The Broken Pieces

Broken Bread by James Johnson.

August 3, 2014

Matthew 14:13-21

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.

Sermon:  “The Broken Pieces”

Where is it you go, when you need to get away from it all?  You know, when you’re feeling a bit broken up inside, or when the brokenness of the world seems like too much to bear?  When you see the news coming out of Palestine and Israel, when a dear friend feels funny and gets checked out and leaves having heard that dreaded word: cancer.  When one day bleeds into the next, with no sign of things getting better.  Where do you go?

We all have a place.  Mine is where I had my family reunion last weekend: Mo Ranch, a Presbyterian Camp sprawled across the hill country of Texas, where the Guadalupe River springs up from underground and cliff faces tower above you while stars shoot overhead and the Milky Way looks like you could just reach up and touch it.  Whatever level of peace (or lack of it) I’m feeling in my life, there is always peace to be found in that place.  Always. 

If I can’t get to Mo Ranch, anywhere with trees and sunlight is a good replacement.  I’m especially fond of a particular spot in my yard, where the grass is soft and the evening sun shines like gold through the pine forest between my house and Earl and Juanita’s.  Perhaps you’ve seen me there as you drive by.  We all need a place to find peace.  If a place of solitude and soul-tending isn’t springing to mind for you, let me assure you, you need a place like that.  So please, find it.

Jesus needed a place like that.  He had several, actually.  When life became overwhelming, when the celebrity status of a healer became more burden than blessing, when the crushing power of the State and religious elite left him feeling embattled on every side, Jesus went to a quiet place. 

Our text from Matthew this morning begins with such a place.  The lectionary reading, which I generally follow each Sunday, simply begins cryptically with, “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.”  What was “this?”  What news made Jesus immediately want to withdraw from the world?

Tragic news, actually.  John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod, which is horrific enough.  The fact that it was to fulfill the birthday wish of a pretty girl makes it even more senseless.  Do you know who it was who baptized you?  Can you picture that person?  Now imagine that they not only died, but that they died in a violent and humiliating way.  How would you feel?  That is how Jesus was feeling that day.  John baptized Jesus, began his ministry in waters of grace.  And now that powerful start was gone.  

All that was left was a weary, broken Messiah, and crowds hungry for hope and healing pressing in on every side.

So he went away to his quiet place to find some peace.  It didn’t work.  I don’t know if a fish on that presumed island went and announced his presence to the nearest village or what, but somehow, word got out.  The crowds found him.  And his quiet place became like the circus that was Jesus’ everyday life.  So he went ashore to where the largest of the crowd was gathered and did what he did.  

He began to heal and teach them. 

The disciples showed up a bit later, and like good Presbyterian elders, noticed that this location was not ideal for such a gathering.  “It’s too deserted here!” they said.  “And people are surely getting hungry.  Let’s have a little recess for supper and continue with this lesson tomorrow.”

But Jesus knew, better than any, that sometimes the kingdom of God needs to come when it needs to come.  Some lessons can’t wait until you’re whole or your tummy is full to be taught or learned.  Life is short: John’s horrific death reminded Jesus of that.  There was no time to waste.

Jesus summed up the entirety of his work on earth in the next couple of sentences: “They don’t need to be sent away.  You give them something to eat.”  That sent these sensible disciples into a tailspin.  They began to hurriedly form a fellowship committee and decide how they could possibly pull off such a feat.  “Two fish, five loaves!  That’s it, Jesus!  There’s no way we can feed these people with that.  And we don’t even have any sweet tea!”

You see the disciples were operating in the way we human beings often operate in life: from an assumption of scarcity.  There’s not enough food to go around, so we better stockpile it or overfill our plates, so we and our families are provided for.  There’s not enough compassion to go around, so we better only give it away when it’s really deserved.  There’s not enough grace to go around, so we better go ahead and seek retaliation and leave the forgiving to God.  There’s only five loaves and two fish, so we might as well not even try to feed anyone.

But Jesus operated from a different reality, and that reality was the kingdom of God.  And the kingdom of God always, always operates from a place of abundance, no matter how ridiculous that abundance may seem.  In the kingdom of God, a Savior broken by grief for his friend can still teach people something powerful.  In the kingdom of God, when you take bread, bless it and break it, it becomes not just your meal, but a meal meant for the masses.  The blessing in the kingdom of God, you see, is in the brokenness.

A broken world in need of hope.  A broken Messiah in need of solitude.  Broken bread in need of sharing.  Broken people in need of healing and sustenance.  The kingdom of God wastes nothing: especially not the broken pieces, which is perhaps why those broken pieces of bread were gathered into baskets, after well over 5,000 people were fed to the brim. 

I don’t know what they did with those broken pieces, but I feel certain they also played their role in this miracle.  Perhaps a little wandering bird nibbled on those holy crumbs.  Perhaps a few people who didn’t know where tomorrow’s meal was coming from stuffed some in their pockets as a promise of being filled once more. 

You don’t need me to tell you that we live in a world of brokenness.  This is why we seek places of escape and solitude, that we might find the tools to bear such fractured living.  But let us never forget that it is the broken pieces that become nibbles of God’s kingdom of abundance.  Let us never forget that the moments of brokenness are still moments where God can use us to share good news.  Let us never forget that God wastes nothing, no matter how broken. 

Though the kingdoms of this world rage against one another and call us to hate and hoard, we operate from a different kingdom, one of abundance and healing.  Though our society demands perfection from us, saying that we can never have enough money or be beautiful enough, we confess our brokenness honestly, knowing that by God’s grace, our broken pieces fit together into a beautiful mosaic of hope and peace.  Though our lives call us to do more and more and respond to times of trial by seizing control and raising our voice, God calls us to moments of prayerful solitude in a quiet place. 

If you are feeling broken today, that’s okay.  If you see the world to be a broken place today, that’s because it is.  But remember, we place our trust in a God who used brokenness to bless multitudes, and still does.  The broken pieces matter.  It all matters in the kingdom of God.  And there’s always more than enough to go around until, with each crumb, we taste the peace of God, not just for us, but for this entire broken world.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.