Tuesday - Pentecost 4
Readings
Ecclesiastes 8:14-9:10
Galatians 4:21-31
Matthew 15:29-39
Meditation
Why does Matthew have a second feeding the masses miracle? Jesus feeds the 5000 a short time before this in Matthew’s narrative, but in today’s reading the number is 4000. The disciples pick up 12 baskets left over from 5 loaves and 2 fishes earlier. Here they pick up 7 baskets from 7 loaves and “a few” fishes. Is Matthew just playing with numbers? Ultimately, some of those questions are unanswerable. We don’t have enough information, or we are not close enough culturally to the original readers. One of the best answers is based on the location of this miracle right next to yesterday’s reading. Yesterday, Jesus appeared rough, unkind, or maybe in the words of our day, intolerant. The canaanite woman’s daughter was healed, but what about the rest of the non-Jewish world. Are they included? Will the table of the Kingdom be open to them? The answer is yes. Jesus, walking along the Sea of Galilee in gentile teritorry repeats his earlier feeding miracle. “I have compassion for these people” he says. We can get lost looking at the numbers. We can lose our way focusing on specifics and the exact way to do things. They are not unimportant, but the key to the story is that line, “I have compassion for these people.” The compassion of the Father’s Messiah did not stop at the border of Judea or exclude the Canaanite, the Samaritan or the Greek.
Lord, help us also to feel and to show compassion for all of your children.
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