This morning’s reading from Matthew tells a familiar story, but one that nonetheless never ceases to amaze me. Two fish… five loaves of bread… five thousand hungry people….and actually, there may have been many more people than that, according to Matthew, the five thousand did NOT count women and children, so maybe it is possible that there were twice the number of folks to feed as Matthew had counted, and somehow, Jesus manages to feed them all and ends up with twelve baskets full of leftover pieces. Now I don’t know how big the loaves were, or how big the fish were, or how big the baskets were, but even if they were huge fish and massive loaves of bread and teensy weensy little tiny baskets, getting ten or even five thousand folks fed on that amount of food and having ANYTHING left over is a miracle. Rosemary Radford Ruether, a noted feminist theologian said that “the reason there was so much food was that all the women, as women are wont to do, brought picnic baskets, food enough for themselves, their children and one or two neighbors. So of course there was more than enough for all. But since the women and children were not counted, the gospel writer did not know where the food came from and presumed it was a miracle performed by Jesus.”That is a rather mundane and non-mystical explanation, to be sure, but even that is pretty miraculous, when you think about it, isn’t it? Getting people to care for neighbors and strangers alike to the point where they would share their food in the lingering twilight on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, feeding everyone and still collect a dozen baskets of leftovers is a miracle, I think.But that is not what I want to concentrate on this morning… Listen again to Matthew 14:13, the first verse in today’s reading: Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. When he heard what? The lectionary starts at such an odd spot, doesn’t it? After Jesus heard THIS, he wanted to get away and be alone, but the people wouldn’t let him, and instead he started curing their sick and speaking to them and eventually feeding a whole bunch of them with not very much food. Fine. But what was it that he had just heard that caused him to want to withdraw in the first place? Let us go back to the first thirteen verses of Matthew 14 and put that attempt to withdraw to a lonely place in the proper perspective:At that time Herod the ruler heard reports about Jesus; and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist; he has been raised from the dead, and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” For Herod had arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because John had been telling him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” Though Herod wanted to put him to death, he feared the crowd, because they regarded him as a prophet. But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company, and she pleased Herod so much that he promised on oath to grant her whatever she might ask. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.” The king was grieved, yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he commanded it to be given; he sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother. His disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus. So Salome, the daughter of Herodias, the wife and niece of Herod Antipas, dances the dance of the seven veils and Herod is so overwhelmed by the dance that he tells her to ask for anything she wants. Contrast this for a brief moment with last week’s sermon where God told Solomon to ask for anything HE wanted – and Solomon chose WISDOM. Salome, instead, asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. And Herod granted her wish, which pleased her and her wicked mother greatly. But nonetheless, John the Baptist was beheaded, and in the first 13 verses of the 14th Chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus finds out about this terrible thing. This was Jesus’ first cousin. This was the man who had baptized him in the river Jordan. This was the man who had been the previous spiritual guide for at least two of Jesus’ disciples. Can you imagine how YOU would feel if you had just found out that a person that significant to you had been brutally beheaded by the man who was the ruler of your country? I can imagine that, if my first cousin – or someone with whom I was closely associated professionally - were brutally beheaded by the President of the United States here in the United States, I would be angry, I’d be scared, and I certainly would be overwhelmed with grief. I would certainly want to get away to a deserted and lonely place for a variety of really good reasons. I would want to grieve the horrific and unexpected loss of my close friend and relative… and I would, I think, want to get away from the authorities who worked for the leader who had done this terrible thing to begin with. If I had paddled away in a boat with my close associates to find that lonely deserted place I doubt that large crowds would follow ME…but then, I am not Jesus. I am pretty sure how I would react if a whole crowd of folks DID follow me along the beach and were waiting when I