Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Corey this morning.
It is lovely to have you here this morning.
I'm gonna try to. The space is gonna be used for
both. Here we go.
Welcome again. That's lovely to have you here.
If you don't know who I am, my name is Lindsey Sisma.
I am a member here at court, right.
I get the privilege of teaching on occasion.
I am married to someone on the pastoral staff guy just leading
worship and it is as always a pleasure to be here with you
this morning and just to dig into the word of God together.
So we have been walking through the book of Luke.
If you've been around for many months, this is what it's been
happening. We've been looking through Luke
section by section, really digging into the gospel of Luke
and this word gospel, it means good news.
The Greek word is you on galleon and before it was really kind of
a Christian word or associated with Jesus.
Yuan Galian just meant a royal proclamation or an imperial
announcement, and Luke and really all of the gospel writers
are really kind of leaning into that definition.
They are proclaiming a good news announcement that the Kingdom of
God is here and that it is breaking through in the person
of Jesus and Luke by sharing the life and the teaching and the
ministry of Jesus. What he's trying to do is paint
a picture of what the Kingdom of God looks like with Jesus as
king, but also how those who follow after Jesus, those who
see themselves as citizens of the kingdoms, disciples of
Jesus, how they should live in light of the Kingdom.
And I'm excited to dig in this morning because Today's Passages
is actually one of the most famous stories that is shared
throughout the gospels. It is one of Jesus's most
familiar miracles. And yet I think this passage
gives us a really cool glimpse. I think in my opinion, it shows
a really full and yet really challenging picture of what the
Kingdom of God looks like. And if you sit consider yourself
a follower of Jesus here, what it means to live in light of
this Kingdom. So we are gonna dig right into
our text. We are in Luke 9.
If you have a Bible with you, you can turn to Luke 9.
You can of course, welcome to use smartphone.
There are Bibles at the back. If you like the physical Bible,
you're always welcome to grab one.
But here we are in Luke 9 versus 10 to 17 when the apostles
returned. I'll stop right there.
I know 3 words in. Don't worry, I won't be doing
this the whole passage. But when the disciples, the
apostles returned, what has happened is if you weren't last
week, Jesus commissioned and gave authority to the disciples
to go out and to preach the Kingdom of God, to heal those
that they came in contact with and that and to do ministry in
Jesus's name. So they have done that and now
they are returning. That's where we are right now.
So when the disciples returned, they reported it to Jesus what
they had done. Then he took them with him and
they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida.
But the crowds learned about it and followed him.
He welcomed them and spoke to them about the Kingdom of God
and he healed those who needed healing.
Late in the afternoon the 12 came to him and said send the
crowd away so they can get go to the surrounding villages and
countryside and find food and lodging because we are in a
remote place here. He replied will you give them
something to eat? They answered we have only 5
loaves of bread and two fish unless we go and buy food for
all of this crowd. About 5000 men were there, but
he said to the disciples have them sit down in groups of about
50 each. The disciples did so and
everyone sat down, taking the five loaves and two fish and
looking up to the heaven. He gave thanks and broke them.
Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the
people. They all ate and were satisfied,
and the disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces that
were left over. This is the word of the Lord.
So like I said, this is one of Jesus's, let's call it iconic
miracles that are ever performed.
It's one of the few stories that appears in all four of the
gospels, and the details between those gospels line up pretty
close, remarkably closely actually.
It is the miraculous feeding of a massive crowd.
And at its core, this is a story of supernatural abundance, mass
multiplication of food. But it also shows Jesus concerns
for meeting people's basic human needs, for caring for people.
And I also think it's an invitation for the disciples to
trust in what Jesus is doing. And I love to imagine myself
inside the story of scripture. I love reading the Bible and
picturing how I would react, what this would look like if I
was there. And part of me just kind of
wants to sit in the picture of the mechanics of what happened.
Like is this Mary Poppins bottomless carpet bag where food
just keeps coming out of it? Is it dropped from heaven in one
massive load? I mean you really have to ask
yourself, my science brain goes, how does this work with the law
of the conservation of mass? Anyone there with me?
I love thinking about that. But here is the truth we have to
confront today. The how is never explained and
the gospel writers don't ever seem interested in explaining
it, which tells me that the how is not really the main point.
