A Spirit of Generosity

Text: Isaiah 55:1-5, Matthew 14:13-21

Focus: generosity

Function: to help people see the nature of Christianity is generosity

Isaiah 55:

¹Hear, everyone who thirsts;
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without price.
²Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread
    and your earnings for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
    and delight yourselves in rich food.
³Incline your ear, and come to me;
    listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
    my steadfast, sure love for David.
⁴See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
    a leader and commander for the peoples.
⁵Now you shall call nations that you do not know,
    and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has glorified you.

Matthew 14:

¹³Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. ¹⁵When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ¹⁶Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” ¹⁷They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” ¹⁸And he said, “Bring them here to me.” ¹⁹Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. 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. ²⁰And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. ²¹And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

 

This is a powerful story, and I love the fact that the authors of the Lectionary include the OT reading from the book of Isaiah about the generosity that would signal the new kingdom.

There is a lot to unpack in this miracle. This miracle appears in all four gospels. Mark says something about the imagery of the miracle that changes the dynamic of what it means to be in the Kingdom of God.

Mark says that Jesus sets the crowd down in groups of 100’s and 50”s. The symbol here was military formation.

But instead of calling them into battle, like many of them expected, he feeds them and fulfills the prophecy in Isaiah 55 about how the Kingdom of God is full of mercy and generosity to everyone.

However, I think the most salient phrase from the morning’s text is in verse 16 where Jesus says “you feed them.”

They have an obvious response that they are not equipped to feed such a large crowd and Jesus responds with, “Use what you have.”

And their resources are limited, but then a miracle happens and God transforms they small amount into a mighty amount.

All of my life I have understood this miracle in that fashion. God supplies the abundance when we are willing to give what we have.

Again, though, this is about generosity. God is telling them to expend all of their resources in the moment. Do we trust God that much?

One of the biggest reasons that people are not generous is because they are afraid that there will not be enough for them. Well, maybe that fear is also what leads to greed.

And it reminds me of the Lord’s prayer and our daily commitment to trusting God for the bread we need today. It is a statement of faith that we will rest in God’s provision.

The first Church, as soon as they got saved, individually, rich and poor alike, gave all their resources to the church and lived communally so that they excess that they generated could be used in outreach toward the poor.

They lived by faith.

Let me interject our OT reading at this point. Everyone who is thirsty gets a free drink and a free meal without money and without cost. And it isn’t rice and beans, but the choicest of food. Of course, this is a metaphor for God’s saving mercy, but the whole point of it is generosity.

And this next statement is important. Be generous without judgment to whether or not they need it or deserve it. The point of the song that Isaiah is singing is that God’s grace is free and generous to all.

Jesus didn’t feed the crowd because they deserved it, he fed them because they were hungry.

Although they didn’t have much, Jesus was asking them to give it all and trust him to provide for their future.

That isn’t easy. It isn’t something we just choose to do. This learning to rest in God comes by faith. We know that trials come, and they teach us to rest in the provision of God. I was deep in prayer the day I heard that they were searching for Leukemia in my son and I believe that in my anguish I heard the voice of the Lord speak to me these words from scripture: “I will provide. I am Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides.”

I felt a deep peace come over me.

And then I thought of where that scripture came from, it was Abraham on the mountain entrusting the life of his son to God and God providing his needs.

In today’s story, the apostles have already left everything behind to follow Jesus and Jesus is telling them to let go of it all and rest in him.

Rest in Christ. Whether we live or die, we belong to Christ and nothing can separate us from the love of God.

Matthew and Mark’s gospels also tell of the feeding of the 4,000 and the telling of that part of the miracle is part of the Kingdom of God being a welcoming place story and will explain perhaps the significance of the 12 baskets left over.

When Jesus fed the crowd of 4,000, there were 7 baskets left over. Now, this was not a Jewish crowd, it was predominantly a Gentile crowd in Syro-Phonecia.

There were 12 tribes of Israel. And there were 7 Gentile nations in Canaan that were displaced by the Jews.

12 baskets represents Israel in the Kingdom of God and 7 baskets represents the gentiles in the Kingdom of God.

It is a welcome place for everyone.

In the Isaiah passage, I often wondered if the food “bought” for no price, who paid for it?

Somebody raised the crops, tended the flocks, butchered the cow, sauteed the mushrooms and all of those people are also included in the Kingdom of God. As a matter of fact, it is the simpler, unpretentious people who make up the kingdom of God.

Many of the rich are afraid of losing the power and security that they think they money brings them and refuse to rest in God’s promise to provide for them. And they hoard their wealth while others are starving. And Jesus condemned them for it in Matthew 25.

So, who paid for it? I don’t’ believe that the workers were slaves.

We read the conversion story of the Church in the book of Acts and how the rich in their group, who got converted paid for it. They trusted God for the future and gave up their greed.

I certainly do not want to shame anyone in to giving away anything. Paul says that everything we do must be in love. And that love is a result of our communion with the Holy Spirit in prayer, study and Christian action or service toward others.

Jesus’s answer, again from the salient verse, verse 16 is “they need not go away” is to the disciples request that Jesus get rid of the mob.

Jesus was moved with compassion for the mob, we read elsewhere in Matthew 9:36.

In this miracle, Jesus wants to share a meal with them in love, communion and fellowship.

I reminds me that where ever two or three of us are gathered together, Christ is in our midst.

Jesus was having a time of community with the crowd and was not ready to part with their company. It shows us his love and compassion and yet this happens right after Jesus hears the news that his Childhood friend, John the Baptist has just been beheaded and Jesus has gone away to be alone. The crowd followed him and instead of serving himself, he served them and let their community with him perhaps be a healing force. Just like it is here with us.