The Lord of Miracles – 2 August, 2026

Sometimes we hear stories such as, “so-and-so were in a car accident and should have died, but they walked away without a scratch. It’s a miracle. God must have been protecting them for some purpose,” or “I prayed that the cancer would go away and it did. It was a miracle,” or “Please God, grant us a miracle and help the Port get into the finals.” Such stories reveal a worldview in which God sometimes acts exceptionally outside of the ordinary: and only for those who have enough faith. But this way of interpretating miracles is not what our Christian miracle stories, like the feeding of the more than five thousand in our Gospel today, are about.

But let’s think about miracles. Miracles happen around us still in different ways. A dead man rose again; people marvelled. By contrast, numerous babies are born every day, and no one marvels. If only we would reflect upon life more carefully, we would come to see that it is a greater miracle for a child to be given existence who before did not exist, than for a man to come back to life who already existed. People hold cheap what they see every day of their lives, but suddenly, confronted by extraordinary events, they are dumbfounded, though these events are truly no more wonderful than the others. Holding the universe together, for example, is a greater miracle than feeding five thousand people with loaves of bread, but no one marvels at it. People marvel at the feeding of the five thousand not because this miracle is greater, but because it is out of the ordinary. Who is even now providing nourishment for whole world if it be not the God who creates a field of wheat from a few seeds?

But back to the Gospel. The Gospel miracle stories are not about showcasing Our Lord as a man with special powers. Instead, they show the coming of the kingdom of God. Yes, Our Lord acts in miraculous and non-miraculous ways, just like other wonderworkers. However, unlike many others, Our Lord’s miracles point beyond themselves. They point beyond him. They express a God-centric, not Jesus-centric, worldview. Our Lord himself is God-centric: always looking to God, praying to God, and following God’s call to him. Miracle stories do not typically happen as a reward to someone’s faith. Instead, they make the presence and power of the kingdom of God visible to everyone, whether they believe the story, or not.

A few important points about how these stories operate in the gospels. First, the people for whom Matthew’s gospel was written were expecting the end of time to happen soon: within their lifetime. Miracle stories here were told in part as a manifestation of the fulfillment of such expectations. Secondly, each miracle portrays an act of God in Our Lord to deliver humans from something posing a threat to authentic life: to restore the person to the state God had intended in the creation of birth. In this, each miracle exposes a separation from God, from our truest selves, and the need for salvation of many kinds: from sickness, thirst, hunger, demonic possession, being without purpose, natural disasters, and of course from sin and death. Finally, each miracle tells us something about the life, death, and resurrection of Our Lord and holds this up to us in a shining, concise narrative. Think about it. It is breathtaking.

We can see this in our Gospel story today. Our Lord withdraws to a deserted place by himself, but the crowds follow him. Our Lord has compassion for them and cures the sick among them. Here, he delivers a multitude of humanity from sickness and returns them to their true selves: healed and restored to community. This takes a long time. So long that the hour is late and the disciples want to send the crowd off.

Our Lord surprises them by saying, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Isn’t that interesting? Our Lord does not say that he will give them something to eat but tells the disciples “You give them something to eat,” thus inviting the disciples into this miracle as well, knowing that God provides for human life. It does not matter that these people are poor, desperate, tired, and do not have much to offer in return. The disciples are tasked to give food to everyone, regardless of social status. It is not a transactional relationship. God asks nothing in return.

The disciples are like the children who go into the kitchen, open the refrigerator and say, “There’s nothing to eat!” So, Our Lord takes the five loaves and two fish and he focuses on God. He looks up to heaven, the place of God the Father; he blesses and breaks the loaves; and he gives them back to the disciples. The same actions we will do today at the altar. Then the disciples give the bread to the crowds, where everyone eats their fill, with twelve baskets left over.

Our Lord calls the disciples, and us, to dream bigger. He entrusted the disciples to work together to feed the crowd, and he calls upon us to do the same.

“You give them something to eat” is the heart of this miracle. Our Lord is saying those words to us today, just as clearly as he said them to his disciples on the deserted shores of the far side of the Sea of Galilee all those centuries ago. There is a hungry world out there, and it is our responsibility, our duty, to feed them. This hunger is both spiritual and physical. And although it may look like there’s not enough bread to go around, the miracle we recounted today teaches us that, in fact, if we should open our eyes, we will see that there is enough – that God has already provided enough bread to feed every last person on earth. It just depends on how you divide it up.

We are invited into this miracle story. We are reminded yet again that God provides for human life, and we must respond.

How many times have we been given blessed nourishment, salvation of some kind, and not passed it along to people who needed it? Our Lord passes the bread to the disciples, who pass it on to the crowd, and then the miracle happens.

As often as we take the Eucharist, we re-enact Our Lord’s feast on the lakeshore. Just like on that day, Our Lord takes our bread, blesses it, breaks it, and shares it with all who are hungry. And he is calling us to do the same with our lives – take the blessings God has given, break them open, and share them with others. 

Our Lord is holding the loaves and fishes out to you. Someone is waiting for you to share the blessing, to be invited into the miracle.

What will you do?

Based partly on a sermon by the Rev’d Danae Ashley of Seattle.