So before we go any further, I want to kind of establish 2
truths that are going to kind of ground what we do today.
First is that with God and with Jesus, the world does not have
to work the way it normally does.
I mean this in the very physical that he can break through the
law of conservation of mass. And I mean this metaphorically
as well. They show us a different way to
live and to be one that is different from this world.
The second thing is that I believe this, this miracle is a
living picture of what the Kingdom of God looks like in
action. The Kingdom operates by a
completely different set of rules and values and priorities.
So we are not going to focus on the how this morning.
We are going to focus on The Who and the what and maybe a little
bit of the So what. And while there are many ways
that we could explore the text this morning, today I want to
look at 5 words that are shared in this passage. 5 words that
when we put them together, I believe they paint a vivid
picture of Jesus, of who he is and what his Kingdom looks like.
These 5 words are going to be our window to see what the
Kingdom of God looks like as it breaks through the person of
Jesus Christ. So the first word that I want to
look at is the word welcome. In verse 17 it says he welcomed
them and he spoke to them about the Kingdom of God and he healed
those who needed healing. The word here does not mean
polite, a polite nod or a reluctant social courtesy.
It means to gladly receive someone or in this case lots of
someones. It's to embrace their presence,
to be present with them and to give them access freely and
joyfully. Remember the context.
Jesus and the disciples have just been out doing ministry.
They've just returned. They might be tired.
They have gone kind of out of their way to be in a remote
place, to meet together, potentially to rest.
But the crowd finds them. They wanted more of Jesus.
And the crowd in some way interrupts this moment they are
trying to share together. It reminds me of when Annabelle
spoke about the woman with the chronic bleeding a few weeks
ago. How this healing, this divine
moment, this change in her life started with an interruption.
She reached out and she touched Jesus as he was on his way to
perform another miracle. And this interruption became a
turning point in her life. It became this sacred moment of
miracle. And Jesus welcomed that
interruption for her. And I think we see something
similar with this crowd. They interrupt, but instead of
being annoyed, instead of sending them away, which he
could have done, Jesus welcomes them.
He embraces them. He just sees their desire for
him and he meets it. He teaches them and he heals
them. This welcome culminates in one
of that cultures most hospitable acts, the sharing of a meal
together. The disciples want to send the
people away for food. And to be clear, I don't think
the disciples are being mean in this.
I think they genuinely are concerned that this crowd is
hungry and that they are in a remote place.
And yet, even in this remote place, Jesus makes sure that
they are fed, that they have their needs met, that they eat
together. This is the beauty of Jesus
welcome. And I think this is the first
snapshot of the Kingdom in this story.
It is a Kingdom of welcome. It's gates, swords, doors.
However you envision it, they are open.
It is a place of hospitality, not hostility, not judgment, not
dismissiveness. It is a Kingdom of open arms,
not a proverbial closed door. Think about the ministry of
Jesus. He welcomes children to him when
the disciples want to shoe them away.
He welcomes and eats with sinners and tax tax collectors
that the religious leaders would reject.
He sees any ministers to the marginal, marginalized and the
disenfranchised. He welcomes the sick, the weary,
the spiritually lost, and those that are said to be unclean.
And he does not tolerate these people.
He opens himself up to them gladly.
The Kingdom is for them. The Kingdom is a place of
welcome. The second word I want to look
at is the word give. It shows up twice in this
passage in different forms. If you happen to be sitting
there reading the Greek, as I know so many of you are this
morning, it shows up in two different ways, but I promise
it's the same root word behind those two words.
It shows up first in verse 13 where Jesus turns to his
disciples and say, well, you give them something to eat.
Then later in verse 16, after he blesses the food, after he
breaks the food, Luke writes that he, Jesus, gives the food
back to the disciples to distribute to the people. 2
forms of the same word. 1 is a command, an instruction.
The other is an action. Now just imagine this moment.
The disciples have already pointed out what they see as an
issue. Thousands of thousands of people
who have been sitting here for a while.
They are likely hungry. They are also in a remote place.
There's not really any nearby towns, at least not ones that
can meet their needs. There's no pop up fruit stands,
no food trucks, no plan. I sympathize with the disciples.
