Have you ever noticed how many rich people are featured in classical European art - the kind that you see in the great art galleries like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York? Get out an art book, our church library has some that you can look at, and look for the rich people. They are easy to find because usually they are the ones who are getting into heaven. There will be a painting on the wall, say, depicting some prince from a European kingdom that disappeared centuries ago. His soul will be floating above his castle. The prince will have a raptured look on his face as he looks at the gates of heaven and the welcoming choirs of angels.
I've taken the trouble to look into the history of some of these paintings and the story is always the same. Some rich man or woman dies and his family commissions a famous painter to show the deceased going to heaven. The paintings were originally displayed where visitors to the castles could be impressed with the family's connections to God. Some of those depicted were members of ruling class families well-known for poisoning their opponents and filling their private dungeons with anyone they disliked.
I've wondered more than once while visiting art museums what the artists themselves must have thought about when they painted a blood thirsty aristocrat going into heaven.
I mention this for several reasons. This kind of thing is still going on. Rich and powerful people still try to convince the rest of us that they are connected to the divine. They know better than to have their likenesses painted the way their counterparts did hundreds of years ago. They are more sophisticated. Many modern-day robber barons hire public relations firms and start charitable foundations. I've dealt with many of them over the years in my work for national charities. Some wealthy people really do have hearts of gold. But some charitable gifts are done for selfish reasons. And some wealthy donors care too much about making sure that their friends will see the plaques. The rabbinical philosopher, Maimonides, a thousand years ago wrote that one of the greatest measures of a gift to God or a needy person was the gift's anonymity. Which brings up the second reason why I bring up the subject.
Both of our biblical stories today, the story of Jacob and the story of the feeding of the 5,000 are in direct contrast with showy Godliness. Neither story mentions a plaque or a painting. There are no princes or wealthy families either.
Jacob's tale, as it is sometimes called, is part of a long, complicated story that begins with a dispute between brothers over their parents' estate and ends with an explanation as to why that part of the Middle East is divided between Jews and non-Jews. At our point in the story, Jacob is on the run from his brother Esau. Jacob crosses the ford of Jabbok and remains behind while his family and worldly possessions are taken ahead. He is left by the side of the water, alone, in a place that is so desolate that it hasn't a name. The place wasn't part of a country. It wasn't ruled by a king or queen. In the mind of most people living in Jacob's day, the place wasn't even occupied by God. It was, however, the kind of place where one might encounter a wandering demon. In the midst of dark desolation, Jacob is attacked.
In one of the Bible's great mysteries, we aren't told who or what attacked Jacob. This is an important Biblical story which means it has been around for a couple of thousand years so there's been a lot of speculation. A man, a demon, an angel, maybe God himself, who knows? No one does. But there are things that we do know.
The attack took place in the worst of places. You'd be better off getting mugged in an inner-city neighborhood than where Jacob was. Jacob was alone...in the dark...without weapon or friend. In his mind, this wasn't even a place where God was. So there wasn't any use in praying to God for help. Hopeless! Many of us would have just given in and let the attacker kill us. Sometimes we are in a desolate place in our lives and we give up without trying. Sometimes we feel like we are friendless. Sometimes family is more a burden than a help and we'd rather that they went on alone without us. And it often seems that the gathering darkness gives those who dislike us the chance that they need to step in.
Jacob took his stand and fought back. Whatever it was, the sinister shape in the darkness hit Jacob so hard that the blow put one of his hips out of socket. But Jacob held onto his opponent until dawn. The fight ended in a draw and Jacob forced his opponent to bless him. I've always been a little unsure of what that was all about. But the next part is easier to understand. The opponent left and Jacob named the place, Peniel, which means something like "I've seen God face to face and survived."
End of story. The desolate place is no longer desolate. It has a name. God lives there.
Our New Testament story has similar elements. Jacob was running for his life. Jesus too. He had just heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded during Herod's birthday party. "Right after this," Matthew tells us, "Jesus withdrew by boat to a deserted place, by himself." So there he was, like Jacob, at the end of the day, alone by the water. Notice that this place has no name. It's not one of Herod's or the Roman Empire's sophisticated cities. It's not where the good and righteous people go. It's nowhere.
