The Miracles of Hospitality
Rev. Dr. DeWayne L. Davis
July 28, 2024
Scripture: John 6:1–15
All four gospels have a version of the feeding of the five thousand. This miracle story has a long history in the oral tradition of the Jesus movement and the early church. Scholars agree that the presence of the story in all of the gospels indicates that it remains a critical narrative in the canon of sacred writings about Jesus’ life, ministry, and identity, giving us confidence that it probably recounts a historical event in Jesus’ work. However, the nature of how the miracle happened is left to speculation and interpretation.
It makes sense to wonder how it is possible to feed more than five thousand people with five loaves and two fish and have some left over. To avoid the questions about how the miracle happened, we tend to spiritualize the feeding of the five thousand, highlighting the eucharistic imagery and liturgy found in the text. I know you heard me say it many times, but engaging in an extended debate about how the laws of nature explain the miracle or explain away the miracle will only distract us from what Jesus teaches the disciples (and us). In this case, as John tells it, I suspect this story gives us a window into Jesus’ demonstration of radical hospitality and the miraculous transformation that happens when we embrace it and act upon it regardless of how impossible it seems.
The Gospel of John goes further in helping us get past the drama and spectacle of miracles and see them as signs. In our reading of this story, I ask us to reflect on to what or to whom does Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand point? How will we bridge a world where Jesus miraculously feeds so many with so little to our world in a way that we have in view the outcome or experience to which the miracle points? What if the story is less about a supernatural event than it is about the power and expansiveness of the grace of hospitality? What if this story is not about hunger (after all, John never says that the people are hungry) but about radical hospitality that upends the rules and logic of our cultural and economic transactions? What if this is about the kind of hospitality we offer our neighbors because they are our neighbors, not because it is expected, needed, or commanded?
As John tells it, a large crowd arose to follow Jesus in response to the previous signs he had performed. They had heard about Jesus healing the man who had lain on his mat for 38 years, so they followed him because he healed the sick. John doesn’t tell us if Jesus healed anyone in the crowd that day, but when Jesus sees the crowd, he asks his disciples where they will buy bread to feed the crowd. John says Jesus asked the disciples the question, knowing what he would do. What was it that Jesus had in mind to do? A miracle? I cannot imagine that Jesus wanted Philip and Andrew to see a miracle. After all, they had already seen Jesus do miraculous things: turning vast stores of water into wine and healing a sick man who could not walk.
Whatever Jesus had in mind, the disciples’ imagination failed them. Philip responds that they do not have enough money to buy food for so many people. Andrew concludes that the little food he sees within the crowd, like the five loaves and two fish from a boy in the crowd, wouldn’t be much help in feeding so many. The disciples’ assessment of the situation and their attempt to respond to this dilemma are practical, reasonable, and logical. And yet, Jesus does not limit himself to what is practical, reasonable, or logical. He knew what he was going to do: he was going to show radical hospitality. No matter the situation, Jesus would take care of the people. He was going to embody the prophet Jeremiah’s oracle that God was going to raise up a righteous branch of David, a good shepherd who would tend to the welfare and well-being of the people. And the hospitality is radical because he had appropriate and justifiable reasons to refrain from the attempt to feed so many. Yet, Jesus would not accept the limitations of the disciples’ logic and practicality as a reason not to show hospitality. And so, Jesus instructs the disciples to gather the people to sit. He took the bread and fish and fed all the people. Everyone was satisfied, and there was food left over.
What if Jesus’ starting point was not a miracle—nothing so remarkable as the supernatural multiplication of five loaves and two fish—but the show of radical hospitality that unleashes the miraculous? What started as a decision to show radical hospitality amid scarcity became a miraculous reshaping of expectations, relationships, and the concept of abundance. The miraculous creation of a beloved community occurred because Jesus showered grace upon grace on people because they were simply in his presence. Because Jesus decided to feed the people, they experienced the miracles of Jesus’ hospitality: satisfaction, wholeness, and fullness, not just because of their hunger or emptiness but simply because they were there. Could that be to what the sign points? The miracles that happen when we show radical hospitality? What miracles might we behold if we offered radical hospitality to all comers just because they are and because we can, without always counting up the cost or outsourcing the job to the government or some other nonprofit? That’s what Jesus did.
Of course, the people misunderstood what Jesus did after they were fed and satisfied. They were so enthralled by the miracle that they wanted to make Jesus their king. Jesus was not looking for power or accolades. That Jesus withdraws from the people indicates that Jesus does not want our response to be awe at the miracle witnessed such that we want to anoint him, consecrate him, or worship him as a king. Jesus wanted them to see “the fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” from God. And in our show of hospitality and caring for the people, we too may experience the miraculous. The grace of hospitality transforms the conditions of scarcity, poverty, and injustice.
See, that’s why I wonder if this story is about how radical hospitality unleashes miracles. Perhaps God is most present, creative, and responsive to our demonstration of radical hospitality to others. When Jesus embraced the humanity of those who showed up, approaching them with dignity, equity, and compassion, others responded when they saw his hospitality. Perhaps that’s one way miracles happen, acting from a radically hospitable foundation and letting the chips fall where they may. [Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement gives testimony in her book Loaves and Fishes.] We’ve seen what happens when people respond to others with radical hospitality—feeding, housing, and financial support offered to our neighbors immediately when the call goes out during disasters and destruction. And it’s miraculous.
On the other side of the equation, we know what the absence of hospitality means for our society. Just look around. Our nation has given up showing hospitality to the immigrant, seeking to close our welcome and borders to those looking for a better life. And that withdrawal of hospitality has left us mean, divided, and mired in xenophobia. We have people who have withdrawn their hospitality to diverse people in their schools and workplaces, rejecting any effort at diversity, equity, and inclusion and characterizing such efforts as a threat. We have renewed efforts to withdraw hospitality to LGBTQ people, especially our transgender and gender non-conforming siblings, with states passing laws to exclude trans people from school activities, medical care, and bathrooms corresponding to their gender. This has made so many of our neighbors cruel and violent.
It may help to see Jesus less as a miracle worker and more as the good shepherd who offers us the bread of life. Looking at Jesus this way, he becomes for us an invitation, a prompt, and a model for radical hospitality provided, not because anyone asked us, commanded us, or expected it from us, but because hospitality is our calling and purpose and miraculous things can happen when we act on it. Can we imagine what God could do with our show of radical hospitality? Not the safe hospitality we demonstrate after a cost-benefit analysis, an approach bound by the logic and calculations of a transactional economy, but radical hospitality. Radical hospitality that unleashes miracles in our midst… miracles of relationship, miracles of abundance, the miracle of God’s presence that confounds the logic and transactional imperatives of the marketplace.
The power and promise of radical hospitality mean we do not send anybody away. We do not have to allow the “fear of insufficiency” to cause us to forfeit compassionate service. Of course, there will be days when we feel like the disciples: This mess of a world is too big for us to handle and costs too much, so let them go elsewhere. We need not withhold our gifts and resources because they cannot meet every need. We bring what we have, let God use it, and stand in awe of the miracles our hospitality unleashes.