A Tale of Two Banquets

Matthew's account of the feeding of the 5,000 is placed immediately after the story of the beheading of John the Baptist. By juxtaposing these two stories, we see an important glimpse about how we are called to live as disciples in this world, and how a life of discipleship differs from life without Christ.

As always, it comes down to how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Both stories are stories about banquets. The story of the beheading of John the Baptist takes place in the context of Herod's birthday celebration. As part of the celebration, the daughter of Herodias, the wife of his brother Phillip, danced before Herod. Herod was pleased, and told the daughter of Herodias that he would give her anything she wanted. The daughter, prompted by her mother, told Herod that she wanted the head of John the Baptist. Herod was distraught, because he liked John the Baptist, but felt that he could not displease his guests and go against his own promise, and ordered that the execution be carried out.

In the well known story of the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus, the disciples, and the crowd are in a deserted place with no food. Jesus finds five loaves of bread and two fish, and distributes these to the crowd. Miraculously, the crowd is fed.

The participants in the first banquet represented the power elite of Israel. They had wealth, power, and prestige. They had all the food that they wanted. There was nothing but abundance. But despite this, they perceived nothing but scarcity. All Herod saw was the threat of losing his power by dishonoring himself after making his promise to the daughter of Herodias. The other guests did not step in to prevent the death of John the Baptist because they wanted to hold onto the power and influence that they had. The participants in the first banquet had nothing but abundance but saw nothing but scarcity. And as a result of their perception of scarcity, they all are preoccupied with holding onto whatever that they have, and a tragedy results.

The participants in the second banquet had nothing but scarcity but perceived and experienced nothing but abundance. The crowd included peasants who were poor, persons who lacked power, prestige, and wealth. They were literally all in the desert with nothing to eat. And they ended up filled. There is no tragic violence in the second story. There is only joy and community.

Human culture today is based upon the principle of scarcity. We believe that there is not enough of anything to go around. So we all end up fighting with each other to hold onto what we have. There is an alternative. In response to the tragic violence that arises from a culture of scarcity, God calls us to another culture. The culture of abundance. If we live as God's people, we see that scarcity is a myth. There is nothing but abundance in this world. If we enter into God's Kingdom of abundance, together, we will know only joy and community.