I somehow grew up with the notion that one of the worst things you could ever be was being needy. That might be a particularly Gen X thing, but I also know it’s not just us. Best I can tell, all of us want to appear as if all were just fine, self-sufficient all the time while the truth is, we are needy.

We all have these soft, squishy bodies that get sick and hurt. We have soft, squishy feelings that get also get hurt. We all have fears and wounds. We’re all prone to dubious decision-making, particularly when life kicks us in the teeth. And all the while, we’re still pretending we’re all good.

But who are we fooling? After all, we’re all pretending to be impervious to life among humans who also know what it’s like to be human. This behavior reminds me of babies who hide from you by putting their hands over their faces. They think you can’t see them because they can’t see you, right? Of course, pretending we don’t have needs works pretty well among all the other humans who are all pretending they don’t have needs, as well. I guess something can disappear if we’re all participating in the same game, but that doesn’t make the reality of our needs any different. They are still there even when we try to hide it.

So the question is not whether we are needy or not. We are. Rather, how we get these needs met is the real question.

In this country and culture, we prefer to meet our needs through transactions. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is wonderful, for example, to hire movers to help with the big stuff so when your friends come to help, you’re not risking bodily harm. Even then, God bless and protect the movers.

However, we tend to do this with all our needs, do we not? It’s a growing trend that people are turning to AI for companionship, therapy, or even church. Of course, these are extreme examples but it reflects our larger reality of declining civic engagement and increasing social isolation. We have a tendency these days to pull back from each other and use money and companies to meet our needs.

This same dynamic is at play here. The disciples in the gospel story see the need of the people. They are not without compassion themselves, but they don’t see a way for the hunger of the people to be met without helping them get on their way so that they could buy food or perhaps just go home. The Sea of Galilee isn’t that big and there were towns all along it. These folks had their customary ways of being fed for the most part, just as we have our customary ways of being fed. And I’m sure the moms in the crowd would have been acutely aware of their children’s hunger and would have left to meet that need, if that was indeed the biggest need of the moment.

At the beginning of this text, we hear that Jesus and the people all find themselves together at this place in the wake of John the Baptist’s death. John was considered a great prophet by the people. He was a source of hope in a desperate time of occupation, and he was cruelly killed by Herod for the sin of speaking truth to powerful people. So, the people gathered with Jesus are all grieving alongside Jesus and are perhaps afraid. The hope people had in John was crushed and if John was killed for challenging power as a prophet of God, was Jesus next? They didn’t know, but alongside grief, there’s fear and desperation in that crowd for those who needed healing or who craved liberation and justice.  

So, yes, their bodies would have been hungry and vulnerable in general to the difficulty of simply being alive in a desert. But they didn’t leave despite this perhaps because their need for hope, comfort, and peace was more pressing than their hunger.

The miracle of this story is not just that Jesus fed many thousands of people without adequate planning and resources. The miracle is that through God’s action, through God’s provision, tummies were filled but so were hearts. The very nature of this feast would have filled people with love, courage, reassurance, connection, and faith. And yes, people were stuffed full to the brim with the goodness.

We too know how to get our needs met because we’re resourceful like the people in this text. We tend to meet our needs through transactions, going to the store, paying our bills, etc. However, our deeper human needs remain. Oftentimes it’s not just about the food or whatever the need is, but it is how food is given, served, received, and shared.

The Roman Empire made promises to the people about why it was ultimately beneficial to be a part of the empire. First, if you submit to the domination of the empire, there’d be no war. Now, this is basically mob extortion. If you do what you’re told, you won’t be hurt as much and we’ll call that “peace.” Obviously, this is a little less than ideal but was part of the promise and was known as Pax Romana. The other big promise was that you and your people, or at least the elites, would benefit economically with roads, Roman infrastructure, and markets. And your people would be fed. There’s nothing like famine to topple a political regime, so food stability was a big deal for the Roman Empire. They weren’t perfect at feeding everyone, of course. No political system seems to be perfect at delivering their promises, apparently, but Rome wanted to be the source of goodness in people’s lives. Rome wanted to be considered the source of safety and provision, because people won’t challenge what makes them feel safe and secure. So when the disciples say the people should go get something to eat, they are saying the people should go participate in the Roman-approved system of markets and grain distribution because that’s how their world worked.  

But Jesus says no, we don’t have to participate in that system. We have what we need right here. And not only do we have the bread and the fish, but we can meet all the deep and profound needs of the people that they are starving for. Compassion, healing, inclusion, hope, and love.  

It’s not just about the body, but the confluence of all the need of these many thousands of people that Jesus taught the disciples to meet and tend to.

The disciples had the same notion that a lot of us do, which is the way to get our needs met is to use the logistics and systems that are in place to meet those needs, as in markets and money. But when we rely purely on these systems, what we get is the stale and shallow experiences of transactions instead of the bounty and plenty of God’s provision.

So, as I read this, I wondered if Jesus is asking us to raise our expectations of this life, that we can be fed and feed each other in such a way that hope and love over flow. I wonder if Jesus is blessing the people who stayed for the needs that run deeper than hunger. I don’t mean to say that sufficient food is a trivial thing for the chronically hungry. It’s not. Just ask the kids who receive their Packing Friendships bags every week. However, I wonder if Jesus is calling us to see the needs of the world and to meet them with love and compassion that goes beyond the transactional nature of our daily lives.

I am grateful and proud of how Celebration participates in feeding people who need extra support in our community. Food is important, of course! But the Packing Friendship team adds extra love in each bag too with stickers, decorated bags, and sometimes little presents. Or ask Pastor Nancy to tell you about the difference between the love that was served alongside the food at Lighthouse that has since been shut down. It wasn’t just about the food, but the care and community that was there.

The structures of our world are designed to make money by meeting our “needs,” but I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of love in how it’s done. Amazon is not a central place for filling us with hope and love, even if it is a convenient way to get our “needs” met. So, perhaps this gospel is an invitation to see and meet the deep needs in this world for ourselves and others.

The empire or the structures of power do want us to turn to them to meet our needs. However, what they offer is a thin, paltry meal when we consider current rates of suicide, depression, isolation, and hopelessness in our society. Our normal structures of life are not meeting the deep needs of the people now and they didn’t in Jesus’ time.

So, we the disciples are called to meet these needs, however and wherever we see them and to do so with the love of Christ flowing through us. That may mean we head out with Nancy to help feed people at Locomotive Park. That may mean we volunteer where our hands are most needed or perhaps we should have bags of food and goodies ready to hand to the people we see on the street. That may mean we invite people to dinner for food and fellowship. There’s a million ways to set the table for God’s love to be shared and for that love to be shockingly multiplied beyond our expectations, beyond what our economic and political power structures want to define for us. Our God is bigger than that. Jesus is bigger than that and you are called to participate as one who receives that love and as one who is called to share it with others.

Just like communion, God’s table is set and it is for you and for all people shared by us and for us. May we pray and listen for inspiration about how to participate in God’s action.

AMEN