St. John’s Lutheran Church, Toluca, IL – 10th Sunday after Pentecost
Isaiah 55:1-5; Psalm 145:8-9, 14-21; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21
Gospel: Matthew 14:13-21
13 Now when Jesus heard [about the beheading of John the Baptist], he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20 And all ate and were filled, and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
NRSVue
Decision-Making Fatigue
Grace to you, beloved of God, and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
I have learned something new this week. Actually, I will rephrase. I have learned a different way to describe something very familiar to us. It happens way more than we think. Have you ever faced a situation where your mental energy is so low that you cannot make even the most basic choices, like what to eat, to click or type next? Now you know there is a new way to describe such a state. It is called decision-making fatigue.
This type of fatigue is not the same as physical exhaustion, although it can contribute to it. See, one might be feeling well physically, so much so that a whole house can be cleaned, a whole yard is taken care of, or days of backlogged data can finally be entered into a spreadsheet. Those are things we do automatically. They do not involve learning new things or making new decisions.
I suspect decision-making fatigue can come from emotional or spiritual burnout. How much emotional or spiritual burden we can sustain has to do with our neurodiversity and our current and past life experiences, but eventually, everyone reaches a breaking point. Our neurochemicals go haywire, and we cannot think even if we desperately need to. The brain’s cognitive ability gets shut down.
The problem with this mental state – and here comes the evidence of how common it is – is that it makes it almost impossible for us to see or do things differently. The brain screams against new inputs, and the mind desperately rejects what is new. Even if when what is new might be better. In the matters of the kingdom of heaven, it may profoundly affect our ability to recognize and accept the divine invitation to participate in the reign of Christ come near to us.
See, the gospel text comes to us this Sunday from the later parts of the first century, a time of intense spiritual devastation for God’s beloved people. The day of the desolate sacrilege had come for the readers. The Messiah had been crucified. The temple had been destroyed by the Roman legions. The land was once again lost. The first witnesses of the resurrection were no longer around or dying, and Christ had yet to return. Certainly, the emotional burnout was immense, and faith was lacking for all the Israelites, the first heirs, and stewards of God’s faithful promises, followers of Jesus of Nazareth or not. This probably meant people were leaving the Jesus movement, and almost no one was joining in.
Then God inspired this scribe trained in the kingdom of heaven who writes under the name of Matthew to share with us the treasures of what is old and what is new. He picks the feeding of the multitudes. The description of what is perhaps Jesus’ most important act – so much so that it is the only one repeated in all other gospels – and begins by telling us that it happened on the day when our Lord heard the news about the death of John the Baptist.
The news affected Jesus to the point that even his most powerful light may have dimmed. So much so that he felt he needed to go away and be alone. I suspect the disciples also felt the same spiritual fatigue.
Nonetheless, the kingdom of heaven keeps coming. People continue to accept the invitation to be nourished and share in the body of Christ. They are hungry, and so are we. They are thirsty, and so are we. They don’t have enough, and neither do we. Our instinct of self-preservation is to close the door, to send them away. Often the concern is legit. It is getting late. It is better if they go and find nourishment for themselves. It will be OK. Everybody understands. God understands because God does not ask of us more than we can give. That is a familiar reaction, but the kingdom of heaven is different than this. It is not the kingdom of the strongest and most powerful. It is the kingdom of the rejected, of the weary, of those who do not belong elsewhere. It is the kingdom of those who can only shine bright together when the world is at its darkest.
No one needs to go away, for out of the depth of our fears, our grief, our troubled hearts, Jesus picks us up by our boots straps and returns us to shore to remind us that we are not done feeding the promise of eternal nourishment, healing, freedom, justice, mercy, kindness, and love, day after day, generously, as he feeds us.
Here there is still water. Here there is still bread. Here there is still faith. Treasures of what is old and what is new. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Bridging Faith 