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Home , John the Baptist

The Other Banquet

The Rev. Ted Pardoe Grace in New York Seventh Sunday After + July 31, 2011

“ withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.” “ was left alone.” Each of these two Scripture passages places their meaningful figures, Jesus and Jacob, in a place of solitude from which the narrative proceeds. In both situations it is a most intentional act.

Just a few weeks ago, we heard of Jacob’s first encounter with that took place in a dream at Bethel. The presence of the divine in that dream was quite evident. We heard that the “ of God were ascending and descending” on the ladder between earth and heaven. The Lord stood beside Jacob and declared to him that God will be with him wherever he goes. That is some pretty wonderful news. What an exciting dream to have.

Now we appear to have a very different encounter between Jacob and God. Jacob is physically set upon by a mysterious figure. “A man wrestled with him until daybreak.” Instead of a grand dream with angels and a symbol of the way to heaven, Jacob has to fight for his very life in this dramatically different and numinous rite of passage. Indeed, Jacob is physically injured by his divine assailant. But is it ever worth it as the attacker takes time during the overnight bout to proclaim “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Jacob is being blessed for his role in building up the people of Israel, the people of God. It is evident that God knows that we not only have to get ourselves oriented with God but also that we must indeed struggle with our fellow humans, sometimes our very same God loving sisters and brothers. Jacob has had to contend with his father-in-law Laban and to sweat blood with his own brother Esau. It is for these endeavors with other people of God that God announces that he will continue to build his people up and look after them with Jacob-Israel as the personification of how all of us must strive with God and others. We may also be assured of the knowledge that, with God’s support, we will survive and prevail.

This is a huge rite of passage for the formation of the faith of the people of Israel in a deeply religious sense. This striving with God and with humans is a foundation. A God given reality for those who would serve God and other humans. I think it really should be read and interpreted in this context of the religious nature of the experience. It may be viewed in the broad context of all of the people of God as epitomized in Jacob or it may be considered in the far more personal sense of Jacob’s own faith journey and his physical and intimate relationship with God. In Jacob’s earlier encounter with God, the primary focus was on pressing forward in building and maintaining the House of God. Today we are placed right into the presence of the mysterious Face of God. Peniel.

What about Jesus and his need to “withdraw in a boat to a deserted place by himself”? Is he simply storing up energy for the onslaught of the crowds that descend upon him? Is he seeking a period of personal silence and reflection with God? If so, why?

We have a situation today with this passage where the amazing feat of the feeding of the 5,000 with five loaves and two is a towering story on its own. I should add that it was well more than 5,000 that were fed. It was 5,000 men, besides women and children. This fantastic impromptu banquet for God’s people. It resonates with the . We encounter a foreshadowing of the ultimate heavenly banquet It should be an empowering experience for us as part of the body of . Look at the of the Holy Eucharist that is so central in our ongoing worship. Jesus looked to heaven. He blessed and broke the loaves. He gives it to the disciples. He instructs us, his disciples, to give it to the crowds. All ate and were filled. This is a perfectly justified and wholly understandable way to take on this great passage. An uplifting for our church life.

However, I believe that we also have a responsibility to consider it with the wider engagement of understanding exactly why Jesus withdraws in a boat to a deserted place by himself at the outset. You see there is another banquet that contrasts most starkly with this situation. It isn’t a banquet at which we commemorate Jesus’ death, resurrection and glorious ascension. It is a banquet about human deceit, treachery and murder. Of earthly powers outright rejecting the holy and divine in human form. It would be nice and comfortable to just step from the engagement we have had with the for the last three Sundays to this fantastic story of the feeding of the 5,000. I truly don’t think that we can afford to do that.

The deadly banquet is presented right at the beginning of this chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. The story just didn’t happen to make it into this reading. It’s set up as a party. It is all about the rejection of the Baptist, his being disposed of by way of his brutal murder at the hands of Herod, the regional political representative of Rome. We can pretend that it is all under the guise of his being tricked by the daughter of manipulated by her mother. But it really is about the political powers that be seeking to maintain their power and control of society in the face of the threat posed by John the Baptist and Jesus. It clearly foreshadows Jesus’ own threat to this Roman political power too. After John the Baptist has been beheaded in his prison cell, his head is paraded about the party on a platter. It is this news that Jesus has just received when today we begin our Gospel reading and Jesus “withdrew in a boat to a deserted place.” So I believe that if we look only at the feeding of the 5,000 we take an easy way and we don’t recognize the reality of the treacherous banquet. We know, after all, that “the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life.” (Mt. 7:14)

As I observed a few minutes ago, we should read the Genesis passage about Jacob wrestling with God in a deeply religious and faith seeking manner. A theological lens works very well. It is very much about God’s relationship with humankind in the people of Israel. We can read the Gospel passage in a comparable way through the lens of the community of Matthew the evangelist striving to find its way as an early Christian faith community. However, I believe the contrast of the two very different banquets can direct us to read the feeding of the 5,000 in a larger fashion addressing the inherent social and political challenges that flow from the one banquet to the other.

