The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost - Matthew 14:13-21 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr
August 2,
2026 -Matthew 14:13-21
How much is “enough?” I asked the people who attended the
Wednesday healing service this question, and I got an array of different
answers. One person replied, “Enough is when we have more than everyone else.” …until
they get more and then we don’t have “enough” anymore. Or, how about, “I’ve had
enough of you!” It’s that point when we have lost our patience; we just can’t
take any more of whatever the situation is. “Enough” can be something tangible
that we possess, or it can describe how we feel.
John D. Rockefeller was once the richest man in the world. A
reporter reportedly asked him, “How much money is enough?” His reply was, “Just
a little bit more.” I think Rockefeller said something that is very true about
the human heart. No matter how much we accumulate, “enough” remains just beyond
our reach. We convince ourselves that if we just had a little more – more
money, more time, more security, one more accomplishment – then we’d finally be
satisfied. But the problem is that the goalpost keeps moving.
One of the greatest theologians in Christian history was St.
Augustine of Hippo. Augustine understood this struggle, and at the beginning of
his book, Confessions, he wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”[1] He wasn’t talking about
money or possessions. He was talking about the human heart. We spend so much of
our lives looking for satisfaction in things that can never ultimately satisfy
us—success, security, approval, possessions. None of those things are bad. But
none of them were meant to be our ultimate source of peace. Only God can do
that.
So, here’s a harder question. What would it take for you to
say, “I have enough?” That can be a difficult question, can’t it? It’s
difficult because our answers keep changing. This is a struggle that runs
through today’s scripture readings.
At this point in his life, Jacob, in our Genesis reading,
had nearly everything he had spent his life striving for. He had wives,
children, servants, flocks, and wealth. Most people would say, “He has enough.”
Even though he had everything, he spends the night terrified. Why? Because all
of those possessions can’t give him the one thing that he truly lacks: peace.
Jacob had spent his entire life trying to secure God’s blessing for himself.
That night, he finally discovered that God’s presence, not his possessions, was
enough.
That same question takes us into our Gospel. The disciples
are faced with a shortage of food. They look out into a hungry crowd of people
– five thousand men plus women and children, and they take inventory of what
they have – five loaves of bread and two fish. There isn’t much calculating to
do—It is clear that there is not enough food. There is a need standing right in
front of them, but there isn’t enough to meet that need. While the disciples
are counting what they have, Jesus shows them whom they have. When all the
disciples could see was scarcity, Jesus saw possibility. While the disciples
focused on how many, or little, resources they had, Jesus focused on the
abundance of what God could provide.
Jacob was holding tightly to his possessions, and the
disciples were counting bread and fish. The question for both was the same,
“What do we do when we believe there isn’t enough?” At first glance, we might
think this story teaches that if we trust God enough, God will always provide
exactly what we want. This isn’t what these readings are saying.
Yes, Jacob left with a blessing…but he also left with a
limp. Matthew places this miracle in a very interesting place. It comes
immediately after the death of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. If Matthew
wanted us to believe that following Jesus means everything works out, this is a
very strange place to put this story. You see, the feeding doesn’t erase Jesus’
grief. It happens in the middle of it. The tragedy of his cousin’s death
doesn’t get erased before he begins to feed the crowd. Trusting God to provide
enough does not make problems magically disappear. God’s abundance is revealed
right in the middle of suffering.
What does that abundance look like? Notice that Jesus
doesn't simply provide enough. Matthew tells us there were twelve baskets left
over. That's an odd detail unless Matthew is trying to teach us something about
God. Maybe it’s that God is not stingy with grace. God’s grace never runs
short, even when our strength does. Again and again in Scripture, God gives
abundantly—not always everything we want, but always enough of God's presence,
mercy, forgiveness, and strength for the day before us.
The miracle in Matthew isn’t that life suddenly became easy.
The miracle is that God is present and faithful in the midst of life’s
insufficiency. Trusting God doesn’t mean you’ll always have everything you
want. It means you’ll discover that God is with you in whatever you face, and
in whatever comes, God’s grace is enough. Jacob discovered that peace wasn't
found in what he possessed but in the God who refused to let go of him. The feeding
of the 5,000 isn't a promise that God will give us everything we ask for. It is
a revelation of who Jesus is. He is the one who sees our need, has compassion
on us, and invites us to trust that God's grace is never exhausted.
The question isn't, "Will I always have enough?" The
question is, "When I don't think I have enough, where will I look?"
The disciples looked at the bread and fish. Jesus looked to his father. That’s
the difference.
Every one of us came to church today carrying something that
doesn’t feel like enough. Maybe it’s money. Maybe it’s health. Maybe it’s time.
Maybe it’s strength. Maybe it’s hope. God doesn’t promise that all of those
shortages will disappear. God promises something even better. In Christ, we are
never left alone. The disciples looked at five loaves of bread and two fish and
saw scarcity. Jesus looked to his Father and saw abundance.
Maybe that’s the invitation for us this week – not to ask
whether we have enough, but whether we believe God is enough. When we discover
that God’s grace is enough, we finally stop measuring our lives by what we lack,
and we begin living out of what we have already received.
This week, we’ll all find ourselves counting something – our
money, our time, our strength, our health, our patience. When we do, may we
remember that while we are counting what we have, Jesus reminds us whom we
have. And in him we have enough. Amen.
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