uses it all through this gospel. So this is the promised Emmanuel, “God with us.” The disciples aren’t alone out there after all. “And immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.”
So in both parts of today’s gospel, the hungry crowd and the storm on the lake, the disciples have big problems that they cannot solve themselves. And Jesus, in each case, provides a solution that is totally unexpected.
But isn’t that how it often works? I burned out of two careers: nursing first, and then being an academic. Turns out I’m not very good at choosing careers. The difference between the two was that I got out of nursing fairly quickly, but I slogged away at teaching sociology for thirty years. I’m proud to say that I never phoned it in; I always gave it my very best. But I’d pray and pray: “Come on God, there must be something else I can do.” But it turns out that a PhD in sociology makes you kind of like a single celled organism: all you really know how to do is eat and reproduce yourself.
Jesus didn’t turn up with a different job for me, or a winning lottery ticket. He let me stay out there on the water. But the way he was with me there! The way he changed my heart, and the things I learned, I wouldn’t trade for anything.
And I wonder if you’ve found something like this in your own life. This week I would challenge you to think about the hard places in your life: the hungry places, the stormy places. And look for how God has shown up for you in them, maybe in ways you didn’t expect. Maybe you weren’t given what you were hoping for, but were you given God’s presence? Did you take Jesus into your boat? Looking back on those storms, can you see God’s love at work in your life? Seen or unseen, expected or unexpected, Jesus will always, always, be there. Watch for him.