A Lonely Place
Matthew 14:13-21
August 20, 2023
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Image: Anonymous, Hand of God with loaves and fish, United Reformed Church, Brighton, England
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27fnHXzzygY&t=34s
Jesus wants to be alone. So he goes to a lonely place.
He wants to be alone because he has just heard the news that King Herod has killed John the Baptist. John is dead. Herod is under the impression that Jesus is John the Baptist reincarnated, which means that what happened to John could easily happen to Jesus. It is heart-breaking, terrifying news, and Jesus just wants to be alone for a while.
Herod Antipas imprisoned John for speaking the truth about Herod’s own immorality after Herod divorced his first wife and unlawfully took his sister-in-law as his second wife. Herod did not appreciate the bad publicity. Putting John in prison was bad enough, but now, Herod has causally beheaded John, at the request of his dancing step-daughter. Jesus is hurting. He is baffled. He is seriously disappointed with God. How could God let evil win like that?
But Jesus is not the only one distressed by the terrible news. The crowd goes to Jesus because they are afraid and angry and discouraged and heart-broken. They are sick in body and soul. Jesus doesn’t get to be alone because the people need him and he has compassion on them.
At an earlier time in his life, in an event also connected to John the Baptist, Jesus had sought a lonely place. It was right after his baptism which John performed, remember? As Jesus came up from the water, the voice from heaven had pronounced him “Beloved” and from there, he had immediately spent 40 days alone, all alone except for the voice of the Tempter. That place where he went to be alone after his baptism is described with the Greek word eremos.
Eremos means a solitary place, a lonely, desolate, or uninhabited place. Right after Jesus’ baptism, when Jesus withdraws to eremos, the word is usually translated as “wilderness”. The same word is used in today’s reading but here it is translated a “deserted place”.
I wish the translators would be consistent so that we would recognize this place for what it is. It is the remote, uninhabited place where Moses and the people of Israel wandered for 40 years. The place where they didn’t have access to their usual foods so God provided water and quail and manna. It is the place where prophets escaped to save their lives from angry kings. It is the place where Jesus went after his baptism and was tempted. It is the place that Jesus seeks to be alone on the terrible day that he learns of John’s death.
Eremos is a lonely place. It is the place we go when we come to the end of ourselves. The place where we cannot rely upon our own resources. We don’t usually go there willingly.
Eremos also implies devastation and depopulation. For exiles in Babylon, eremos recalls a far-off Jerusalem standing empty and desolate. For Matthew’s community, eremos is a Jerusalem battered and depopulated by Roman armies as they crushed the revolt of 70 CE. [1]
Today, eremos is Ukraine; eremos is Lahaina.
Eremos is where the disciples are near the end of a long, taxing day. Apparently the disciples couldn’t let Jesus have that alone time either. Somehow they showed up with the crowd. And now they want to send the crowd home, back to civilization and shelter and their own kitchens, because it is dinner time.
Then Jesus says “they don’t need to go. You give them something to eat.”
This should be the out that Jesus was looking for. I thought he wanted to be alone. He has the perfect excuse to disperse thousands of people, but instead he says “They don’t need to go. You give them something to eat.”
Jesus doesn’t fix it for the disciples. He wants to figure it out with them. Evil has just won, remember. Jesus may not be too confident that God is going to come through now. He is waiting to see what will happen, just like they are.
The disciples are incredulous. The idea that they can fix this is laughable. Mark’s gospel reports that it would require half a year’s wages to feed the crowd. They don’t have that kind of resources.
“We’ve got nothing, Jesus.” Eremos is usually the place where we think we have nothing.
They say they have nothing, but they do have something. They have five loaves of bread and two fish. OK, maybe they have something, but it is definitely not enough for the thousands of hungry people. Jesus takes it from them, blesses it and breaks it and gives it back to them. “You give them something to eat” he says.