I love a good plan. The disciples see their own
supplies as meager. All they can see is the
impossibility of this situation. And Jesus looks straight at them
and says, well, you give them something to eat.
I can almost feel the calculation happening in their
head. Like for me, I'm I get like
anxious for them. I'm actually anxious for them in
this moment because they are doing the math in their head.
And five loaves and two fishes equals not enough.
But it's so interesting, isn't it?
Because these are the same disciples that just returned
from healing the sick and performing miracles and
proclaiming the Kingdom of God. They have been living in the
miraculous. They have been given the
authority and the commissioning of Jesus.
And yet when they're confronted with this crowd, they cannot see
past their own scarcity. They feel the weight of the
impossibility. Again, I do not say this as a
judgment. I completely sympathize with
them, but I also love what we see them do, even in the
uncertainty. They obey.
They hand over what little they have.
They organize the people into groups like they've been asked
to do. They take that step into
participation even without understanding how this is going
to possibly work. And then Jesus takes what is
given to him by the disciples. Jesus blesses it.
He breaks it. And here's the beautiful part,
He gives it back to the disciples.
They are the ones who are going to distribute the food.
And what's really interesting is in verse 16, this second give,
it actually is the word gave. He gave it back to the Sipples.
It's written in what's called the imperfect tense.
What that means is that this doesn't actually mean it's a one
time handoff. It's continuous.
The image here is of Jesus giving and giving and giving and
giving. There is this continuous
outpouring coming from him when the disciples.
What the disciples gave to Jesus is given back to them in an ever
increasing continuous measure. The little that they have
surrendered to Jesus is more than enough when it is in His
hands. That is the picture of the
Kingdom on one side. The disciples are invited into
participation to give what they have, even when it feels
insignificant to give what they have, even with the belief that
it is not going to be good enough.
They are invited in this moment to share what they have so that
it can be shared with others through the act of giving.
And on the other hand, you have Jesus.
He is this continuous source. He is multiplying, sustaining.
He is expanding what has been placed into His hands and He is
giving it back to the disciples to use to bless others.
We live in a world where giving is often seen as a loss.
We're it's approach that all of you give, you're losing
something. But in God's economy, the giving
is that you are joining in with His overflow of abundance.
You get to become an active part of what God is doing in this
world. Jesus doesn't command his
disciples to give so that they are deprived.
The goal is not to deprive them. The goal is to draw them into
the work that He is doing. Psalm 24 says that the earth is
yours and everything in it. We so often think that what's in
the disciples hands in this story was first theirs, but
really it was first Gods and then it was in the disciples
hands to steward. They give it to Jesus.
Jesus multiplies it, expands it, and then puts it back into the
hands of the disciples so that they can go and share and give
and bless those that are there with them.
The next word I want to look at is the word everyone.
In verse 15, it says Jesus gets the disciples to organize the
crowd to sit down in smaller groups and it says that everyone
sat down. In verse 17, Luke tells us that
they all ate. Again, all is the sense of
everyone. It's not some, it's not most,
it's everyone. There is a togetherness in this
passage that I don't want us to miss.
If you opened your Bibles or maybe even depending on what
what app you're using to read the Bible, the story is
traditionally called the Feeding of the Five 1000.
That's title in my Bible. I use Bible Gateway to copy and
paste this some verses into my sermon.
It is also called the Feeding of the 5000 at Bible Gateway NIV
version. You can look it up after if
you're concerned about that. Some more modern translations
have have changed this to the feeding of the multitudes, but
we usually stick with the feeding of the 5000.
There's a problem with that. 5000 only includes the men that
were there. It even says that in the
passage. OK, that's, that's not where
we're going. Calm down.
That was my husband, by the way. I know that this number only
counted men. The women and children are not
included in that tally. And most scholars agree that
women and children would have been present, likely in larger
measure. That means that there is
probably there could have been 10,015 thousand, 20,000 people
as part of this miracle, this miracle of abundance, what Jesus
does here, it's actually so much greater than we sometimes think
because of how many everyone actually includes, because it's
not just 5000. And I'm not saying this to be
critical of Luke, and I'm not saying this to make an angry
statement about the ancient world.
That is how the culture recorded numbers.