Herod has recognized the threat to his power that was advancing with the popular followers of both John the Baptist and Jesus. Both were recognized as by many people. Time and again throughout divine history when prophets rise up and voice their critique of the corrupt powers in place those very powers react with violence. The birthday banquet of Herod reacts exactly this way with the gruesome murder of John the Baptist including the public display of his head. This banquet is then immediately placed in contrast to the banquet that is the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus withdrawing to presumably mourn for John the Baptist and to collect his own thoughts about the news he has received is the hinge on which we swing from one banquet to the other. We do need to consider the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 in relation with the reality of the powerful class who gathered to orchestrate the murder of the who was speaking the truth about the kingdom of God on earth. This will allow us to reflect on today’s Gospel passage with added insight.

About ten years ago, a group of scholars, theologians, and others began to think about this very relationship of the Roman empire to the and the communities in which he lived. Traditional Biblical interpretation had focused on the Christian communities emerging from a predominately Jewish religious milieu. The theological lens was the main one through which people viewed the story. The empire proposition allowed people to look at the community of Matthew or, for that matter, the communities Paul addressed in the as being in resistance to the Roman empire that suffocated them, extracted taxes from them and otherwise influenced their lives in negative ways more often than not. While Jesus did not articulate what we would recognize as a socio-political strategy to resist or formally critique the Roman empire we need look no further than today’s Gospel reading to see what Jesus did suggest. He goes about taking care of those in need in the crowd that followed him. “He had compassion for them and cured their sick.” But he did not continue to do this by himself. When the concern about feeding people was recognized by the disciples and they, as was their custom, turned to Jesus for his response he didn’t just take care of the matter on his own. Jesus tells the disciples “you give them something to eat.” This is our command too.

Jesus blessed the loaves and we may surely see this as expressing a sacramental act that the community of the evangelist Matthew would have been familiar with doing. The disciples were charged with distributing the food to the crowd and to do so with them enjoying it as a sumptuous banquet sitting on the grass in the manner of those enjoying a fine meal such as the one Herod offered to his guests.

Presumably, it would not be much of a reach for you to appreciate that the scholars who began writing about the early Christian communities of Jesus’ followers as being in resistance to the Roman empire took the step to compare the conduct of that political reality with our own imperial American posture today. The empire critique is a well known and frequently invoked one. It is not my intention here to critique our political leaders today but rather to look at the alternative solution that Jesus had his followers carry out. That can offer us some spiritual food for thought. Jesus instructs his followers to look out for one another with compassion and to truly fill one another not only with food but also with loving kindness. Neither the Roman empire in its day nor our own government today effectively looks after the well being of all of its citizens. We need only invoke the word poverty to witness an alarming structural injustice in our own society. Those in positions of power shrug off the responsibility to provide basic human rights and needs such as food and shelter to an array of faith communities while going about business as usual. This is stop gap at best. It prompts me to think of one of the questions in our very own - Outline of the Faith. How does the Church pursue its mission? To which we reply “The Church pursues its mission as it prays and worships, proclaims the Gospel, and promotes justice, , and love. I believe that we get the first portions of this church mission done in good form and that, at the same time, we are challenged and can be frustrated to pursue our mission to promote justice, peace, and love. With the specter of Herod’s banquet of deceit, treachery, and murder looming before us I hope that we may see more clearly the mission Jesus calls us to accomplish in the compassionate feeding of the 5,000.

Looking back at Jacob wrestling with God and sustaining his bodily injury, I know that my own figurative bouts with the Lord can leave some good bruises on my soul as I reflect on the mission of the church and my own place in that venture. It informs me to try to determine the best way to see that the abundance that remains even after everyone is filled – those twelve full baskets - somehow gets to those who need it the most. It is more than the sacramental act. Receiving the spiritual food must empower us to pursue justice for those who are on the margins. We must lean in resistance to the alluring power of a status quo and go forth as Jesus commands us “You give them something to eat.”

AMEN