Barbara Brown Taylor wonders what the crowd thought about all this. She imagines one person saying to her neighbor “What’s going on up there?” and he responds “You’re not going to believe it – that Jesus fellow just said grace over five loaves and two fish and now some of his men are passing them out through the crowd. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, but don’t get too excited – it will all be gone before it ever gets to us.” [2]
All four gospels tell this story. Matthew and Mark tell it twice. It seems to have been a favorite of the early churches. The early churches were mostly poor, marginalized, relatively powerless, sometimes persecuted communities. Maybe they told it so often because they really need it to be true. Maybe they felt that what they had was nothing, or if not nothing, than definitely not enough.
But they kept remembering this story -- about that time when they gave their not-enough to Jesus and ended up with leftovers. They kept telling this story -- as a reminder that sometimes it is when we have nothing to give that God can use us the most.
Billy Graham said “When we come to the end of ourselves, we come to the beginning of God.”
In this lonely place, Jesus was devastated and depleted, torn up inside and feeling vulnerable. The disciples were distressed because Jesus was distressed and they were totally aware of their own inadequacy. And then . . . abundance!
“The wilderness is not what prevents us from serving. Sometimes the wilderness is what qualifies us to serve. Perhaps it is when we think we have nothing to give that God can use us the most.” [3]
What do you do when you’ve come to eremos? When you are at the end of your physical and spiritual resources, when you know that you are completely inadequate for the needs at hand?
Parker Palmer is a Quaker author and activities who writes about spirituality and social change. He tells the story of a personal experience of need and abundance. He writes, “After a speech in Saskatoon, I boarded a 6:00 AM Air Canada flight home. Our departure was delayed because the truck that brings coffee to the planes had broken down. After a while the pilot said, “We're going to take off without the coffee. We want to get you to Detroit on time.” I was up front where all the “road warriors” sit—a surly tribe, especially at that early hour. They began griping, loudly and at length, about “incompetence,” “lousy service,” etc.
Once we got into the air, the lead flight attendant came to the center of the aisle with her mike and said, “Good morning! We're flying to Minneapolis today at an altitude of 30 feet...” That, of course, evoked more scorn from the road warriors.
Then she said, “Now that I have your attention... I know you're upset about the coffee. Well, get over it! Start sharing stuff with your seatmates. That bag of 5 peanuts you got on your last flight and put in your pocket? Tear it open and pass them around! Got gum or mints? Share them! You can't read all the sections of your paper at once. Offer them to each other! Show off the pictures of kids and grandkids you have in your wallets!" As she went on in that vein, people began laughing and doing what she had told them to do. A surly scene turned into summer camp!
An hour later, as the attendant passed his seat, Palmer signaled to her. “What you did was really amazing," he said. "Where can I send a letter of commendation?” “Thanks,” she said, “I’ll get you a form.” Then she leaned down and whispered, "The loaves and fishes are not dead."[4]
What do you do when you’ve come to eremos? When you are at the end of your physical and spiritual resources, when you know that you are completely inadequate for the needs at hand?
Honestly, I am not sure. But like the early church I keep remembering this story. The wilderness is not what prevents us from serving. Sometimes being in the wilderness is what qualifies us to serve. Perhaps it is when we think we have nothing to give that God can use us the most.
So, I am taking stock of what I have, every little bit, and offering it all to God. What I have in this moment is probably not enough, not nearly enough. But what we have together, with God’s help, just might be.
[1][1] Richard Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Matthew: A Storytellers’ Commentary, Year A (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2007), p. 191
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Problem with Miracles” in The Seeds of Heaven: Sermons no the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004), p. 51
[3] This was one of my favorite take-aways from a comprehensive sermon by Rev. Mark Quanstrom, This One is Easy , delivered at College Church, Kankakee, Illinois on August 6, 2023 https://collegechurch.org/past-sermons/this-one-is-easy
[4] Parker Palmer “Loaves and Fishes are Not Dead,” OnBeing April 6, 2016, https://onbeing.org/blog/loaves-and-fishes-are-not-dead/