August 2, 2026

I've talked about this before, but I find those little serendipities of life fascinating. Those times where often we look back retrospectively and we can see how the puzzle pieces just sort of fit exactly in the ways they needed to, to be what they needed to be in the moments we needed them.

And I was thinking about that this week because I've had a couple of days to myself. Julie's been traveling briefly with a friend of hers, supporting a book tour that her friend is on. And Anna went and stayed with my parents for a couple of nights at their new home outside of Frederick. And so, for some time, I took an opportunity to do something I've been wanting to do for some time, which is to go back and re-watch Fiddler on the Roof, which when you have a five-year-old, taking three hours to watch a movie is a pretty impractical reality.

And so I wanted to take advantage of this time to do so. It's a movie that I think the last time I watched it all the way through was on VHS, and that tells you how long ago it was that I viewed it. And I remember not being able to comprehend or process the entire story and understand the complexity of what was being said and the narrative arc of the story. But in the complexity of the world we're presently facing, and the realities of some of those very same geographic spaces having destruction, violence, persecution wrought upon the communities in which those folks exist, I wanted to go back again with fresh eyes, with the knowledge and awareness I have these many years later, to sort of see what I thought and how I reflected on it differently.

And remarkably, that story, that narrative in Fiddler on the Roof has some dramatic parallels to what we encounter in our readings today. For those of you who have maybe never watched the film or seen the play, it centers on a family in pre-revolutionary Ukraine, what is today Ukraine, and they're a Jewish family suffering the difficulties and persecutions of impoverished rural life in a system and a society that disadvantages them. And not only disadvantages them, but is actively beginning to persecute them through the pogroms of those years. And yet it's about survival in the midst of so many difficulties. And in some ways it's about joy and love and happiness in the midst of those difficulties and persecutions.

Why do I find parallels with what we encounter in today's readings? Well, I want to start at kind of a surface level. We have the great narrative of loaves and fishes here in Matthew chapter 14. It's a narrative we hear in all four of our Gospels. Now, in the Gospel of St. John, we have the added detail that the one bringing these fish and loaves is a young boy. But otherwise, we have a consistent narrative here that there is an abundance even in the meagerness of these two offerings. That God shows up in this miraculous way to provide the sustenance and needs of this great crowd who have assembled in this desolate, deserted place.

There's another element of that that we miss picking up where we do here in chapter 14. Because immediately prior to this experience, Jesus and his disciples have received word of John's death, John the Baptist's death. And that's actually in verse 13 where it says, now when Jesus heard this, that is what he's responding to, is the tragedy of this killing. But even in the midst of this tragedy, even in the midst of this despair, even in a place of desolation and desertedness, God shows up. God shows up with the means for sustenance, with the means for survival.

And I suspect for many of you who have been here for some number of years, that this is a story not unfamiliar in the life of St. Anne's. How many times we've been in precarious circumstances, financially or otherwise, and yet what meager offerings we have seem to multiply and see us through. That God shows up in this kind of miraculous way to provide a path forward.

And that is partially the story in Fiddler on the Roof. A community that struggles, a community that has so very little. And yet with that meager amount, they seem to make it day by day, month by month, year by year.

But there's another layer, too. One of the things that I think goes unappreciated in the readings we have today is the point of God's love in the midst of that sustaining power. It's not just that God uses these meager means to transform and find a way forward each time that that happens. But it's that God loves us enough to show up for us in those ways.

We hear this in the gospel passage. Jesus, in the announcement of John's death, removes himself for this time of prayerfulness, for this time of recentering his own ministry and life. We see this again and again in Jesus' ministry. He removes himself for a time of prayerfulness, for a time of rest and restoration. And yet, as so often happens, people get wind of where he is and they seek him out. Because they have needs. Because there is work unfinished. And it could be so very easy for Jesus to get frustrated and say, I need you to just wait a minute. Come back next week. Come back tomorrow. But what does it say in verse 14? He saw a great crowd and he had compassion for them. That he shows up. He shows up with mercy and love even in this time of difficulty, in this time of sorrow.

Our brothers and sisters in the Missouri Synod form of Lutheranism, I think, possibly get something right in their lectionary cycle this week. Like many of us, they're reading these same readings. First reading from Isaiah, this passage from St. Paul's epistle to the Romans, this section of St. Matthew's gospel. But they choose, instead of Psalm 145, which pretty much all the rest of us use—us, our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, our United Methodist brothers and sisters—they choose Psalm 136, whose refrain throughout the entirety of the psalm is "for his mercy endures forever." The psalm begins and ends with give thanks. Give thanks to the Lord or give thanks to God. For his mercy endures forever. Underline everything we hear today is this assurance that God's mercy abounds. Even when things are difficult, even when things are uncertain, even when brokenness seems to be the word of the day, the reality of the moment, there is this transforming, life-altering love, compassion, mercy that continues to break through and show up.

