Westminster Talking the Text
A Lectionary Podcast at Westminster Presbyterian Church
Westminster Talking the Text
Westminster Talking the Text Podcast for Sunday, August 2nd, 2026 | Matthew 14:13-21 | with Donovan Drake, Guy D. Griffith, and Will Wellman
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Westminster Talking the Text Podcast for Sunday, August 2nd, 2026 | Matthew 14:13-21 | with Donovan Drake, Guy D. Griffith, and Will Wellman
Jesus feeds 5000
14:13 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.
14:14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
14:15 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."
14:16 Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."
14:17 They replied, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish."
14:18 And he said, "Bring them here to me."
14:19 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.
14:20 And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full.
14:21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
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And welcome to another Talking the Text. I'm Donovan. Guy. Will. The text for this Sunday is from Matthew's Gospels 14, chapter 14, and it's verses 13 through 21. And uh before I read it, let's have a word of prayer. Let's pray. Holy and gracious God, we give you thanks and praise for this day that you have made. We rejoice and we're glad in it. Um as we head to your scriptures this morning, we pray that your spirit be with us, guide us in our hearing, guide us in our conversation. May the words that we speak give you glory. And we ask all this in your son's name. Amen. Amen. All right. This is Matthew 14, 13 through 21. Hear the word of God. Now, when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. And I should say what he just heard was that John the Baptist had his head cut off and delivered on a platter at King Herod's banquet. So 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, and when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 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 to the villages and buy food for themselves. Jesus said to them, They need not go away, you give them something to eat. They replied, We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish. And he said, Bring them here to me. And then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and 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, and all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve basketful, and those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children. The word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Betty God.
SPEAKER_02All right. So I gotta do my little taken from Mark. This was taken from Mark's gospel, and um and Mark uses the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand as kind of duplicates to show the stupidity of the disciples. And in Mark's gospel, it's the feeding of the five thousand comes after the disciples out, and and they've been doing well. They've been healing and uh by the Spirit. But they still don't get it. But they for some reason they don't get it, right? And then uh Jesus says to them, why don't you go out to a deserted place? But this one is kind of smack right after the banquet of King Herod, and this offers another banquet, and it is Jesus who needs to go away and get a rest. And the crowds follow him. So what else about this text is interesting?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I th I do think one commentator um that I read, you know, suggests um that one of the lessons for those who are maturing in Christ, when we're faced with mind-boggling hurts of humanity, our deepest grieves, heaviest burdens, and greatest fears should not move us to self-protection, but instead open our hearts to the pain of creation. Don't look away or run away, go ashore into the chaos, armed with vulnerability and compassion. I think that's an interesting thing. You know, Jesus is wanting to get by himself, you know, places over and over in Scripture, Jesus goes away, and then the disciples come and say, Hey, you you know, people are waiting for you. And and how as we kind of mature in our own faith and desire to follow is a pattern of openness to the hurts and heartbreaks of others, what we lead with rather than self-protection or kind of turning inward. Um I like that about this text as a reminder. Um but then I've never had a cousin lose his head.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. Yeah, some news is really overwhelming, yeah. Overwhelming, right?
SPEAKER_00And that's pretty depressing news. Yeah. Well, and you know, again, it's constantly the shadow of the cross that he's living with, right? Right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There's also just like such a beyond just the violence, like the spectacle of it. It's just such a contrast from what follows, right? There's like the spectacle of the request, John being cut at a part, like his head being cut and put on a platter, uh giving it to the girl, bringing it to her mother. That like that contrast of opulence, wealth, and just like insane violence. But like also just in a sense, like almost happenstance, right? It's like, oh, this is just like a little funny thing that happens at our parties. Uh, and then you contrast that with Christ uh and these like hungry crowds. To me, it it reinforces uh what's happening earlier when he meets John the Baptist about the reed and the palaces versus John, who's you know in a camel suit or camel hair. Uh it's just a reiteration of that. It's this it's this distinction between this like opulence uh and wealth that disregards the human uh versus like poverty that in its a seeming scarcity moves toward those in need.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, when the when the craziness becomes commonplace that you don't blink, right? I mean, and it's you know, you read through that text of John the Baptist getting his head cut off, and you know, my goodness, you should just pause there and stop and say, this world is insane. Um and I wonder what happens when the world gets so insane that it doesn't matter anymore. And what I oddly what I'm thinking about is, you know, if the 2010 flood happened today in Nashville, would anybody come to our church? Because floods and fires are happening everywhere. You know? Um you know, it was unusual at the time. Now it's every day. And so what do you do about it? Nothing.
