Hunger, Food and Divine Multiplication
Hunger, Food and Divine Multiplication
Matthew 14:13-21
November 16, 2025
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church of San Rafael, CA
13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
15 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." 16 Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat." 17 They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." 18 And he said, "Bring them here to me."
19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Opening
Our worship today reflects so much of our life as a church.
Music from both choirs
Welcome new members
Dedication of pledges for our ministries and mission in 2026
Packing Thanksgiving bags – our neighbors are hungry or may not have enough food
Prayer and silence and scripture – our souls are hungry
Beautiful building as a place to gather
Abundance.
But there are times in the church and in our lives and in the world when we wonder if there is enough. There are contexts and seasons and eras when resources are low or scarce. And we as human beings have a hunger – physical and spiritual. Times we don’t feel we have enough of God’s peace and love and grace. What does our scripture passage offer us?
Feeding 5000
In a sermon on the feeding of the 5,000, Nadia Bolz-Weber speaks about the possibilities of what happened in that deserted place with all those hungry people, and the disciples’ perceptions and clear message – There is not enough.
She writes, “I started to wonder what was going on with [the disciples] that they would see the scene in front of them as they did. I wondered why they wanted the crowds to go away and fend for themselves and why, when Jesus asked what they had, they said “nothing. Nothing but 5 loaves and a couple fish.”
The disciples were hungry – physically and spiritually. They had done the math. There was not food. For themselves and for the crowd.
Here are a few possibilities for what they be up with the disciples that day:
Option a) Guilt
Maybe they felt guilty that they had nothing to offer and a little powerless to do anything about that.
Or maybe the guy who was carrying the food ate more than his share on the road and he was trying to cover for it. So picking fish bones out of his teeth he was like, “These people are gonna need dinner.”
Option b) greed
They wanted to keep their food (and their band of followers) and their Jesus all to themselves.
Option c) total lack of imagination
The old sin of thinking that all there is - is all there is.
Option d) all of the above.
I’m going to go with D, all of the above.
Sometimes I and maybe you look at the smallness of our offering, at the insignificance of our abilities, the inadequacy of our treasure, our lack of energy, compared to the greatness of the need. Or we act as though smallness, inadequacy, are things that would never be enough. Or we are not enough.
And yet every parable about God’s reign, kingdom – every teaching Jesus had about how God creates something glorious starts with something small. Never once did Jesus say the Kingdom of Heaven is like a Fortune 500 Company with super happy shareholders.
It’s always something small, insignificant, easily over-looked…these are the things that reveal the glory of God, Beloved Community. A mustard seed A little salt. One candle in a dark room. Five small loaves of bread and two fish.
Jesus said - Give me what you have, and let me do something with it. Give me what you have, and let me multiply it and give it back to you – not only so you will have enough, but so there will be plenty to share.
So take something small. And then when we open ourselves to the Holy One in our vulnerability, we see a different reality.
Too often we act as if all we have is strength and virtue and self-sufficiency. …Maybe we believe or know that God or Holy Mystery is in us and around us, but do not act as though it really matters. We can take care of it ourselves. That was the perspective of the disciples. Every person for themselves. They said there was they had nothing. Send the crowds away.
But they did not realize that there was more available than what they themselves had to offer.
Whether or not Jesus molecularly multiplied the bread and fish like an amazing magic trick– or if the crowds managed to open up their meager picnic baskets and share their fried chicken and potato salad with their neighbors, the point of this story for me was what the disciples must have learned: namely that there was more available to them than what they themselves were bringing to the table.
Bolz Weber continues saying, “…Maybe [Jesus] didn’t want the disciples to send the people away because Jesus knew that those people had what the disciples lacked. Maybe the disciples, like us, need to be reminded that even when we do not have what is needed, what is needed is still at hand…it’s just [going to] come from God or others, because in God’s economy, that’s how it works.”
And then she preached this line that has stayed with me - “What you have is enough because it’s never all that there is.”
It also takes a lot of pressure off, refocusing what our lives and ministry are about, not about being all things for all people, but pointing to God, Divine Mystery, and our community, which can manifest God’s goodness.
We can reframe this story and our spiritual journeys. God works through the places where we are lacking. This opens us up to receiving grace. When we try to do it all on our own, we become ones who see no need for God’s presence in our lives. When we acknowledge that we are not self-sufficient, but still are willing to bring who we are and what we have, offering our lives as contributions to the work of God’s kin-dom, Beloved Community, all together we have more than enough. God multiplies what we offer.
Stewardship
We do get stuck like the disicples - is there enough? That is a human question.
It’s one our church asks as we develop annual budgets and plan for future thriving. Will we have enough— to fund our vital mission, pay our outstanding staff, maintain our magnificent building, in 2026 and beyond?
And maybe our Mission Committee wondered this week – is there enough food this year for 55 bags for the Ritter Center? Will enough food be donated? Will people make financial contributions to buy the rest of what is needed?
There is enough as evidence on the tables. Together, with God’s help, there is enough.
Hold onto the deeper truth “What you have is enough because it’s never all that there is.”
We often use only our powers of observation and calculation. But Jesus demonstrates a different way, replacing a sense of “scarcity” with one of “abundance.” There will never be enough, if what you see is all you get. But if we follow Jesus’ lead, we will use a different math, different calculus to evaluate the situation. The Holy One multiplies what we offer.
This story of Jesus feeding the 5000 was central to the early church. The Gospel writers made sure of that - the feeding of the 5,000 is told 6 times and for those keeping track, there are only 4 Gospels so in 2 of them this story is told twice.
And what it means to be a People of the Book, to be a people who are formed and shaped by our own sacred stories, to follow the ways of the prophets, to follow the ways of Jesus, is that we never stop asking questions about these stories. We never exhaust them as the endless reservoirs of meaning that they are. We never stop listening for what God may be saying to us.
The feeding of the 5000 offered new hope for me this week. I felt empathy with the disciples. They were hungry. They saw what they did not have. But then their eyes and hearts were opened. They were fed and fed others and there were leftovers and abundance because “What they had was enough because it’s never all that there is.” Spirit creating abundance.
Close with a story.
In her remarkable book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Potawatomi Nation and a biologist, shares an origin story witnessing to the abundance filling the universe. During a long and brutal winter, three sisters visited a community where food was scarce, the people starving. Despite this famine, the three sisters were greeted warmly and fed generously. In gratitude for this hospitality, the three sisters gifted the people with three seeds—corn, bean, and squash—a small package that ensured the people would never go hungry again.
Kimmerer explains: The lessons of reciprocity are written clearly in a Three Sisters garden. Together their stems inscribe what looks to me like a blueprint for the world a map of balance and harmony. The corn stands eight feet tall; rippling green ribbons of leaf curl away from the stem in every direction to catch the sun. . . The bean twines around the corn stalk, weaving itself between the leaves of corn, never interfering with their work. . . Spread around the feet of the corn and beans is a carpet of big broad squash leaves that intercept the light that falls among the pillars of corn. . The organic symmetry of forms belongs together; the placement of every leaf, the harmony of shapes speak their message. Respect one another, support one another, bring your gift to the world and receive the gifts of others, and there will be enough for all. [Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, The Three Sisters]
Thanks be to God! Amen.
Resources
Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, “Sermon on Lembas Bread, the Feeding of the 5,000 and Why I Hated Pastoral Care Classes,” Aug. 26, 2014
Rev. Kathleen Henrion, “Of One Heart and Soul”; April 12, 2015
https://presbydestrian.wordpress.com/tag/feeding-of-the-5000/
Rev. Louise Westfall, “Is There Ever Enough?” Sept. 29, 2024