You feed them…

We all eat. 

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program); FAN (Feeding America Network)— food assistance organization “short hands” have dominated recent headlines focused on longlines—people in America waiting for their next meal. That’s right—a first rate country with a third world problem—hunger. Nearly 42 million people face food insecurity daily. It’s nothing new. In Jesus’s day, Matthew 14’s headline reads: Messiah feeds 5,000 with new food program—YFT (You Feed Them). 

Backstory: Jesus, distraught over the news of the beheading of his cousin, John the Baptist, sought a place to retreat when his disciples found him and unloaded their solution to an old problem: hungry people with no food.

¹⁵ "This place is desolate and the hour is already late; so send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves." ¹⁶But Jesus said to them, "They do not need to go away; you give them [something] to eat!" 17They said to Him, "We have here only five loaves and two fish." ¹⁸And He said, "Bring them here to Me." ¹⁹Ordering the people to sit down on the grass, He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed [the food], and breaking the loaves He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples [gave them] to the crowds, ²⁰and they all ate and were satisfied. Matthew 13:15-16

EXPOSITION: Jesus’s response to the problem of hunger was not to divert responsibility because of difficult logistics and inconvenient time, or even His own personal issues. He directed his apostles to his food program based on personal involvement: YFT—you feed them. No excuse will justify letting someone go hungry. The little boy who gave his lunch of five loaves and two fish for the cause did not make excuses or shift responsibility.  When you step up and tie on your apron and serve, everyone is filled, body and soul.

ILLUSTRATION: How does “YFT—you feed them” look today? Here is a story that illustrates noticing a human need and doing something about it:

“My name is Ray Thompson. I’m 71 and I’ve driven the same yellow bus for 25 years. Kids grow up and move on, but I remember every face. I saw a girl named Maribel, sixth grader, always clutching a  bag of chips for breakfast. I asked, “That your breakfast, sweetheart?” She shrugged. “Sometimes lunch, too.”

That night, I told my wife, Ellen, about it. She made muffins for the church bake sale. The next morning, I packed a brown bag: muffin, apple, and a note: ‘Have a good day, kiddo.’  I left it on Maribel’s seat.

After that, I started bringing extras — granola bars, fruit cups, bottles of water. And left them on different seats at random. A few months later, a janitor named Hank waved me down in the parking lot. “Ray,” he said, “you the one leaving food on the bus?” “My nephew rides your route. Said there’s this ‘magic lunch fairy.’ I laughed so hard I almost teared up. That’s when it clicked. This wasn’t about muffins. It was about noticing. When the district cut the after-school bus for budget reasons, I used my own gas money to run an extra trip on Fridays. Before long, my bus became something more than a ride — it was a moving little refuge. I’m not a hero. I’m just a man with keys and a timetable. Sometimes, all the world needs is someone who waits — long enough for a person to catch their breath, tie their shoes, and make it onboard. “

APPLICATION: When you feed them, wait on them, we all eat. Don’t allow a difficult personal place, an inconvenient time or divisive politics get in the way of a full stomach and a filled soul.