Offering Something To God

The Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (14:14-22)

In today’s reading we hear that a great crowd of people was waiting for Jesus as He came ashore from the boat in which He had been traveling. It can be hard for us to imagine the life of Our Lord and the many ways in which He was stretched thin and suffered during His earthly ministry. He rarely knew a moments rest. Someone was always following Him, questioning Him, wanting something from Him. He rarely turned people away, instead we are told that “He had compassion on them..”

In this passage we are told that due to the Lord’s overwhelming compassion, He spent the whole day healing their sick, until it was evening. As the sun was setting the disciples came to Jesus with a reasonable idea. They said “This is a lonely (desolate) place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” It’s a reasonable request, right? Perhaps not as reasonable as it might seem at first glance. It was reasonable or rational from our earthly, and human perspective. But this request did not account for all of the data properly. Within this request is an underlying lack of faith and understanding into the true nature of Jesus Christ, the man whom they had been following all over. They knew Him to be a great teacher and a great wonder worker and a great man. They might have seen him as a great prophet or even as the Messiah, the Christ. But they had not fully understood the situation even at this point.

What they had failed to see and to understand was the most important aspect of all. They failed to see that Jesus Christ was more than prophet and more than just the awaited Messiah and anointed one. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Son of God. One of the attributes of God is the ability to create from nothing. Our Lord could have fed the multitudes from nothing. It is nothing for God to do that. It is so very simple. Yet He chooses not to go that route. He chooses something better. He chooses to involve us in the process. He wants us to be coworkers with Him in the ministry. He also desires to see our faith. He desires to work in synergy with His people and in doing so, He prepares them to become the foundation of His Church. This theme is seen clearly as the Lord has the disciples break and organize the large group of people into more manageable groups so that they can properly receive ministry from the disciples who in turn receive blessings from the Lord.

When the disciples ask to send the crowds away the Lord replies “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” This is more than a statement regarding this particular situation on this particular day. It is a statement about the role of the Church in the lives of it’s people. The Lord is preparing His disciples hearts and minds for the role He has planned for them since before they were born. This is the deeper meaning: He wants His disciples, the pillars of His Church, to serve and feed and provide for His people. He wants them to know that there is no where for His people to go, to be fed and to be satisfied apart from the Church, apart from His presence. But they don’t yet understand. They call the place where the Son of God is present and in their midst, a desolate or lonely place! Imagine!

Some of us aren’t too different from the disciples in this passage. We come to the house of God, to the place where God Himself if present yet we still complain. St. Tikhon of Zadonsk writes, “In going to church, think that thou art going to the house of the King of Heaven, where with fear and joy one ought to stand as in heaven before the King of Heaven.”

The problem wasn’t that the place where the disciples had been was desolate. The problem was that they did not have a proper understanding and faith in Christ who stood before them. They were present physically but the eyes of their hearts were still not purified, not open to fully see and understand reality in light of their Master Jesus Christ.

My friends, if God is with us, why are we worried about hunger and thirst and loneliness? Does God not provide for all of our needs? Does God not desire to feed and to clothe us? Does God not love us? In fact, when we step back we see God’s hand and His presence in everything in our lives. He is constantly our provider and the giver of good things.

We see that God uses His Church to provide for our most important needs. The Church which was founded by Our Lord and established by the Apostles gives us spiritual nourishment. The Church gives us spiritual fellowship with one another, and with God and His saints. We gain a new identity and sense of belonging as part of the family and household of God. We receive great grace and yes, we also receive love and mercy and forgiveness in abundance.

The way that God works in this passage is the way that we see God work through the Church and in our own lives as well. Our Lord asks the disciples to bring whatever they have, their small sacrifices to Him and He takes these small offerings and makes them truly special. He multiplies them and sanctifies them and they become infinitely more precious and life-giving. Let’s not forget that the disciples took up 12 baskets full of the leftovers! They ended up with more than they had when they began the distribution of food. Everyone who was present was fed and filled to the brim. In the Church we each bring our small offerings and God blesses them and multiplies them to be a great blessing to all of us and to many others who have not even stepped foot in this church yet.

Our Lord Jesus Christ will do the same in each of our lives if only we will bring our little offerings and leave them at His feet. But are we willing to do this? It requires a certain amount of trust and faith in God. It requires that we give up our desire for complete control of our situations and our lives. As the saying goes, it requires “letting go and letting God.” First and foremost we are asked to sacrifice our own wills in order to live according to the will of God for our lives. I think that if we are honest, many of us are failing to live with that as our goal and ultimate consideration.

We often start our conversations with “I think” or “I believe” or “I feel” or “I want”. It is not to say that you are not important. You are very important. What you desire and want and feel and believe are important. But is God’s desire for your life not infinitely more important? You might desire things that are destructive or sinful, yet God loves you so much that He desires only good things for you. Brothers and sisters, this is God’s desire. To provide for us, to nurture us, to feed us, to grant us true fulfillment. He is able, if we are willing. He wants to give us life. He wants to redeem our lives from corruption and falsehood. He wants us to know and live within the truth of His teaching. He wants us to inherit His life, to be where He is and where the saints are. So let us be with Christ, in the Church, in our prayers, in love for our neighbors. This is our small offering, may God receive it and multiply it!

Source: Sermons