And that brings me to another element of our readings. And that is our responsiveness to that love and that mercy. Because so very often, I think it is easy for us to hear the narrative of God's mercy, of God's grace, of God showing up for us in these times of need, and to forget that we have a role in responding to that grace. That it is not simply that we are fed and nourished, but that we are activated to respond and reply with love and compassion in our own ways. That we show up too, even as God shows up for us.

And that is part of what St. Paul is talking about in his Romans passage from chapter 9. And I want to acknowledge that we are in a kind of tricky place this Sunday. If you have paid close attention, we have spent the last three weeks reading through almost the entirety of chapter 8 of Romans. Today we have the first five verses of chapter 9. And then next week we skip ahead to chapter 10. It's not the easiest chapter of St. Paul's epistle. It's actually kind of messy. It's fraught. And our lectionary editors have kind of glazed over that to jump ahead. And so I want to spend the moment just thinking about what it is that we're missing, but how it shapes and forms how it is that we might respond to the needs and the places of compassion and mercy that we're called into in the world as our response to God's mercy for us.

Chapter 9 overall, and I think this is one of the reasons why it's so sticky and messy, is an exploration of what it means for the people of Israel to be covenanted to God and what that means in light of Christ coming among us, Christ offering this new way of being, this new relationship. What it means for the Israelites to have the covenant, to have the promise, to have the name of chosen, and for then this new community, this new way, this all-encompassing path through Christ to unfold the whole world. And sometimes, throughout the history of Christianity, this has been read in problematic ways that diminish or obfuscate the important place of the people of the covenant, of the Israelites, and the greater work that God is doing in the world. It's used—to use a fancy term—in these kind of supersessionist ways that Christians are the new Israelites, that we replace the old covenant with the new.

But from the very beginning, Paul frames things differently. If we pay attention to verse 3, he says, "For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh." This is not language of love in an explicit way, but it is language of love in this implicit sense. Paul is saying, I wish that I could take on the burden of this way so that my people could feel fully the mercy and compassion of God that has come through Christ. May I take on the struggles so that there is a better way forward for all.

Tevye, the patriarch of the family for whom Fiddler on the Roof is focused, again and again has the same kind of dynamic in his life. His way of being, his culture, his society, his whole perspective on life is constantly challenged, reframed, reoriented. And in the midst of that challenge, most of the time, he's able to respond with compassion and love. That he prioritizes mercy over and against rigidity.

And when we think about how we are to respond to the great gifts that we are given in God, we need to keep that in mind. Because in times of scarcity, in times of meekness, in times where things seem very thin and frayed, I think it's the all-too-human reaction to circle the wagons, to be more conserving—I was going to say conservative, but that's such a loaded term in these days—but to be more attuned to holding tightly to what we have than to have a spirit of generosity. Of taking the meager loaves and fishes that we have been provided and trust that God is going to multiply them and use them for his greater good and for the transformation of all. Were that we, like St. Paul, had this willingness to take on the burden of our brothers and sisters, to help them see a better day and a better way forward.

And I want to acknowledge that we're not always going to hit the mark on this score. For all of Tevye's compassion and mercy, in the ways that he begrudgingly accepts two different marriages of daughters of his that don't go exactly the way he wants them to, he still struggles with his last daughter and her desire to marry outside of the Jewish community entirely. And even at the end of the story, that tension is left unresolved. He cannot fully bring himself to accept and embrace that reality.

And we all have those challenges and difficulties. We all have those broken limitations in our lives, in our life as a community of faith. Those places where we just don't hit the mark. We don't exude the compassion and mercy that God offers us in the fullness of His love.

But nevertheless, our call in each and every moment is to discern and strive towards the fullest and most complete version of that love and mercy that we can live into. And to constantly seek after a fuller and more complete sense of love and mercy in the world around us.

And so today, friends, as we reflect on these readings, as we hear the miracle of the loaves and fishes, as we are once more reminded of the assurances that God offers us in showing up, even when we have very little, even when things seem very tenuous, we have the ability to glory in that mercy and to be renewed in our commitment to living into it most fully, emulating it most completely, and following after God in our own spaces of compassion and mercy giving. And may we as a people continue to strive for that ideal in this time and in all the times to come.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.