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RSSSend the Crowds Away?
Pentecost 12, Proper 13, Year A
Genesis 32:22-31 +Psalm 17: 1-7, 16 or Isaiah 55:1-5 + Psalm 145: 8-9, 15-22
Romans 9:1-5
Matthew 14:13-21
When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." Jesus said to them,"They need not go away; you give them something to eat."
Matthew 14:15-16
It looks like the disciples were ready to send a crowd of hungry men, women and children stumbling off toward town in the dark in search of food. It gets dark suddenly in the desert, and there were no floodlit used car lots to navigate by in those days. The disciples must have realized how dangerous it would be for the crowd to head into town. I guess they figured that was not their problem.
Today, we are beginning to realize that there is no "away." Everything is everybody's problem. The hazards of life in poverty and war also affect the lives of those who have plenty and live in peace, even if they are far away. The search for drinkable water, for arable land, for food, for a safe place to live: these are what cause whole populations to become refugees, changing the economic and cultural life of host nations, which eventually changes the lives of everyone. There is an ecology of human need, as there is an ecology of everything else. It isn't just the case that we shouldn't "send them away." The truth is, we can't.
Christian love is all about valuing another's life as much as you value your own. Its prototype is one who loved enough to sacrifice everything for us, the beloved. This is why the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), originating from the United Nations, was recognized immediately by the Church as an eloquent economic and political expression of Christ's love for the world: the MDGs recognize the oneness all human beings share, rich and poor alike. We are all in this together. There is no getting away from one another.
This morning's story was about hunger -- MDG #1. There are many others in the gospels --stories about illness, about poverty, about work and the lack of it. Stories about farming. Stories about the dignity of women and children. You could find a story from scripture about each one of the MDGs. You could find many.
These are the MDGs. They are tall orders. A couple of them may make you think of a day when five thousand people were fed by other people, who didn't think they had enough on hand to do any good at all.
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality and empower women
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a global partnership for development
On our behalf, Episcopal Relief & Development is committed to each of the Millennium Development Goals, and seriously assesses each of its programs in terms of the manner in which it furthers them.