It's like the places that we sometimes go when we are running from something. It's like that place in the woods that you went to when you were a kid and you'd been fighting with the rest of the world. It's like a friend's cabin on a lake that you go to where there's no telephone. It's where you are alone when your heart and soul vibrate from worldly stimulation and you need a place to let the vibrations die down. The only problem with places like that is that you bring your problems with you. That isolated cabin on a lake can actually be more disturbing because there's nothing to help distract you from your demons. The silence in the isolated cabin can become deafening, especially once it starts to become dark.
Jesus got in a small boat and went to a place like this. And the people followed him by walking around the shore. They caught up to him. And suddenly they were in a desolate place too. Many were sick. Most were hungry. It was a bad place to be sick and hungry. And darkness was falling.
In the dim light; far and away from the suspicious eyes of men, Jesus worked some of his greatest miracles. They said later that he fed everyone who was there from just a few loaves of bread and fish. Some returned from the desolate place saying that their health had been restored. When he got back in his boat and left, some said, he could be seen from a distance walking on water. Everyone seemed to have a similar story, one that was like Jacob's; "I have seen God face to face, and I have survived."
There have been no truly desolate places since that time. You can be lost on a raft at sea or on a trail in the mountains. But God is there. You may not be rescued in time. But you won't die without God.
You are not alone.
The rich people in Jesus' day tried to make the people think that they were alone. Dr. Jim Fleming when he was here last year told us that the "daughters of Jerusalem" mentioned in the Bible are the poor who had to live in desolate places outside the gates of wealthy cities like Jerusalem. People like Herod made a great public show of their connectedness to God. But Jesus showed the daughters of Jerusalem, the poor, the desolate, the sick and the hungry that God lived among them.
Jesus needed no honorary plaques. He was poor. He lived with the poor. And he died outside the rich man's city gates amidst the daughters of Jerusalem.
His miracles were acts of compassion. Even they left no lasting mark, except for the stories we read in the Bible and the things that happen in our hearts and lives. Jesus cured the sick, but his miracles were temporary. Illness continues to this day. Even the people who were healed eventually grew old and died. He fed the 5,000, but that was temporary too. Hunger continues to this day. All of those fed that day were hungry a day later. Why heal? Why feed the hungry? What's the point?
His miracles were acts of compassion. That's the point.
We all travel through life and sometimes find ourselves alone in the gathering darkness, menaced, and beset by fears, real or imagined. Things go bump in the night. Our courage can fail. Is God in this place or are we alone? Why not give up and be done with it?
His miracles were acts of compassion. He feels compassion for you. You may be in a place with no name, but you are not alone. He offers much more than fish and bread now. He offers courage and strength, enough to enable you to struggle with your demons until you can name and master them. He offers himself as a sacrifice for your sins. He offers you a new life that shatters the illusions of solitude.
His miracles were temporary, yes. But you have the opportunity to make his miracles happen today. In his hands are the poor and hungry, today's daughters of Jerusalem. He wants to put them in your care. Accept them as your responsibility and you will never be alone again. It will be you who finds ways for the sick to get medicine and health care by supporting, for example, the Parker Clinic here in Red Bank or Doctors Without Borders overseas. It will be you who finds ways to get food to the hungry here in Red Bank and throughout the world through your support of our church's budget and the World Service Fund or through special gifts to UMCOR.
The Lord is still at the deserted place this morning. He will feed your spiritual hunger. He will help you find ways to struggle with the demons that beset you. But he wants all of you, not just the part that is hungry. He wants your hands, your abilities, and your talents. He wants you to return a portion of the wealth that he has given to you.
This morning, it's not about you being fed. If, when you heard this story, you saw yourself as a member of the crowd, you missed the point. Today you are offered loaves and fish. But you are also given a basket and told to give loaves and fish to others. You come to be spiritually fed but you are commanded to take responsibility for the spiritual care of others.
You come this morning with special prayers in your heart that you hope the Lord will listen to. And the Lord has heard your prayers this morning. He may not give what you ask for; but he still has the same compassion that he had the evening that he cured the sick and fed the 5,000. It is said that when you enter a church, the prayers of everyone who goes there are the responsibility of everyone who attends. We are called to listen to and help our neighbors. Doing so changes this place from being a place of quiet, desolation and isolation to being a place of Spirit-inspired human compassion, a place like Jacob's Peniel of which it can be said, "I have seen God face to face."
As we pray, thank Jesus for listening to your prayers. Remember that he has laid a basket at your feet. In your imagination, make the decision to pick it up so that you can be like Jesus in your heart and in his service.