That was the cultures general perception of women and children
that they could be overlooked, literally not counted or seen as
insignificant. But Luke also shares a powerful
observation because when the bread and the fish are passed
out, it says that everyone eats, all are fed, all are satisfied,
even those that society didn't count.
Jesus welcomed them. He saw them, he saw all of them,
he preached to all of them. He healed all of them or those
that he healed in that crowd and he met all of their needs in
that moment. That is the beauty of this
moment is that the Kingdom of God is not just for the
powerful, for the the visible, or for those who qualify, the
ones that history might remember.
In fact, the Kingdom has a bent towards the overlooked, the
discounted, the uncounted. Jesus shatters throughout his
ministry. He shatters insider outsider
lines. Everyone was at the same table
with him or in this place in the same remote place.
He loved everyone, especially those that the world tends to
ignore. In fact, if you notice something
really interesting about this passage, this is a slight aside,
I will admit, but Jesus has them sit in smaller groups of about
50 people. Now there is an entire
numerological component to this passage which we are not going
to get into, but you can research that.
It's interesting. But 50 is an interesting number
that Jesus chose one because 50 has ties to the concept of
Jubilee. We've talked about that earlier
in this series. It is God's, it's the kind of
the Super Sabbath, it's the 50th year.
It is a Super Sabbath, a year long Sabbath where God's promise
of freedom and provision for all of His people in the wilderness.
When Moses in the wilderness with the Israelites, he also
divided them into smaller groups and one of those sizes was of
about 50. And that was to ensure that
people's needs were met and that people were well cared for.
I don't think that number is random.
It is within the context of community, these smaller
communities, that the illusion of scarcity that we talked about
earlier is completely broken and where the reality of abundance
unfolds when we sit together, when we share together what God
provides in this image of togetherness, it is an image of
everyone, of everyone being welcome in the Kingdom.
Next word I want to look at is the word satisfied.
And verse 17, it says they all ate and were satisfied.
The Greek word here means just what the English suggests.
It means their physical hunger was filled, their need was met.
But it goes deeper than that as well, because to be satisfied
means to be filled to the point of contentment, to having a need
meant so that there is no sense of lack.
This is a miracle of abundance. Keep reading, we're going to see
it. Soon there was too much food.
There were 12 baskets of leftovers, and yet Luke doesn't
say, well, they all gorged themselves.
They all hoarded the extra. Most took some now, but they
also snuck some in their backpacks for later.
The word here is satisfied. It's not indulgence and it's not
excess, even though there is abundance.
In fact, the point of God's abundance is that there be
enough, even the appearance of more than enough, but that
enough is not actually really used with the crowd that is
there the enough. The abundance means that
everyone there was full and complete in that moment.
It is a picture of provision that says that God meets the
needs of today without there being any anxiety for tomorrow.
It is very much aligned with the passage of when Jesus is
teaching his disciples how to pray and he says give us this
day. Our daily breads give us enough
for today. But there's also another layer
here because Luke, as we have noted, it says that they are in
a remote place. But the Greek word here is
actually better translated to the word wilderness.
Any Jewish listener, and many Gentile listeners who are
familiar with the story are immediately going to think back
to Moses in the wilderness and God providing manna and quail
for his people. God provided manna from heaven,
but the people were told to gather only enough for what they
needed in a day. If they tried to hoard it, take
more than they needed, save it, it would spoil.
It was a lesson in trust that God would provide enough to fill
their needs. The wilderness in the Bible is
generally understood to be a place of testing, a place where
scarcity feels very real, but where God invites his people to
discover. Underneath the lack they see is
the reality of God's provision and abundance.
And that's exactly what happens here.
The disciples look at their five loaves and their two fish and
they say that it's not enough, but they hand it to Jesus and he
turns it into abundance. And not just an abundance in
general, but an abundance that could be shared with everyone so
that everyone had enough and was satisfied to the point of
contentment. And something that I love about
how Luke writes this is that he writes it in the passive voice.
He says they were satisfied. The action happened to them.
In this sentence, the action didn't happen from anything that
they brought or anything that they did.
