He Had Compassion

He Had Compassion

Matthew 14:13-21

Summer is often the time for vacations. It is a time for recreation, re-creation. It is a time for respite from the work we do. If you will, we all need a vacation from our vocation.

For some folks, a vacation means taking a trip to some place where they cater to, and indulge, your every whim. For some folks, a vacation is that opportunity for some face-to-face time with family members who no longer all live in the same community. And, in what some see as a trend in a down economy, some folks just stay home and take it easy.

How we approach a vacation differs, as well. Some pay others to make all the arrangements for their fun, whether it is on a cruise, a trip to Branson, or a tour of museums in St. Louis or Kansas City. Some think that half the fun is planning where you want to go and what you will do. And there are some adventurous souls who will just get in the car, or on a plane, and see where it takes them.

Pam and I tend to be in the group that goes to see family. Nearly all of our family has lived in the Kansas City area during our married life. And since the bishop insists on us serving in places other than our home towns, if we wanted to see family, we had to go to the family. And the only way to see them for more than a few hours was to take vacation.

There have been a few times, of course, when we decided on a destination other than Kansas City for our time away from the church and school. One year, when our children were both teenagers, we decided to take them to Estes Park, Colorado, around the time of the 4th of July. When they asked us why EstesPark, we told them we wanted them to see mountains. Being teenagers, they didn’t think that would be all that exciting – after all, they had lived in the Ozarks, so they had already seen mountains. While we agreed with them that they had indeed lived in the Ozarks, they hadn’t seen mountains like what we were going to see.

Usually, when we go on vacation, we plan it all out. Before we leave the house, we know exactly how far we are going, how long it will take to get there, how many stops we will make along the way, where we will be staying, and what we will be doing each day while we are on vacation. But for this trip, that all sounded like work, and we had already had our fill of planning and preparation with Annual Conference and church meetings, and school planning sessions, and everything else. This vacation, we decided, we would be spontaneous. We were going to head to EstesPark without any reservations or plans, and just go with the flow.

As we got close to EstesPark, however, we noticed something odd. Every inn, every hotel, every cluster of cabins had “no vacancy” signs out. But we had been to EstesPark before, attending church events at the YMCA Camp of the Rockies, so we knew there were lots of options.

But even in EstesPark, the “no vacancy” sign seemed to be everywhere. When we did find a place that had a cabin available, the price quoted was twice what they had posted on their website. I suppose a confession is in order here – before we left, I had checked the Estes Park Chamber of Commerce website so that I would know what was available. We wanted to be spontaneous on this trip – I just wanted to be prepared to be spontaneous!

As a last resort, we went to the Holiday Inn, which is where we almost always stay when we are on the road. But even they were booked up solid. As a courtesy, they contacted the other hotels in the community, but there was not a room to be found. I asked the clerk why there were so many people in town. It seems that the largest Independence Day fireworks display in the entire state of Colorado is held at EstesPark every year, and people come from all over the state, and all over the region for it.

The clerk identified one room in the hotel that had a “no show.” We could have that room for the night, but we had to check at the desk in the morning to see if we could keep it. That would be our routine for the week – we would spend the night, and then check to see if we could keep the room one more day. But being spontaneous allowed us to do this – if we had called to make a reservation, we would have been told that there were no rooms available. And as it turned out, there was at least one “no show” each day we were there.

So we did the touristy things that people do in Colorado. We walked trails. We visited the shops. We ate a lot of food that other people cooked. We climbed a mountain. We went over the continental divide. These were all things that had nothing to do with school work or church work.

But one day, we went to the hotel pool. While the kids were swimming, Pam and I went to the whirlpool. After only a few minutes, however, we were joined by a woman and her daughter. The daughter had cerebral palsy, and was confined to a wheel chair. The woman didn’t know we were there at first, and when she saw us, she started to leave. We could tell by the mother’s expression that she had previous bad experiences in a setting like this.

Pam invited them to stay, and asked if she could help get the daughter into the whirlpool. When the mother hesitated, Pam told her that she was a special education teacher and had worked with several children like her daughter before. After the daughter was in the water, Pam offered to take care of her so the mother could relax. And I got to watch as the stress left this woman’s face, as she watched the joy in her daughter’s face at being in the comforting water. Even though Pam was on vacation, and this would be a lot like what she did at work, Pam had compassion for the mother and daughter, and we were all blessed.

About an hour before the fireworks display, we went out to find a spot on the hill overlooking the lake where the show would take place. The number of people we saw verified why it was so hard to find a room when we got to EstesPark. While I never saw an official count for the crowd, I think Biblical terms would have been appropriate – about 5000 men, with women and children besides.

