A Famine Not of Bread

The text for today is our Gospel lesson, Matthew 14:13-21, which has already been read. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.             Those on the desert mountainside are weak.   They cannot journey any further without food.   The disciples realize this, but they wonder about their Master.   Doesn’t He realize what is happening?   Why does He let the crowd follow Him so blindly, so caught up in His miraculous healing and powerful Word that they forget about the very necessities of life?   And now it is evening and soon the people won’t be able to find anything to eat anywhere. So the disciples come to Jesus and say, “This is a desolate place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”   Imagine the nerve!   Telling Jesus what to do.   Ordering Him about as if He has come to...

            The text for today is our Gospel lesson, Luke 14:15-17: “ When one of those who reclined at table with Him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God !”   But [Jesus] said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many.   And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’”   Here ends the text. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus accepts an invitation to dine at the house of a prominent Pharisee.   Surrounded by lawyers and Pharisees who are watching Him carefully, Jesus challenges their thinking on Sabbath traditions, humility before God, and mercy.   Picking up on Jesus’ banquet theme, hoping to demonstrate his own theological prowess, one of the men who reclined at table with Him exclaims: ...