They are satisfied because of what Jesus provided, because of
what Jesus did. And here is where the Kingdom of
God comes into focus. And this Kingdom abundance is
real, but its purpose isn't indulgence or hoarding or
stockpiling. Abundance is given so that needs
are met. Abundance is given so that we
can understand and learn the value of contentedness, of
satisfaction. And it sounds easy, but that is
a very hard lesson to learn in this world that always says you
need to be saving, striving, and gathering more for your
security. The lesson here is learning to
trust that God will provide. That is what the Kingdom looks
like. It is a place where the
abundance of God meets our hunger and our longing and our
fear of not enough. And if we let it, it will fill
us completely. It will teach us to live in the
freedom of being satisfied. It will teach us the
contentedness of enough that the excess is not necessarily For
me, the last word I want to look at is the word broken.
And that word shows up again twice in this story.
It says he gave thanks. Jesus gave thanks and he broke
the loaves and the fishes. And then at the end in verse 17,
when the disciples gathered up what was left over, it says that
the broken pieces were left over.
So he gathered the they gathered the broken pieces.
Usually we think of broken as a negative word.
Broken means something needs to be thrown out or useless or it
needs to be discarded in some way.
But here brokenness is directly tied to the abundance in both
places were broken in brokenness, as mentioned, It's
either mentioned before the miracle or directly after it.
This idea of brokenness and abundance and multiplication are
directly connected in this passage in verse 15, when Jesus
breaks the bread, that's an unlocking moment.
Again, breaking bread is an act of hospitality.
It's an act of welcome. It can be an act of covenant.
To break bread with someone is to invite them into a
relationship. But practically speaking as
well, the bread in the story had to be broken before it could be
shared. The act of blessing and breaking
is intrinsically connected to the miracle of provision and
abundance. Without breaking, that abundance
is not shared. It doesn't reach everyone and
then at the end of the story, after everyone is eaten hadn't
been satisfied, the disciples gather the leftovers, the
overflow of this miracle, and it is called the broken pieces.
We talked earlier about how you know this miracle abundance.
Everyone is satisfied with point enough.
We said that just a few minutes ago.
But the idea here is that even though there is abundance, it is
not wasted. The broken pieces themselves,
the evidence of God's abundant provision, they are not wasted
or thrown out. Even in a miracle of
multiplication, even in a miracle where it looks like
there is excess, nothing is wasted.
The fragments are gathered up and we assume it's to be used
for another time. It is not, as far as we know,
ever used on those that have been satisfied in the crowd.
It is being stored up for another use, another purpose.
Maybe we distributed to people in need on their travels.
But whatever it is, the miracle is not wasted.
And what an interesting picture of the Kingdom that this paints,
because it almost feels like attention.
Like why would Jesus make too much food?
Why did he produce extra? And then also the focus on there
being just enough. Why do we see these two things
together? And I think again, if we go back
to this idea of satisfied, it's that the Kingdom is a place of
abundance without overindulgence.
It's abundance where maybe we know that the excess is not just
for us, it is provision. The there is provision, not only
provision, but it's also this. Jesus can do increasingly more,
but the excess is not wasted. The broken pieces are collected
and used for later. Brokenness is connected to the
idea of abundance. These are not opposite ideas.
These are connected ideas in this story.
I mean, the promise of the Kingdom of God is 1 of
abundance. It's just not necessarily an
abundance. The world prizes as citizens of
the Kingdom of God with Jesus as our King, and that is available
to everyone. What becomes available to
everyone is abundant Mercy's abundant fruitfulness, abundant
forgiveness, abundant love, overflowing more than enough
abundance not to be hoarded, but to be shared.
And yet, brokenness is also an image of the Kingdom.
It is a Kingdom full of broken and imperfect people, and not a
brokenness that means that you have to be discarded.
It's a brokenness that has a purpose.
It is a brokenness that has value that is not wasted.
I mean, after all, we worship a king who was broken for the sins
of this world. This story of the feeding of the
multitudes, it shows a rhythm of taking, blessing, breaking, and
giving. It's the exact same rhythm that
we see in the Last Supper when Jesus takes the bread, he
blesses it, he breaks it, and he gives it to the disciples
sitting around the table with him.
Luke is creating a foreshadowing event.
He's creating a glimpse of the Last Supper world.
Jesus will sit at a table. He takes, He blesses, he breaks,
and he shares and he says that this is a symbol for you.