While we were waiting, we engaged in some people-watching. Not too far from us was a young family – a mother, father, two young girls and one boy. After watching them for a few moments, Pam said to me that the boy had special needs. I could see what she meant – the boy covered his ears, and walked around as if the grass hurt his feet. Pam’s guess was that the boy was autistic, and that he was trying to limit the amount of stimulation he was receiving. Pam had spent a year as a personal aid to an autistic child in a previous school district, and wondered how this boy was going to deal with all the stimulation of a fireworks display. We were soon to find out.

At the first burst and bang of the display, the boy ran away from this mother and straight to me. He sat down on my lap and laid his head against my chest, without saying a word or making eye contact. At first, his mother was panicked, when she noticed he wasn’t still sitting by her. And then she was panicked and embarrassed that he was sitting on some strange man’s lap.

She came over and started to apologize. She confirmed that her son was autistic, and she was never sure how he was going to react to something like this. I told her I was a United Methodist pastor, and that my wife was a special education teacher. I added that he seemed to have chosen me as a safe place where he could deal with the fireworks. I’m not sure what this says about me, but it seemed to imply that I was for this boy a total lack of stimulation!

I offered, if it was all right with her, and that I would understand if it wasn’t, that her son could stay with me while she enjoyed the show with her husband and daughters. And, if at any time he wanted to do something else, I would make sure he went back to them. After a moment of hesitation, and seeing that her son continued to remain calm as the fireworks were going off, she said thank you and rejoined the rest of her family.

Throughout the fireworks, the boy sat there calmly, watching the bright bursts and listening to the pops and bangs. When the last of the display was over, the boy got up and walked back to his family, without ever saying a word to me. But in addition to the fireworks, I got to watch a family relax and enjoy the display. Even though I was on vacation, and this was a lot like what I sometimes do in church work, I had compassion for the family, and we were all blessed.

It is easy to get distracted in our scripture reading by the miracle of Jesus feeding the crowd with only five loaves of bread and two fish. We want to make this a lesson about stewardship – if we share what we have it will be multiplied, and we will all eat and be satisfied. Some want to make this a lesson about sharing – that as we share in the name of Jesus Christ, others will be led to share what they have as well; and then there will be enough and more to go around. Others want to make this a lesson about the power of Jesus, that Jesus is a miracle worker and that this is a sign that he is God.

But as I have lived with this passage over the years, I am not that impressed any more by the sharing idea or the miracle emphasis. Lots of cultures and religions have stories about the power of sharing, so we don’t need Jesus if all that really matters is sharing what we already have. And in John’s gospel, the story begins with the affirmation that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . Through him all things were made.” If we believe that Jesus is the one who brought all of creation into being with a word, that the millions of galaxies and billions of stars, and all that is on them and around them, came into existence through the power of Jesus, is it really all that impressive that he can stretch a few loaves of bread into enough for a crowd?

Some hear this reading, and they focus on the part that says the people all ate, and were filled, and there was more to go around. In some translations, it says the people were satisfied, and I think that is a better translation. In Psalm 17, which was the basis for our call to worship, there is an affirmation that when we are in the presence of God we are satisfied. When we remember this, we hear that the people all ate, and that the people were satisfied. We hear that the stomachs were filled with food, and their hearts were filled with God.

That meaning is easier for us to see if we remember the first part of the reading. Jesus withdrew from the crowds to a deserted place, he withdrew to have a respite from the work he had been doing – he was looking to take a little vacation time. But when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them. Jesus knew that you don’t follow someone out into the wilderness, out to where demons and evil may lurk in every shadow, because you are hungry for food. You follow them, even into the wilderness, because you are hungry for God. And the commandment to love trumps all other demands on our life with God.

Are we supposed to share what we have, and trust it to the hands of Jesus? Of course we are. Is Jesus capable of the miracle of making five loaves and two fish enough to feed a crowd and to have leftovers? Of course he is. Yet I think the good news in this passage is that Jesus has compassion for us in our need. And the challenge for us as disciples, as we conform our lives to Christ, is to have compassion for others.

That is what Paul said to the church at Corinth in his first letter that we have. In the 13th chapter, we are reminded that it doesn’t matter how much we give, or how much we do, or how much we understand, if any of that is separated from the love revealed in Jesus Christ. John Wesley, in his notes on the Bible, said it this way: even faith must be the handmaid of love. Loving one another, showing compassion for those who are in need – this is our true vocation, from which we can never take a vacation.

This is the promise we make as disciples of Jesus Christ. And Christ has promised to be with us always, working in us through the Holy Spirit, so that we may keep the promises to love one another as Christ has loved us. Let us affirm these promises as we stand to sing, “Standing in the Promises.”