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spent1003
Hors
d'Oeuvres
Text:
John 6:1-15
Date: Pentecost X
8/17/03 DELPHI PocketPC
Please excuse my French, but I came up with this sermon title before
the recent frustration on the part of Americans with all things
French. Anyway, it’s a phrase that has found it’s way into our everyday
conversations. (It’s just that I always have to look it up to remember
how it’s spelled.) Referring to appetizers served before a meal
the words mean, literally, “outside the main.” That phrase certainly
describes the challenge of today’s Gospel when the best the disciples
could come up with to feed the more than 5,000 people in the wilderness
was five barley loaves and two fish, hardly enough even for Hors
D’Oeuvres!
But you won’t find the answer to the real challenge of this text
from Betty Crocker, Emeril Lagasse or on www.foodnetwork.com
. For the real issue is, simply, the question, “who is Jesus?”
This is the fundamental question that must be asked and answered
by any who are seeking salvation from God’s condemnation of sin
and the disaster of death, temporal and eternal. But it is also
the constant question for those who may have been following him
for some time because the devil, the world and our flesh seek to
introduce new doubts and faith needs to be constantly fed and reassured
of the truth especially in the face of everything that seems to
speak against it.
The feeding of the five thousand is reported in all four Gospels
and in all of them this event asks the question of faith: who is
Jesus? Matthew wrote his Gospel primarily from the point of view
to teach people how to become a disciple of Jesus the Messiah and
Christ. We could have heard Mark’s account as it follows right where
we left off last week in his Gospel. But in the midst of the long,
green season of Sundays after Pentecost in the year of Mark, it
is St. John who supplements the year with five Sundays all from
the sixth chapter of his Gospel. John’s Gospel is different from
the rest for St. John was given a unique insight under the inspiration
by the Holy Spirit. In a unique and even mysterious way, everything
in John’s Gospel is laid out in and relates to the outline of his
prologue in the first chapter. There we read, “and from his fullness
we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” [John 1:15-17
(ESV)]. This is the concern of the beginning of the sixth chapter
of John, namely, Jesus is the fulfillment of the legacy of Moses
and yet Jesus is more than just another Moses.
Think of the history of God’s deliverance of his people through
Moses. There was the institution of the Passover as the preeminent
feast of the Jews. There was the crossing of the sea as the people
were being set free from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. There
was the mountain of God where, as we heard in today’s Old Testament
reading, Moses and the elders saw God and ate and drank with him.
There was the provision of manna-bread and meat in the wilderness.
Look! It’s all here in John 6.
The chapter begins with the crossing of the Sea of Galilee. St.
John tells us it was also called the Sea of Tiberias bringing to
mind now not the Egyptians but the Romans as the occupying, enslaving
force. As with Moses, so for Jesus “a large crowd was following
him” and he “went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with
his disciples.” Then John tells us “the Passover, the feast of the
Jews, was at hand,” another reminder of the days of Moses. Then,
of course, there was the miraculous feeding of the crowds in a wilderness
place calling to mind God’s provision in the days of Moses. That
the people understood and “got it” and were thinking of Moses in
all of this is shown in their reaction, saying, “This is indeed
the Prophet who is to come into the world!” For in Deuteronomy 18
Moses said, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like
me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen.”
For, “the Lord said to me, ‘I will raise up for them a prophet like
you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth,
and he shall speak to them all that I command him” [Deuteronomy
18:15, 17-18 (ESV)]. The people “got it,” all right, but not all
of it. For those who call themselves “Jews” to this day, but are
not the true Israel because of their lack of faith, and even Islam
at least call Jesus a “prophet.” But as Jesus called John the Baptist
“more than a prophet” (Matt. 11:9; Luke 7:26), so Jesus is more
than a prophet and more than Moses. He calls himself something greater
than the temple (Matt. 12:6), greater than Jonah and Solomon (Matt.
12:41-42), greater than the patriarch Jacob (John 4:12), and greater
than “he who is in the world,” the devil (1 John 4:4).
Jesus is the fulfillment of the legacy of Moses and yet Jesus is
more than just another Moses. “For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” What’s the difference?
The difference is in the proper distinction between Law and Gospel.
His disciples needed to learn this. So Jesus tested them. Seeing
the great crowd of people, Jesus threw Philip a hanging curve ball,
a rhetorical question, “From where shall we buy loaves of bread
in order that the people might eat?” maybe expecting a shrug of
the shoulders and a knowing grin and a response like, “H’yeah! No
way! Even a whole day’s wage wouldn’t buy enough bread for each
of them to get even a little!” But, on second thought, it was a
real problem, real enough for Andrew to put forth the embarrassingly
silly idea that a boy with five barley loaves and two fish could
ever be a part of the solution.
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