August 9, 2026 - sermon - Michael Anthony Howard

August 9, 2026

Rev. Michael Anthony Howard

"Sow"

Sermon Text...

Matthew 14:13–21

 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.

1. Ma Tovu 

 Ma tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael. 

 “How lovely are your tents, O Jacob,  your dwelling places, O Israel.” 

(Numbers 24:5) 

2. The Word Wants To Become A World 

 Look back at the Gospel we just read together. Jesus goes ashore, sees this great crowd, and Matthew says that he has compassion for them. 

There’s our word again. Splagchnizomai. 

We’ve encountered it before, back in Matthew 9. Jesus looks upon the crowds and something happens in his body. Compassion moves in his guts. 

And we’ve been talking throughout these weeks about what happens next. My interpretive move was to say: The compassion of God wants to take flesh. The Word wants to become a world. 

So Jesus looks upon these people. He sees their hunger. He sees their need. And the disciples see it too. 

The disciples’ solution is: Send them away. Let them go into the villages and find something to eat. 

But Jesus says: “They need not go away. You give them something to eat.” 

Or hear what the splagchnizomai of God is saying: 

Don’t send them away. You feed them. 

3. Kingdome Miracles are Participatory 

 There’s an old debate about what happens next. Some people understand this as a supernatural multiplication: God creates an abundance that wasn’t there before. 

Others wonder whether there was already more food among the crowd than anyone realized, and Jesus’ generosity opened hands and revealed an abundance that had been there all along. 

Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t tell us what happens in between. And I’m okay leaving that space open. Because whatever happened between The five loaves and two fish and the twelve baskets left over, this much is clear: The miracle is participatory. 

Jesus doesn’t say, “Stand back and watch what God can do.” 

He says: You feed them. 

The disciples bring what they have. Jesus blesses it. They distribute it. The people eat. 

God’s agency doesn't eliminate their human agency. It animates it. 

4. What’s In Your Hand? 

 The miracle has ingredients. Five loaves & two fish. Not what the disciples thought they needed. 

But it was what they had. Jesus’s response was: “Oh. Fish sandwiches.” Way back in Exodus, 

when Moses is convinced that what he doesn’t excludes him from God’s call. 

But God says: “What is that in your hand?” 

A staff. Something ordinary. Something already there. 

And before we read this Gospel, you asked that same question around your tables: 

What gift has God placed in your hands that someone else might be hungry for? 

Those gifts you just named— your skills, your passions, your experience, your relationships, 

your time, your resources— those are the ingredients. 

The ingredients of whatever God might be trying to make among us are already in the room. 

The miracle of God’s abundance begins, not necessarily by having more, but by paying attention to what God has already given us. 

5. Don’t Confuse the Form with the Calling 

 But this is where we can get confused. Because once Jesus feeds five thousand people with fish sandwiches, we might decide that faithfulness means we need to keep making fish sandwiches. 

Every miracle has to look like the last miracle. But God isn’t a drive-through. The fish sandwiches were the form compassion took in that place, with those people, in that moment. The calling was deeper. People are hungry. Splagchnizomai. Don’t send them away. You feed them. 

And churches can get ourselves into trouble when we confuse the form with the calling. 

Sometimes we exhaust ourselves trying to preserve a particular program or way of doing things when what we really need to ask is: Why did we begin doing this in the first place? 

What hunger were we trying to feed? What does the compassion of God want to become now? 

Because once we know the calling, once we remember our WHY… we become free to imagine 

a million different ways it might take flesh. 

The calling gives us direction. Our gifts give the calling form. 

 6. The Greenhouse is Not a Garden 

 I sometimes think of the Church acts as if it is a greenhouse. A greenhouse is good. It’s a protected place where seeds can take root, where fragile things are nurtured, where life can grow strong. 

That’s part of what we do here. We worship. We learn. We care for each other. We discover our gifts. 

But the greenhouse is not the garden. Eventually, what grows inside has to go outside. And look where we're sitting this morning. This building is something God has placed in our hands. So are the people around these tables. So are the gifts you just named. There are already dreams growing here through the Community Life Collaborative —dreams about health and wholeness, justice, community, care for creation. 

We don’t know everything those dreams might become. Good. Because we’re not trying to predetermine the form. We’re trying to remain faithful to the calling. 

The question isn’t simply, “What can this building do for us?” 

It’s: What could God grow here for the life of the world? 

The Church can be a greenhouse. This building can be a tool. But the compassion of God 

calls to live for the sake of the wider garden of God. 

7. Ma Tovu 

 And now let me come back to where we began. That ancient song from the Hebrew Book of Numbers: Ma tovu ohalecha Ya’akov, mishkenotecha Yisrael. 

Those words come from Balaam. A king named Balak looks out over the people of Israel and sees a threat. He summons his own prophet Balaam to curse them. But Balaam, aiming to curse the Israelites coming up out of Egypt, and looks out over those same people— and sees something else. He opens his mouth, and blessing comes out: How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling places, O Israel. 

Do you see what happens? Balak looks at a crowd and sees a problem. Balaam looks and sees something beautiful. 

And here in Matthew, Jesus looks upon the crowd. Sheep without a shepherd. Hungry people in a deserted place. And splagchnizomai. 

The compassion of God sees the crowd. But compassion also sees what could be. 

The splagchnizomai of God looks upon the world as it is and sees the world the Logos longs to become. 

The Prophet Ezekiel dreamed of that world and gave the city a name: 

YHWH Shammah. The LORD is there. 

And Revelation sees it: God dwelling among humanity. The river of life. The tree bearing fruit. 

And its leaves— for the healing of the nations. 

8. So Sow 

 That’s the dream. The Word wants to become a world. And the miracle is participatory. 

The ingredients are already here. 

So don’t confuse the form with the calling. Take what God has placed in your hands. 

Let compassion give it direction. Let imagination give it form. Let love become flesh. 

Until someone can look upon us and what grows here and say: Ma tovu. 

How lovely. YHWH Shammah. The LORD is there. The harvest is plentiful. 

So sow.