Society and Food
Sermon Notes 2nd August
Matthew 14:13-21 by Desiree Snyman
Society and Food
When I was working in youth ministry in Johannesburg, I often shared the teaching load with older teenagers who helped mentor the younger members of the group. The results were often astonishing, creative, memorable, and deeply insightful. One experience has stayed with me. The youth were reflecting on a passage very similar to today's Gospel, the feeding of the five thousand. One of the youth leaders divided our group of around forty or fifty young people into smaller groups. She then gave each group a different household budget based on the circumstances of different families in South Africa. To translate that into an Australian context, imagine one group is told they are living on Jobseeker and must create a grocery list to feed a family of four for a week. Another group is living on the Age Pension while caring for grandchildren. A third represents a professional family with a comfortable income. After giving each group their budget, we walked them through the local supermarket so they could work with real prices. When we came back together to debrief, the conversation was remarkable. More importantly, they began to see food differently. These were young people from largely privileged backgrounds. They were culturally diverse, but most had never experienced genuine food insecurity. When food has always been available, we rarely stop to think about the deeper philosophical, spiritual, and ethical questions that surround it. The Gospel story of the feeding of the 5000 invites us to reflect deeper into food as a spiritual practice. Today's Gospel is not primarily about a miracle. It is about God's vision for food, community and abundance.
Food is never just food. Australia is generally considered a food secure nation yet how many people in the Northern Rivers woke up hungry this morning? How many parents are wondering how they will feed their children tonight? I wonder how much you spend on food each day. One area I have looked at in my research is the food budget in residential aged care. On average, facilities spend around twelve or thirteen dollars per resident each day to provide breakfast, lunch, dinner, morning tea, and afternoon tea. In the not-for-profit sector it averages about fourteen dollars a day. In many for profit facilities, it falls to around eleven dollars. Imagine trying to prepare five eating occasions each day on eleven dollars.
Matthew 14 and Food
The Gospel invites us to see food as far more than nutrition. Food becomes a spiritual practice. It becomes a lens through which we think about justice and injustice. It shapes our politics, our ethics, our discipleship, and our understanding of God's kingdom. As we read today's story, it invites us both to reflect on the many layers encoded into the story. Much like we might peel an onion we are also invited to peel through the layered meanings of a seminal Gospel text.
You might be curious about verse 13: “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” What had Jesus heard? John the Baptist, a cousin and mentor had been martyred at Herod’s banquet. The obscene parody with John’s head on a platter at a party of mostly privileged elites provides a stark contrast with the picnic at the shore when the disciples feed more than 5000 people on bread and fish.
You may also be curious about verse 21: “And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children”. While post-modern sensibilities may be offended at the exclusion of children and women, the curious sentence could point to the perception that a gathering of 5000 men could be seen as a potential army.
Looking backwards, we remember other layers to the feeding story, such as Elijah. Elijah, exhausted, frightened, and fleeing from Jezebel, collapses in the wilderness in despair. God sends a messenger, an angel, to feed him with bread so that he might continue the journey. Perhaps the disciples are like the messenger that fed Elijah in the wilderness in that they are invited to strategize to feed the hungry crowds in the wilderness near the shore.
The story of Ruth and Boaz is another subversive narrative that lies beneath the feeding story. Ruth, a Moabite and a foreigner, survives as an economic refugee by gleaning the excess grain left behind in Boaz's fields. Rather than merely tolerating her presence, Boaz welcomes, protects and eventually marries her. Ruth then becomes the great grandmother of King David and, ultimately, an ancestor of Jesus. Any narrow, monocultural nationalism that is suspicious of migrants and refugees is quietly but decisively undermined by the mixed ancestry of both David and Jesus. The story reminds us that God's salvation has always been woven through the lives of outsiders, foreigners and those whom society might prefer to exclude.
We also remember the wilderness story of manna. This is one of Israel's foundational stories. Led by Moses and Miriam the people had escaped slavery, but they still carried within them what Walter Brueggemann calls the liturgy of scarcity. The scarcity mindset conditioned into the Hebrew slaves is the belief that there is never enough, that resources must be accumulated, hoarded, and protected. Before the freed slaves could enter the Promised Land, they had to learn a different way of living, a liturgy of abundance. Each morning, they gathered manna. Those who gathered much manna did not have too much. Those who gathered less manna did not have too little. People collected different amounts according to their needs, but everyone had enough. The Manna story is a profound lesson in God's economy.
As I read this story of Jesus instruction to the disciples to feed the crowd, I also hear Jesus' invitation. "Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Jesus embodies the wisdom tradition of Israel. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Woman Wisdom, or Sophia, is personified as a living presence. In Proverbs chapter 9, Woman Wisdom builds her house, prepares a feast, bakes bread, mixes wine, and invites the simple, the vulnerable, and the marginalised to come and eat at her table. Jesus attunes to Woman Wisdom, and her presence and perspective lies behind so much of Jesus' ministry. Like Woman Wisdom Jesus teaches about the Kingdom of God through meals, feasts, shared tables, broken bread, and hospitality. Around the table people discover what it means to belong to God's household of faith.
The story of the feeding in the wilderness anticipates the Eucharist. Notice the familiar rhythm. Jesus takes the bread. He blesses it. He breaks it. He gives it. Those four actions become the pattern of Christian worship. They also become the pattern of Christian living. Everything we receive is first acknowledged as God's gift. We bless what God has given us with thanksgiving. We allow ourselves to be broken open in love. Then we share what we have received. In many ways, that is the whole Christian life. The feeding story also points beyond the Eucharist toward God's promised future, the messianic banquet where all are welcomed, all are fed, and no one is excluded.
Food and spiritual practice.
Layer after layer, Matthew invites us to remember Scripture. Herod's banquet reveals the politics of power. Elijah reminds us that God feeds the weary. Ruth teaches that outsiders become the bearers of blessing. Manna reveals God's economy of enough. Wisdom prepares a table for all. Each layer deepens our understanding of what Jesus is doing beside the lake. I'd like to finish by offering a simple spiritual practice. It isn't something we do only once a day. It is something we can practise moment by moment.
Many of us say grace before meals. Perhaps grace can become something much deeper than a brief prayer before we eat. Each time we sit down to a meal, we might enjoy some mindfulness and notice what we notice. As we pause, we could reflect and ask ourselves: Who grew this food? Who harvested it? Who packed it? Who transported it? Who prepared it? Who, today, does not have what I have? How might this meal shape the way I live, the choices I make, and the people I stand alongside? If we begin asking those questions regularly, then every meal becomes an act of gratitude. Every table becomes an altar. Every loaf of bread becomes a reminder of God's abundance. Every shared meal becomes an invitation to participate in God's work of justice, generosity, and transformation in the world. Perhaps we will discover that the miracle was never simply about bread. It was always about becoming the kind of people through whom God continues to feed the world.
For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful, Amen.