SPEAKER_00Right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think of that passage out of the beginning of Isaiah that uh uh you know the prophet is condemning the people because they've lost the capacity to blush. Right. You know, and just think uh we become so inured that um you know, we read in the newspaper that 6.2 or uh earthquake in Japan, you know. Oh, another earthquake. Oh, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So another thing I think is interesting, so you have this story, and instead of harping on the story or the crowds harping on the story, or anybody, you know, bringing it up, they're following Jesus to a faraway place or a lonely place. And you know, what does that need about? You know, when when when you've had enough of the crazy that I'd rather just go off into the wilderness for a bit. But he never gets to escape, right? He never gets to escape. But the crowd to me it's like, you know, what is dri what would drive a crowd to just be with him, right? I mean, that's a massive crowd of people, if we if we were to take it literally, right?
SPEAKER_01But it like the the there's a desire for something new. That's why I was bringing up the earlier part with with Herod and the the robes and like the palaces, is like people are they're they're under occupation. Herod is their supposed leader and is just could care less about them. Uh, and there's this, I mean, like uh even outside of the Bible, right? There's tons of stuff going on. Like you have the zealots and all that kind of stuff, right? There's just an atmosphere. This is when apocalyptic literature is coming out, right? There's just this desire and energy for something new. And so I think people are curious and see Jesus as potentially something new. Like obviously there's a a reversal of that toward the end, right? But for the for the time being, like there is a sense that this guy might be the guy. One of my I'm sorry, go ahead, Dominic. Sorry.
SPEAKER_02I mean, just it just reminds me of like refugees, you know, a mass of people walking into nowhere. Um, because the world, as you said, I mean, the the world is just crazy nuts. Yeah. And this, you know, maybe this is different. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Two thoughts. First, um that great little book by Rabbi Kushner on Ecclesiastes called When All You've Ever Wanted Isn't Enough. And I think about that with, you know, what did um Tony Campoli used to talk about uh um the problem of affluence, but he had a fun title with it I can't think. Affluent affluenza. Affluenza uh is what he called it. I thought that was really creative. And then the other uh, you know, because I watch weird television, I was watching a program last night on uh what Europe was like after World War II and just how devastated it was. And uh, you know, the there was a a German term for women who were collectors of the rubble. And they would have these long lines and pale and you know, like brick by brick, they're getting it out and putting it back together. But uh I hadn't, you know, as much as I've read about the period, I hadn't really seen just how awful it was. And uh, you know, folks wanting something more because everything gets stripped away. You know, in in on the one hand, you have so much that it's not satisfying. On the other hand, when everything's stripped away, where do you go? That movie The Piano? Yeah. Is it the piano? The pianist. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02Pianist, yeah. And and there's there's that scene where he like comes out and he opens the window or the door and it's just rubble as far as you can see. Right. And it's like, holy smooth. How do you begin to put life together after that? But I think it, you know, these ref you know, if if these are like refugees where you go with no food, I mean and what this is what Jesus tells his disciples to do, right? You know, go without without anything and go out into the world. Well, they're going out without anything with Jesus, which is something interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It I I just too am like I I don't know. It just seems so like the dichotomy between what's happening in the palace and these people, like, and you you're talking about like the refuge refugee analogy is just I mean, wouldn't we all just want to go to a palace where there's gonna be food? Even if they're kind of weird and violent, rather than just like following after some guy that we don't know our next meal's gonna come from. Like it it's very easy to see the temptation here. Uh and I think that overlays very well with like contemporary America, right? Uh like i it it's much easier to kind of like lean back upon affluence uh the comforts of that, and the push to follow the gospel uh is literally going chasing after some weird peasant dude out into the wilderness and not knowing where your next meal is gonna come from.
SPEAKER_02Right. And then you know, everybody sees these texts as the you know, this is the the feast, the communion feast, right? So it's uh it becomes a model for the church that you know Jesus takes the bread, breaks, looks up to heaven, breaks the bread, and gives it to the crowds, and everybody's fed to abundance. Um and the Elijah stories. Right? Right.
SPEAKER_01The widow or the brain.
SPEAKER_00Right, never never runs out, right? Yeah. Are you pairing this with the Jabbok story?
SPEAKER_02No, because there's an Isaiah text. Uh uh. The complimentary. Yeah. Will's now look scowling at me because I'm gonna be teaching on the Jacob text, but not preaching on the Jacob text. Which is one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_01I was telling him it's one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_02I love it. That's why I was gonna leave it alone because I knew that I would disappoint you if I preached on it.
SPEAKER_01My first sermon out at seminary was on this.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah? Or on Genesis 33. Why don't you give it to me and I'll read that? It's not a good sermon. Okay.
SPEAKER_00We all got to start somewhere, bro. Still working on it.
