Miraculous Compassion

The miraculous feeding of the 5000. Certainly a well-known story from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. With five loaves and two fish Jesus feeds a huge crowd. Some people have suggested that he actually fed 20,000. Matthew is quite specific that only men were included in the count of 5,000, but that women and children were also there. And undoubtedly fed by Jesus. And cured.

What do you make of this story? How does it speak to you? There is some reassurance just in its familiarity. It’s a story to hang on to. But what about the miraculous feeding? I will admit that I have a hard time with that in a literal sense. I certainly acknowledge without hesitation that Jesus has the power to multiply loaves and fishes, to take five one pound loaves of bread and turn it into 10,000 pounds of bread, so that crumbs may be gathered after thousands upon thousands have eaten. Yes, Jesus must have that power, but I have not seen it. I have not seen, with my own eyes, God perform this sort of physical miracle we might today call magic. In my questioning I have some pretty good company right in Scripture. And like doubting Thomas, until I have seen with my own eyes, touched with my own hand, it’s hard for me to know what to do with this story.

One temptation is to take this wonderful story of the miraculous feeding of the thousands and package it up in its own box and store it away on some metaphorical shelf somewhere in my spiritual wardrobe. A cherished image, definitely cherished… a familiar piece of Scripture. But one to be saved, not used. Like an article of clothing that you love and cannot part with, but never wear.

Or, I suppose we could spend a lot of energy trying to explain or reinterpret the miraculous multiplication of loaves and fish in terms that would make sense to a modern skeptical scientific mind like mine. (After all, as all Star Trek fans know, the replicators on the Starship Enterprise create food for thousands all the time.)

Or, the more faithful response, is to take this story that appears so prominently in the Gospels and study it more deeply, enter into it, explore all of its meaning and context. The whole story.

Listen again. "Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowed, and he had compassion for them." He had compassion. Jesus’ compassion. That’s what this story revolves around. Everything that happens is a result, a manifestation of, Jesus’ compassion. In the end, the story is less about the miraculous multiplication of bread and fish and more about the miraculous, infinite outpouring of Jesus’ compassion. And it is miraculous. Jesus’ compassion fed, cured, touched everyone in that multitude.

But it’s not so much the size of Jesus’ compassion that strikes me. It’s not that Jesus’ had a remarkably large reservoir of compassion, enough for 5,000 or 20,000 or 1 million people. It’s not how many were touched by Jesus’ compassion; it’s who was touched. Think about it. Those 20,000 people were not all saints. The science of statistics tells us that there were crooks in that crowd, scoundrels, selfish and ambitious people, an adulterer or two, the timid, the arrogant, the week, the strong, the lazy, even the skeptical and doubting… Some hunger drew them to Jesus. And Jesus’ compassion encompassed them all. That’s miraculous. A compassion that does not judge or qualify. Miraculous compassion.

The miracle of that compassion is all the more striking if we consider the context of this story. Matthew 14:13 actually begins with a phrase omitted in our lectionary reading. "When Jesus heard this, Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself." This reading comes right on the heels of another story. When he heard this, Jesus withdrew. When he heard what? These are the verses that immediately precede this passage: "King [Herod] sent and had John the Baptist beheaded in prison. The head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, who brought it to her mother, Herodias. John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went and told Jesus."

Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. John was his cousin. John was a courageous prophet of the Lord. John was the one who had baptized Jesus. It was John’s hands that poured the water of the river Jordan over Jesus at that moment when Jesus’ own ministry erupted into its fullness. Jesus has just learned of John’s murder.

Looming huge in Jesus’ own awareness at that moment must have been his own loss. But John’s murder was also a glaring example of humanity at its very worst. It showed the worst of human pettiness, cruelty and sinfulness. No wonder Jesus wanted to be alone.

And yet even as he sought solitude, perhaps to reflect on his own loss, perhaps to turn away from this act of human depravity… even as he sought solitude he was hounded by a huge crowd, seeking him, driven by their own individual and probably selfish needs. And he had compassion for them. All of them. Miraculous.

Miraculous compassion. Frederick Buechner has described compassion as "the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin… the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you." Listen to that again, remembering that we are talking about God’s compassion for us. God’s compassion for us: the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what is like to live inside somebody else’s skin. God’s compassion for us: is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me, God says, until there is peace and joy finally for you.

That’s how God feels about us. That’s what motivates God’s actions towards us. Only God can have that sort of pure, true compassion. Only God can really know what it is like to live in your skin, in mine. And God does. Have compassion for each of us. There is perhaps no better way to express the Christian life. We are all, all of the time, being pursued fervently, eagerly by God’s compassion. That’s really all you need to know. No matter who we are. No matter what we do or have done. No matter how we feel about God or about others. God’s compassion seeks us eagerly.

And so Jesus turns towards those who have hounded him into the solitude he seeks after the murder of John the Baptist… and somehow he cures them and he fills their hunger. He knows their deepest needs, and he fills them. Right after John’s murder, even the murderers in that crowd (and there must have been some) were touched by divine compassion. That’s miraculous.

Compassion: "the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else’s skin… the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you." Remember that you and I, all of us, are the object of God’s miraculous, divine compassion. We are relentlessly pursued. Nothing we can do can turn aside God’s yearning to soothe our suffering, fill our emptiness, relieve our need. God truly experiences whatever hunger comes from living in your skin. Compassion is God’s steady voice to us all: there can never fully be peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you.

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