Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 18, Year A

The Miracle of God’s Grace

Readings: Genesis 32:22-31; Psalm 17:1-7. 16; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21

The three passages of Scripture this Sunday are human stories of people who are grappling with difficult situations in their lives. I suspect that is why I find myself resonating so strongly to each story.

First of all, there is the story of Jacob. He is a trickster, a con artist. He has to face up to the inevitable, a face-to-face encounter with his brother Esau whom he has wronged. He sends his family away to safety. He waits, alone. There in the darkness of the night he wrestles with a man. Is it a dream? So often it is in our dreams, is it not, that we work out our fears and anxieties, our regrets and guilt. Dream or not, they continue to wrestle throughout the night, neither of them willing to give in. Finally as day is breaking, Jacob says to him, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Remember he already tricked his father into giving him Esau’s blessing. And for whatever reason, God offered him a blessing as they stood by the stairway into Heaven during a dream.

The man asks him his name. On hearing it, he responds, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Jacob limps away from the place praising God. I get the sense that he is seeing God in a real way, perhaps for the very first time.

This story is a lovely metaphor of our human existence. It speaks to our condition. We do wrestle with our fears and anxieties. If you are at all like me, sometimes you do it all night, tossing and turning, worrying about what is going on in your life. You wrestle with yourself. You go over things that have happened. You think about things you should have said or done differently. You look for solutions. You may even admit to yourself where you have gone wrong and decide on a plan of action. The next day you are exhausted! You spend the whole day literally limping, but there is something healing in facing up to all that is going on. The wounds are visible, but there is a sense of resolution and of looking to the future.

Then there is Paul’s story. He too is showing signs of limping as he communicates a personal experience, trying to help others to understand what is going on in his life. He feels a sense of frustration and disappointment with his ministry to the Gentiles. His great hope had been to share his amazing encounter with the risen Christ with his own people, the Jewish community, and so bring them to faith. Instead he finds himself alienated from them. He feels at least partly to blame. His sense of failure overwhelms him. But truly, ministry – both lay and ordained – does not work that way. We simply go where Christ leads, not where we think Christ should be leading. That is what it means to answer God’s call. Once again, it may keep us up at night wondering if what we are doing is truly what God wants us to do. It may cause us anguish. But in the long run, following God’s lead, doing what we are meant to do, blesses us in ways we could not have asked or imagined. I have discovered that over and over again in ministry. Paul certainly discovered that in his.

And there is Jesus’ story. News has just come to him about the death of John the Baptist. He is in grief, shock, as he considers what it all means. He reacts as many of us do by withdrawing. He goes to a deserted place by himself. He wants time to consider the tragedy. He wants time to consider what it means in his own ministry. But the crowds follow him out into the wilderness. They follow as they always do. They have such need. He puts his own feelings aside! He has compassion on them and heals their sick. And when evening comes the disciples want to send them away to fend for themselves.

"You give them something to eat," Jesus tells the disciples.

"We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."

I can almost hear the sigh escape him! Out of his silence and grief, out of his compassion, Jesus performs a miracle. He takes the bread and fish and blesses them. He gives them what they want. He feeds them.

We have all been there, limping along. We have experienced that need to be alone. Yet somehow the crowds always follow. Our responsibilities, our plans, our worries, the things we have been avoiding or unable for some reason to complete – everything crowds in on us until we cry out, “I have nothing more to give. I am at the end of my resources.”

It happens in our churches. We are dealing with shrinking and aging congregations that still have the same responsibility to maintain buildings and ministry. Our Diocese calls on us to reach out into the community, to be a presence, to find new and exciting ways of doing ministry that will bring people through our doors.

And somehow God gives us the strength to go on. God’s grace sustains us. We are fed spiritually. We find ourselves from what we considered to be our slim resources to be able to accomplish all that God is calling us to do.



This miracle, this feeding of the five thousand teaches us about our God, our God who provides for us. We have all been in situations that feel hopeless. We are constantly amazed by the ability of God to take what we offer and make it great. But it teaches us so much more. Jesus sustained physical life with bread. But his real purpose was giving people eternal life. And that is a real miracle in which we all participate. He would have these people and us understand that the provision of God is more than enough to fulfill every need of every man, woman and child on earth.

And the need is great. We know that. We see it. There is such hunger in the world. There are millions in our world who have the most basic needs of existence – food, clean water, shelter, freedom, security. People are starving to death. Statistics show that fifteen people die of starvation every minute of every day. Most of them are children. And yes! You will tell me quite rightly that it would take a miracle to change that. But we can be part of the miracle. We can influence much of what needs to change. We can be advocates for social change, for attitudes towards women, birth control, education, urban farming … the list goes on.

All of this presents to us a tremendous commission. Needy people followed Jesus everywhere. We don't need to look very far to know that the thing most common to people is need of one kind or another. There is within each of us a need for spiritual fulfillment, for inner assurance and serenity, for meaning and purpose in life.

We may come to the table limping, but as the people of God, we are fed and nourished so that there is no holding back in our life journey. We come to the table of the Lord and bread is shared with one another. Our journeys become the journeys of all. The path becomes one path lived together. That is the miracle of God's love. That is how God graces us. Amen.