This meal, these actions, they are pointing to what I am going
to do for you. I am going to be taken away.
I am going to be broken. My life will be poured out for
you. I am giving myself away for you.
So when Jesus feeds the multitude here in Luke 9, Luke
is preparing us. He is pointing us towards the
culminating moment when the King himself will give his life and
be broken on a cross. And through this breaking comes
abundance and satisfaction and life in Christ.
Welcome, give everyone satisfied and broken.
It is an interconnected picture of the Kingdom and the king, and
I really wrestled with those words this week.
Welcome give everyone satisfied and broken.
I had a sense this week I'm going to try not to cry cause I
cried every time I prepared this in my sermon.
I felt a profound sense of heartbreak for how far our world
feels from this picture and yet how desperately it needs it.
And I am not trying to say that to be a doom and gloom.
It is a genuine sense of mourning.
And I know there is so much beauty in the world and that we
need to see it and celebrate it. But sometimes even that beauty
feels like it's being trapped in a system so very different from
what those worlds words represent and from the picture
of the Kingdom. And yet, in the same time as I
talk about wrestling, I recognize the tension in myself,
how much I struggle at times to live into those Kingdom words.
And I sometimes think it's because I don't live in the
wilderness of nothing. I live in a world of privilege,
and privilege can make me want to close the door instead of
offer a welcome, and it can make me hold tightly and be concerned
about my own self preservation when I am called to give and be
generous. It can make me count some people
as more valuable than others, even though I really, really
hate to admit that. It can make me restless, never
satisfied, even when I have enough.
It can make me want more and more and more.
It can make me want to hide or discard the broken pieces of
myself instead, or and the broken pieces and other people
for that matter, rather than looking on them with value and
gathering them with care. I live in this conflict.
I think we live in this conflict.
I love the vision of the Kingdom and yet I know how hard it is to
live that out in the middle of this world and yet that is what
we are called to do. Leonard Sweet in his book The
Bad Habits of Jesus, Don't let the title be off putting to you.
It's a good book. He talks about the abundance of
Jesus and he says this Jesus expects his followers to
surrender their all to him to put at his disposal and that at
the disposal of the Kingdom all of their possessions, all of
their time, all of their abilities, even their very
lives. The world will say what a waste,
but Jesus will say well done and he's right.
Living like this will look upside down to this world.
It will look impractical at times.
It might even look a little bit foolish, but that is the way of
the Kingdom. So the challenge maybe just for
me this morning, maybe for us, maybe for us as a worldwide, as
part of the worldwide church and for the worldwide church, it's
to not walk out here and try harder to create the Kingdom and
our own image to find a way to reconcile how we want to live
and force the Kingdom into alignment with that image.
Maybe the challenge for us is to surrender what we have, to put
ourselves in the hands of Jesus and to trust Him to do what He
did with those lobes and fishes, to bless it, to break it, and to
multiply it so that it can be given away for the benefit of
others. The world does not need a church
that reflects itself. The world need a church that
reflects Jesus, a church and its people who welcome, embrace
everyone, live satisfied in Jesus, and see the value in
things even when they appear broken.
I feel about your heads with me. Jesus, we thank you that you our
of abundance, that you are a God of abundance, that you give in
our overflowing measure, that you do more than we could ever
ask or imagine. We think of the times where we
have felt only scarcity and lack and we repent and ask
forgiveness for those times and and know that you call us into
greater things. That you call us into this
Kingdom, That you call us into welcoming people, all people.
That you call us to give ourselves and that which you
have blessed us with away so that we can help others.
God, we pray for the courage to live lives of contented
satisfaction. To know when to say is enough to
know that sometimes the excess is not for us, that you bless
and you bless and you bless, but that we so that we can be a
blessing to others. God, it is hard.
Would you give us the strength, the courage, and the calling?
Would you have your spirit prompt us to see how we might
live more in alignment with this picture of the Kingdom?
God, may we have the courage to surrender our lives to you, to
give our all to You, knowing that when we give that you can
do so much more than what we think that you can do, that you
can turn even what we see is not enough into magnificent
abundance. We thank you, Jesus.
We thank you for for being broken, for us, for our sins,
for the sins of this world. God, we thank you for that.
May we not be afraid of that. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.