SPEAKER_01But uh I I I I I think that's another thing about this. It's so beautiful, is like you can um you can pull it forward into like the early church practice of of communion or Eucharist. You're gonna go back to like Elijah, but it's it's always that sense of like you think about the early church communities that are like huddling catacombs or in houses and um you know, sometimes under oppression, sometimes not, but always kind of on the fringe of society and finding a kind of abundance amidst that scarcity. And the same thing with the Elijah stories.
SPEAKER_02Right. And then you got, you know, you have disciples in Mark's gospel, you know, you know, send them home in here, send them home, right? And you know, the church then looks at its own abilities to solve the problems without Jesus, right? Yes, yes, yes. So it's like, okay, just you know, if they we can solve this if they just go away. And then, you know, Jesus says you give them something to eat, which again in Mark's gospel plays well because it's like, you know, they've just gone out and healed and all this kind of stuff, and they should be getting this, and they can't get it, and they're so stupid yet. But he just keeps moving on with the bread and the fish, and everyone are fed, and 12 basketfuls, and it's the we're on the Jewish side of the lake.
SPEAKER_01There there's also that I I think this gets overlooked in verse 14. Uh, when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compit compassion for them and cured their sick. Like that's just like this little note, but you could think about how life-changing that would be, right? If you're sick in this day and age, where you know the little things can be a terminal illness. Yeah. Uh yeah, I I don't know. I I just find it like such a beautiful but challenging text because of this idea of like following this guy out in the middle of nowhere. Uh, but in the midst of that, there's healing, um, and there's there's feeding, just these very material things. Right. It's community.
SPEAKER_00It's communion of the whole. Bring them here to me. But Jesus says, we don't have the but Jesus, we say, we don't have the capacity to feed all these people. Resources are limited. We're only 12 and there are thousands of them. And that is to prove their point, they huddle together and in Matthew's version, show Jesus all they've got combined: five loaves, two fish. See, Jesus, we told you, bring them here to me. Commence miracle. Blessed, broke, and distributed, enough. No, more than enough. Baskets left over. I think when we hand over to Jesus the resources that appear meager, Jesus will take, bless, break, and use them in ways we cannot imagine. I think that to me is one of the great challenges of this text, right? You know, from the widow's mite to the rich young rulers' abundance, uh, all of it in the economy of God can be multiplied by the Lord.
SPEAKER_02And and there is this diary that was given to me by a person who kept very detailed notes. And you know, the earlier in the person's life, you know, she could kind of critique different things, blah, blah, blah, you know, uh husband, food, you know, where they live, all that kind of stuff. And then towards the end, she reverses all that and says, these are the blessings of my life. And it's like, okay, we've gone from it wasn't enough to it was more than more than enough. Yeah. You know. And uh you know, being able to see that now it's pretty good. You know, all these all these people in this text are dead and gone, right? And maybe the next day they're hungry again. I don't know. But for the moment, it is enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that somebody had compassion on them. You know, it w isn't it um uh Victor Frankel? You know, the the devastation of the camps and everything. It's uh the G.I. who stops and gives him the candy bar that he remembers not everybody is like those guards. Then there's meaning in in life, and we need to search for that meaning.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And how um, you know, we can can make a difference, uh, even if we can't necessarily change circumstances meeting that need at a particular time is a helpful thing.
SPEAKER_02And and you know, if we believe that Jesus is with us, uh how do we live out of abundance rather than scarcity? Right.
SPEAKER_01There's I I mean, I don't want to like over-read into this either, but like I just am like so struck by this sense of like there's no questions asked, right? There's just compassion and feeding. And um the the beauty of like these the bumbling disciples, right? Uh, who are us, right? Like I every time I read the gospels, I'm like, remember, you're the disciple, right? And this is like when the little children they try to send the children away. It's like this temptation to push away, and Christ is like, nope, bring them in. Uh a friend of mine always said the gospel, all the gospel is doing is is just drawing a circle bigger. Uh, and and I think this is a perfect example of that. There's not like a test or do they deserve it or not. There's just this sense of like uh compassion for them and their need, uh, and this miraculous unfolding in the midst of scarcity. The the word compassion, uh, it means to like have a yearning in your bowels. Uh like that's really that's the the the Greek here, the coine. Uh it's like splank nisami. Splank split nisomi, right? Yeah, splank. But it was the the the idea back then was like your gut was where compassion was. And so it's it's not like this like splankness. It's not this like um you know abstract, well he saw them and he took compassion on it. It was like, no, it was like this bodily urge within him to care for these people in their need. Uh and that's a really powerful contrast between the disciples.
