Scripture Matthew 14:13-21
Now when Jesus heard [about the death of John the Baptizer], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. And when the crowds heard, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he arrived, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, and healed their sick. Now by evening, the disciples came to him and said, “The place is deserted, and the time has gone; send the crowds away so that they can go into the villages and buy themselves food.” Instead, Jesus said to them, “They do not need to leave; you all give them something to eat.” They replied to him, “We do not have anything here but five loaves and two fish.” Then Jesus said, “Bring them here to me.” And he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; he took the five loaves and the two fish, looked towards heaven, and blessed and broke them. He gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up the abundance of fragments, twelve baskets full. Now those who ate were women and children, besides about five thousand men.
Sermon
About a week ago, I read a fantastic Transfiguration Sunday sermon by Dana Cassell, a former Episcopal priest who continues to share writings on scripture on her Substack account. Here Dana reflects on the Bad Bunny performance at the Superbowl. She writes,
Even if you don’t understand Spanish, even if you don’t know Puerto Rican history, you could tell that everything in that performance was intentional, every moment was filled with meaning and reference to something bigger than a choreographed show on a massive stage. I speak only marginal Spanish, and I know only tiny tidbits of Puerto Rican history and culture, so I had to go find people more knowledgeable than I am to fill in the blanks. But I knew, watching that performance, that it was exquisitely done, and overflowing with meaning.
The beauty of a performance like that one is that it works on multiple levels: if you just tuned in for the spectacle, you were absolutely not disappointed. If you like the music, it [slayed]. But if you have any context at all for the performer, who he is, where he comes from, what he’s been up to the last few years, the relationship between his home and this country, the ongoing terrorizing of people who look like him on the streets, the persistent racist dehumanization and historical erasure of everyone with roots south of Washington, D.C., then you also got that show on a different level… [1]
This commentary is true about scripture, as well. Bad Bunny’s halftime show overflowed with meaning. Our story this morning also overflows with meaning. It begins with an ominous sentence, and, if our ears prick up at that, surely, we want to know more about it. Ours is a story of green grass, and compassion, and hurting people being healed, and hungry people being fed. But it takes place in the shadow of verses that came before it, in the New Testament and the Old. Our story also provides a kind of glimmering looking glass into events that will come after it. So let’s get to it.
Our first sentence; “Now when Jesus heard [about the death of John the Baptizer], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” ~Matthew 14:13
We’ve spoken before of Jesus’s connection with John the Baptist, about how it’s not only possible, but likely that Jesus was a follower of John’s. About how, when John was arrested for criticizing Herod’s marriage to his brother’s ex-wife—forbidden in those days—Jesus’ response was to pick up John’s spiritual mantle and wrap it around himself. He began to preach, just as John had preached: Repent! Which is to say, turn around and get a new life, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And at the beginning of chapter 14, we read that news of Jesus’s exploits has gotten to Herod, and his response is, perhaps, a terrified, “This is John the Baptist. He has been raised from the dead.”
The first twelve verses of this chapter tell the terrible story of the death of John the Baptist: the story of Herod’s birthday party, and the dancing stepdaughter, and the vengeful wife who tells her daughter to ask for John’s head on a platter, and the weak king who can neither break his promise to his stepdaughter nor lose face in front of his party guests, who orders it done with a sigh of regret.
The background of our story includes a story of bondage: God’s people in Egypt, and John the baptism in prison. [2]
When Jesus hears this, he goes off by himself to a deserted place. He goes to grieve, I am sure. He goes to pray, I have no doubt. He goes in anger, he goes in sorrow, he goes, perhaps, in fear. And he probably goes to yell at God a bit. (I don’t know whether I’ve told you this, but we can absolutely yell at God in our prayers, if the situation calls for it. God can bear our complaints. In fact, God wants to hear them.) But Jesus’s time to do these things is quickly interrupted, because the people follow, on foot. Crowds of people follow, and they arrive before Jesus at the designated place. When Jesus arrives, he sees the crowds, and he has compassion for them, and heals their sick.
Jesus goes to a deserted place, a wilderness, just as the people do, when leaving their bondage in Egypt. And the people leaving Egypt go on foot, just as the people do, who are clamoring after Jesus. AND Jesus has compassion for the people, just as God has compassion for God’s enslaved beloveds, and appoints Moses to bring them out of bondage. [3]
The day grows late. The disciples approach Jesus and recommend strongly that he send the people away. They’ll be wanting their dinners. But Jesus replies, “They do not need to leave; you all give them something to eat.” The disciples reply that they have just five loaves of bread and two fish barely enough for them. Jesus is undeterred. “Bring them to me,” he says.
Then Jesus tells the people to sit down on the green grass. Then he takes the five loaves and the two fish, he blesses them, and he breaks them. Then he gives them to his disciples, to hand out to the crowds. And all are fed. Not only 5,000 men, but women and children besides. There are always women and children in the crowds following Jesus.
Here is where past meets present meets future. The people are hungry, just as God’s people were hungry in the wilderness. And just as God provided manna and quails to satisfy the people’s hunger, just as Elijah miraculously provides flour and oil so that the widow and her child will not go hungry, Jesus and the disciples provide food so that the crowds whom he healed will also be fed. [4]
Matthew describes what Jesus does with such care. Jesus takes, blesses, breaks, and gives the bread and fish to the people. Twelve chapters from now, on the night of his betrayal, Jesus takes a loaf of bread, and blesses it, and breaks it, and gives it his friends, and says, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
The story we are sharing today overflows with meaning. That has to do both with the events depicted, and also how Matthew tells us the story. Matthew presents Jesus as the new Moses, ready to bring God’s people out of their present-day Egypt. This is not something Matthew does in this passage only. This is a thread that runs through the entire gospel. Yes, this probably is connected to the oppression the people suffer under Rome, but it is more than that. Jesus seeks to bring people out of the oppression of a mindset in which power and wealth are the signs of the good life, and poverty is a sign of God’s abandonment. Instead, Jesus creates a community where compassion wins out over power, where those whom he calls “the least of these” are people of dignity and worth, and where the last shall be first. The poor, sick, and hungry are received with love by the one who meets them where they are. They are met by one who will go to his death rather than unsay all the things he has said, and undo all the things he has done, because the truth of God’s love is a power greater than empire, and always will be.
Jesus goes, in grief, in search of a place to be alone with God, but instead, meets the image of God in a crowd of thousands. And Jesus shows his longing to be with them by his insistence that he lay the table for them, and show them what God’s love looks like on the grass. It looks like, and sounds like, and is his commitment to be with humanity in everything we experience—longing, pain, hunger, and, in the end, celebration. The joy of relief of pain and suffering. The joy of sharing rather than hoarding. The joy of hunger satisfied. The joy of abundance: Abundant compassion, abundant healing, abundant love.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Dana Cassell, “bad bunny + the Transfiguration (on Matthew 17),” Dana, Defrocked, February 9, 2026. https://substack.com/home/post/p-187385676.
[2] Nicholas J. Schaser, Commentary on Matthew 14:13-21, “The feeding of the five thousand recalls the God-ordained goal of exiting Egypt,” Working Preacher, August 6, 2023. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-18/commentary-on-matthew-1413-21-6.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.