The Rev. Dr. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Greeneville, TN
The 10th Sunday after Pentecost
August 2, 2026
Isaiah 55:1-5
Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21
In the lessons we read during worship throughout the month of July, Jesus taught us about the Kingdom of God. Week after week we have heard parables… Parables about sowers and seeds, and wheat and weeds… If we hadn’t gone on the St. James detour last week to celebrate our patronal feast, we would have heard parables about hidden treasure, pearls of great value, and fishing nets. More parables about the Kingdom of God.
Again and again Jesus tells us through the scriptures, "The kingdom of God is like..." or "The Kingdom of Heaven is like..." When Jesus speaks of the Kingdom, he is inviting us to imagine something greater… greater than we have ever known. I like to think of the Kingdom of God as the very best thing I could ever possibly imagine, and then to remind myself that God's Kingdom is even better than that. This morning, however, something changes. Jesus stops talking about what the Kingdom is like. Instead, he shows us.
Our Gospel lesson from Matthew begins in a moment of grief. Jesus has just learned of the death of John the Baptist. Seeking some quiet time to process what has happened, he gets into a boat and withdraws to a deserted place. He is exhausted. He is mourning. Like any of us, he longs for a quiet place to pray, to grieve, and just to rest. But instead, the crowds find him.
By now his reputation has spread throughout the countryside. People have heard about this great teacher who heals the sick, restores the broken, and proclaims good news to the poor. Thousands follow him on foot until they reach that lonely place. Matthew tells us there were five thousand men, besides women and children.
This is not simply a large gathering. This is an enormous multitude. And when Jesus sees them, he does not turn them away because he is tired... Matthew tells us that "he had compassion for them." Compassion is one of the defining characteristics of God's Kingdom. Even in his own grief, Jesus sees the suffering of the crowd before his own. He heals the sick. He welcomes all those whom the world often overlooks.
As evening approaches, the disciples begin thinking practically. "This is a deserted place," they say. "The hour is late. Send the crowds away so they can buy food." Honestly, I have a little sympathy for the disciples here. If you've ever planned a church dinner, you know exactly what they're thinking.
They're mentally counting casseroles, wondering whether someone remembered the potato salad, and quietly praying that Mrs. Smith brought her famous banana pudding again. Feeding even a dozen people can be stressful. Feeding more than five thousand? That's enough to make even the most experienced fellowship committee chair break into a cold sweat.
We can relate, because this is the kind of solution most of us would suggest. But Jesus answers with words that must have stunned them. "They need not go away. You give them something to eat." Can you imagine the disciples looking at one another? "Us?" – Find something for all these people to eat? They gather everything they can find. They come up with five loaves and two fish.
Then the disciples begin doing what church leaders have done for two thousand years. They form a committee. They assess the resources. They identify the problem. And then they conclude that there just isn't enough money in the budget.
If we're honest, most vestries, and probably most clergy, would have reached exactly the same conclusion... Five loaves and two fish simply don't make a balanced budget for feeding five thousand people. But Jesus has never been particularly constrained by our spreadsheets.
5 loaves and 2 fish. That’s hardly enough for the twelve of them, much less thousands of hungry people. And yet those meager gifts are placed into the hands of Jesus. He takes them. He looks toward heaven and blesses them. He breaks them, and He gives them away. There are no fireworks. No dramatic displays of divine power. No thunderclap from heaven. Just a simple act of thanksgiving, generosity, and trust.
This week, during our clergy Bible study, we asked each other a simple question: Where is the miracle? There are several schools of thought on this… Was the miracle that Jesus multiplied the bread and fish? Did new food somehow appear? Or was Jesus' willingness to give away everything he had so contagious that everyone else opened their own baskets and began sharing with one another?
Faithful Christians have answered that question in different ways throughout the centuries. But perhaps the greater miracle is this: Somehow, in God's hands, scarcity became abundance. That's how the Kingdom of God works... That’s the economy of the Kingdom of God… That somehow, Jesus sees that there is enough when the disciples didn’t…
What was seen as not enough became more than enough. And everyone ate... Everyone was satisfied. And twelve baskets were gathered afterward. Not because people had earned it. Not because they had paid for it. Not because they deserved it. Simply because the Kingdom of God had broken into the world.
That is exactly what Isaiah had promised centuries earlier. "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you that have no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." Isaiah imagines a day when God's economy of abundance replaces the world's economy of scarcity. Isaiah looks forward to a day when no one is excluded because they cannot afford the invitation. A day when God's grace cannot be bought because it is already being freely given.
The feeding of the five thousand is Isaiah's prophecy made visible to us. The hungry are fed. The forgotten are welcomed. The weary find rest. The poor receive abundance. No one is sent away empty.
For the past several weeks, Jesus has been telling us what the Kingdom is like. Today, he lets us see it. The Kingdom of God is not merely a future destination waiting for us after we die. It is God's life breaking forth into this world whenever compassion triumphs over indifference, generosity over fear, and abundance over scarcity.
The Kingdom begins to appear whenever we stop asking, "Is there enough?" and begin asking, "How can what I have become a blessing for someone else?" In that deserted place, thousands of ordinary people
found themselves sitting at the feet of the Creator of the universe. He made no grand announcement of his authority. He claimed no earthly throne.
In teaching us about James last week, Bishop Brian told us that people with power and authority truly exercise it by giving it away… Jesus revealed his divine power and authority by giving everything he had away. That is the kind of leader Jesus is. He’s a leader who feeds his people before feeding himself. He heals before seeking his own comfort. He gives his own life so that others may live.
The feeding of the multitude points beyond itself to another meal. On the night before he died, Jesus would once again take bread. He would bless it. Break it... And give it to his disciples. And every time we gather around this altar, we are invited into that same miracle. We come carrying our own five loaves and two fish... our limited strength, our imperfect faith, our broken hearts, our ordinary lives. They never seem like enough. But in the hands of Christ, they become more than enough. They become an abundance... He takes us. He blesses us. He breaks us open in love. And he gives us to the world.
Today we leave behind the parables about the Kingdom because, for a brief and beautiful moment, we are allowed to see the Kingdom itself. And once we have seen it, once we have tasted its generosity and abundance, once we have encountered the living Christ in our lives, we cannot remain the same.
May we become people who trust God's abundance more than our fears. May we become people who feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and offer what little we have into Christ's hands. Because whenever we do, the Kingdom of God breaks forth into the world.
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