SPEAKER_02Splank splankna. Oh yeah, splink. Yeah, there it is. It's a weird it sounds German, right? Yeah, splankt is the bowels, right? I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Splankna.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, that gutty awareness. You know, where there I I saw in the news the other day about I think it was the Seattle shootings. So many. Um you know, where the guy uh at the he's had got a I don't know, selling something at a fair, and he drops everything because he knows his wife's over there, and so he runs in that direct, you know, that where that gutty reaction has to go that way and not to think about yourself. Yeah, yeah. And um, I I always, you know, my sense is that I'm always calculating, you know, how do you how do you get rid of the calculation, you know, and and just be all in. And you know, how do we do that with Jesus? You know, like the disciples in Mark's gospel are like, yeah, where are we gonna get whatever up 10,000 bucks to feed this crowd? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know. Um Yeah, there's like a a dichotomy between this kind of like cerebral practical side and this kind of just embodied yearning to help.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think what I've always found is you know, those people who are nearest to death throw the calculations away. I mean, I just I've the most most profound conversations I've had are people who like it, you know, all the calculations don't matter anymore, and I'm I'm free. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um I I knew a guy at my last church who who like uh it it it's hard to describe him. He he's just a really influential person. I did some Bible studies with him before seminary, and then when I came back, um he he was not wealthy by any means. He wasn't poor, but he was not wealthy and uh he just was like constantly giving his money away in this like really radical way to me. Um and he he kind of like it wasn't to the the detriment of him or his his family, but it was like they weren't living how they could live because of it. Uh and one of the things that struck me the most we used to always go to breakfast. We had a Kierkegaard book group that turned into just a regular book group, but we'd always go to breakfast afterwards. And uh you can only take so much, it can ruin your life. The Leap of Faith book group. Yeah, yeah. Looking into the abyss book group. Yeah. Go on. Um uh so so uh we we we would like, you know, sometimes we'd pick the bill up for everyone, sometimes we'd pay our own bill. Uh, but one time I noticed him paying his bill, and this is like some little diner soft, 10 bucks for a big breakfast, right? And I saw him put $30 down, and I was like, Bill, what are you doing? And he's like, uh, oh, I just I like to give you know a healthy tip. And I'm like, that's like a very healthy tip. Healthy tip. Yeah. Uh and he would just always do that. Um, and after he passed, his wife joined our book group, and I know she did it as well. And I was like, that's like such a seemingly inconsequential thing for them. But like you think about someone that's making minimum wage and most of their earnings are on tips, uh, you know, $20 can be a big impact. And you know what's crazy? We would jump around to breakfast places. Uh, and I went back to that place one time after this guy passed, and she asked about him, and she she spoke about him like he was a saint. Right. And I just think about like how easy that would be to do. Like, it's not a big thing, right? But you know, we all have our like reasons or like, oh, tipping should be 20, 22%, like, you know, stuff like that. But I I don't know. I just think about that kind of like giving that was almost like stupid. Like one time he gave to a uh our church had a relationship with a place in Uganda, and they wanted a library um because they had a school, they ran a school for all these orphans. And he he took a loan out against his house to pay for it. And everyone's like, do not do this. Right. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00So it it's it's kind of like saints can be kind of if you preached a sermon, you would be preaching on the Pearl of Great Price. I got you down. Yeah, thanks. You're welcome.
SPEAKER_02Well, I you know, the service I we I guess you were you were there that we attended um on Saturday. Right. You know, yeah, Marcy says, you know, I I think I'm understanding what the piece that passes all understanding is all about. And it's that kind of ah, you know, yeah, you know, finally shoveling it away.
SPEAKER_00You know. So if you had this Kierkugar book group, did you have Kringle every Sunday? You know, that's the Danish food. So it should have been you know been eating Kringle there. No, we did not have Kringle. Gosh. It's our great misfortune. I could have I could have done you up right.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, I think this is good for today. We missed the women's voices, but um as Matthew says, the men got uh fed and besides some of the women and the children. That's good, Donovan. Yeah, well, I'm just quoting the scripture, that's all. You're a bad man. I know. I'm terrible. That's that's how badly I feel about that scripture saying that line. Guy, why don't you say a prayer so that uh I can be forgiven of all my sins.
SPEAKER_00Okay. God of grace and mercy, we thank you for this uh sweet season of summer. So we teeter on the movement between July and moving into August with all that means, with schools starting and fall falling and the busyness returning. We are grateful to hear this text that invites us to draw near to Jesus to see with uh deep compassion the needs of others and to make resources available that we can meet those needs. Give us a vision of how our church can be a place of deep generosity and compassion for a community that is hurting. In our own lives, oh God, help us not to be a nerd by the news, uh, just one more fire in Europe, one more earthquake in Japan, one more shooting in Seattle, but feel deeply uh the brokenness of the world, to hear the spirit groaning um for the completion of creation that resembles your kingdom, and give us grace that we might work for it and witness it with glad hearts. Thank you for this time and for this church. In Christ we pray. Amen.