came ashore. I’d tell them to scram. I’d tell them to turn around and LEAVE… ME… ALONE!! But then, I’m not Jesus. Jesus had already become a local phenomenon and had developed quite a large following that seemed to hang out at the lakeside home he was staying in. So when HE got into the boat with his closest associates, the crowd took notice. As I said last week, the Sea of Galilee is really not a sea at all, but a large lake, and really not all that large of a lake, for that matter – being only half the size of Moosehead Lake here in Maine. So when Jesus left the shore headed for a cove somewhere down the lake, the crowds merely followed his progress from the beach and were there waiting for him when he came ashore. And they would not let him alone. Filled with compassion for the people, Jesus healed their sick. The setting provided Jesus a chance to challenge the faith of his followers. They wanted the crowds to return to the local towns from where they came for the evening meal. But Jesus commanded them to feed the people. How could they? Among all of his followers, all they possessed were five loaves and two dried fish. This food would normally feed maybe two people. Bread and fish marked the food of the poor. The contemporaries of Jesus baked small loaves useful for individual meals alone or for dipping into foods at communal gatherings. Without utensils, people used these small loaves as the only means for sanitary eating. The loaves were usually baked from barley grain, since wheat grain was considered a luxury for the rich. Nonetheless, there were only five loaves. During the time of Jesus, fish was a food staple in Palestine. The government controlled the catch and production of fish from the Sea of Galilee. Fish could be dried, pickled, or cured, or salted. Fish was more easily distributed in these states. Thus, people preferred it as a protein source. Nonetheless, there were only two fish. And Jesus fulfilled the hunger of the crowd, both with God’s word and healing, and with sustenance for the body from those loaves and those fish and perhaps from the compassionate sense of community he engendered in the crowd.Now I can imagine that most of that crowd was unaware that John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod, and I can imagine that most of that crowd was unaware of the familial and spiritual relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist, but I can also imagine that Jesus did not share that information with them, but instead immediately put on his healer hat and went to work. Few if any in that crowd were aware that the compassionate man who was moving in their midst and giving all his attention to THEIR problems and THEIR sicknesses and THEIR maladies was himself suffering from deep personal tragedy and was, no doubt, filled with a great sense of uneasiness as to his own personal safety in the wake of this brutal execution of his cousin. Few, if any, of the people who were fed to satisfaction by the miraculous multiplication of the loaves and fishes were aware of the heavy burden of sorrow that was being borne by not only Jesus, but by all of his disciples with him. This backdrop to the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes – this prelude to today’s lectionary reading, in my opinion, makes the miracle that much more miraculous. Or does it? Consider that, just maybe, the fact that Jesus was so forlorn and heartsick at the death of John the Baptist that God was even closer to his heart… that his compassionate father was there next to him, holding him up, giving him strength, giving him power, giving him even greater measures of compassion, giving him an even more powerful healing touch. Could it be possible that God’s intimate presence in the midst of Jesus’ sorrow enabled Jesus to do more miraculous things? The gospel does not tell us the reaction Jesus HAD to the crowd and to the miracle, but I can well imagine that all that human contact and touch… all that fellowship… all that communion… all that love HAD to have buoyed his spirits greatly, don’t you think? And is there a lesson for us to be found in that possibility? Could it be possible that in those times of sorrow or despair, those times of hurt and depression, those times when we feel our spirits are downtrodden… could it be possible that at those times we, too, might be at our most compassionate; we, too, might be capable of providing more tender and loving care than we otherwise could muster; we, too, might be capable of really seeing the plight of the people in our midst who ordinarily are invisible to us; we, too, might be able to perform miracles of our own? Could it be that when our hearts are hurting, and when God is right there, holding us up, that we have within ourselves the power to do his will on earth with a degree of compassion that, only then, would allow us to achieve miraculous results? And don’t you KNOW that if we even TRY to perform miracles when we ourselves are downtrodden, that the mere act of trying…the mere act of getting in touch with God’s presence in our lives… the mere act of opening our hearts to Him would lift our spirits and fix our gaze upon Heaven itself. Amen