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Friday Message
July 31, 2026
It is a joy to be back after a couple of weeks holiday! I hope that you are all enjoying the warm weather and some vacation yourselves!
This week’s readings are the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel and Jesus feeding the five thousand. I’ll be spending most of Sunday’s sermon on the story of Jacob from Genesis chapter 32, so I thought I’d write a little about the feeding of the five thousand here. Storyteller and Christian thinker Martin Shaw argues that we live in a “myth-impoverished age.” Coming from an understanding that stories are essential to our lives, Shaw argues that living without stories leaves us unprepared to deal with the sometimes-harsh realities of everyday life.
The story of Jesus feeding of the five thousand is often interpreted as a metaphor for abundant living vs. a scarcity mindset, meaning that the people who came had food with them and through the message of Jesus were encouraged to share it. I can see the appeal of this interpretation because it leans into an explanation about how this could have possibly happened, for reals. What I find challenging about this interpretation is that it trades the magic for the possible, meaning that it shifts attention from what the story is about to how the events could have taken place.
On the Working Preacher podcast this week, the hosts dig into this story to talk about compassion. Splagchnizomai is the Greek word for gut-level compassion; a kind of compassion that settles deep into your body and almost forces action. Mark Skinner, one of the hosts of Working Preacher, comments on this passage that “someone who can feed people in the wilderness once is a magician. Someone who can feed people multiple times is a true threat to the empire.”
This whole story begins with the line, “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.” What Jesus heard was the news of the beheading of John the Baptist, fellow prophet and Jesus’ own cousin. Hearing the threat to his own self in John’s death, Jesus withdrew and thousands of people followed him. They followed him into the desert where they still found nourishment because Jesus had Splagchnizomai for them.
In reading this story and listening to the commentaries, I was reminded of the flotillas, many groupings of boats sailing together in an attempt to reach Palestine with food and medical aid. Many people who were and are a part of flotillas have been illegally arrested in international waters by the Israeli government. Hundreds of global activists have experienced arrest, abuse, and torture in attempts to access and aid Palestinian citizens. At the time of writing this, nine Indonesians who were a part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, along with 400 other activists, have laid a complaint against “Zionist-Israel” for “offences including piracy at sea and crimes against humanity.” (CP 24 “Indonesians file complaint against Netanyahu for Gaza flotilla arrest ‘abuses’, July 29, 2026). France, Italy and Australia have opened jurisdictional investigations related to their citizens.
Palestinians are experiencing a genocide of their people, culture, and land. And global citizens with that same gut-level compassion that Jesus felt for the people who followed him into the desert, are attempting to feed and aid Palestinians by venturing into politically unchartered waters, a movement that is against the controlling political interests of our current time and context. Other citizens have participated in protests, been expelled from their schools, jobs, the legislature (!), raised money to help Palestinian families immigrate, and so many other ways of showing support, compassion, and protest. How citizens have been punished for their compassion shows how their compassion threatens the empire.
This message has turned into a full-fledged sermon! The feeding of the five thousand is such a good story in its own right and offers us so much to consider for our own time.
Blessings on this long weekend!
Wendy
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