Psalm 17:1-7, 15; Matthew 14:13-21
One of my family members this week, said, “I don’t know how anyone can tell what’s real anymore!” Escaping to the beach for a week to dig your toes in the sand, feel the sun and waves, gather around tables for meals and games and conversations – that’s real! We used to say that coming home from vacation was “back to reality” but I’m starting to think it’s the other way around. Our daily lives are so inundated by work, entertainment, and newsfeeds that are rife with Artificial Intelligence. It leaves me hungering for something real.
Because AI can’t pass the peace, or hold your hand, or make you a grilled cheese sandwich. It can’t plant a seed and appreciate the dark soil, or have a single encounter with a humming bird. AI can’t feel life slipping away from a sick loved one. Sure it can perceive a heartbeat slowing, but not the sacredness of that moment. AI can’t feel the energy of a crowd at a concert, or a protest, or a ballgame. There is a surprising quality to real-life-experiences – an “in-breaking” of something we didn’t expect. And there is an authenticity to real-life-experiences that imprints on our senses or the heart in a way that AI simply can’t replicate. We can’t outsource personal connection. (rituals of remembrance, or neighborly compassion)
In the July issue of Sojourners magazine, Liuan Huska said, to answer life’s deepest questions, I won’t be asking AI. “I’ll be gathering with others around a table, planting seeds in the dirt, and listening to what [the] blue jay has to say.”[1] This month, we begin a new education year. We’ve adopted a theme, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” which some might recall from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. Jesus, the living, breathing incarnation of God’s Love, went around saying a very similar thing over and over:
Love God and love your neighbor.
Life’s most important questions, ideas, discoveries, meaning will happen with neighbors as Huska says, around tables, planting seeds, on seashores, interacting with creation. As Christians, we especially believe that life’s deepest questions get answered specifically at this table, in sacred rituals where humanity and Divinity commingle.
In today’s Gospel story, Jesus teaches his disciples something about being neighborly (in real life, in real time). Now, you know this story. Jesus himself was weary from travel, from teaching and healing, and he was looking for some time to rest and regroup, so like many of us, he headed to the water. But the crowds follow him to the shore. And the Living Incarnation of God’s Love saw them and had compassion on them because Love can’t help but be compassionate. Jesus steps back into ministering to the sick among them with tenderness and healing.
Matthew doesn’t say the crowd thinned out as it drew nearer supper time, in fact it grew to more than 5000 people. They stayed all day – listening, watching – amazed at seeing people become whole again right in front of their faces! No one wanted to leave and the disciples sensed this. The people were hungry, in every way a person can be hungry. The disciples go to Jesus to suggest that he dismiss everyone to the nearby villages where they can hit the Jewish delicatessens on the way back to their homes. But Jesus says something to the effect of, “No, we’re not going to outsource their hunger. There is no Door Dash. No Uber Eats. Bring me what you have.” What they have?! ALL they have are “five loaves and two fish” (14:17). That’s nothing to feed a crowd like this.
Matthew’s Gospel says Jesus took the loaves and fish, he blessed them, and broke them, and then, put it back in the disciples’ hands to be shared with all the people. It was communion on the beach. Jesus sent the disciples to walk among the people with their bits of fish and bread. “Go, go, go… Be neighborly! See what they need. See what they’re hungry for.” I can hear him shooing them on. With Jesus’ blessing, what the disciples had, became enough for a multitude! We wonder about this miracle. Was it REAL? Did this thing REALLY happen? Did Jesus actually manifest more fish and bread and it appeared? Did the crowd, having experienced Jesus’ generous spirit toward them, become more open-handed themselves? …Thus adding their small provisions to the baskets as they were passed? Either way, it’s a miracle, is it not? Either way, it was REAL. In the wake of Jesus’ compassion, hungry neighbors were fed and filled.
Someone asked, “How often do we look to God for miraculous intervention when the gifts are right here in our hands? How often do we complain about what we don’t have and overlook the miraculous power that is in the gifts that we do have?”[2] Whether its loaves or fish, bread or wine, concern, compassion or casseroles. The gifts for real connection are right here in our hands, having been blessed, broken, and shared by God.
I’ve got another story[3] to tell you today about neighbors sharing communion in a most unlikely place.
Every August, for the past 30 years, the Episcopal Dioceses of Alabama, make a pilgrimage to Lowndes County, just outside of Montgomery. They do this to pay tribute to Jonathan Daniels, a man who has been added to the Episcopal church’s calendar as a martyr and witness to the gospel. You see, in 1965 the 26 year old white Episcopal seminary student from New Hampshire was volunteering with a student organization to register Black voters in Lowndes County. After being released from the Hayneville jail for picketing, Daniels walked to a grocery store with two other young activists, Richard Morrisroe and 17-year-old Ruby Sales to buy a soft drink. Sales recounts what happened[4]: Deputy Sheriff Tom Coleman stood in the doorway as they approached and said, “The store is closed. If you don’t get off of this #$%@ property, I’m going to blow your @#$% brains out.” Coleman raised his shotgun to fire and Daniels pulled Ruby Sales behind him. Daniels was shot and died at the scene. Morrisroe, a Catholic priest, was also shot and spent months in the hospital, but he recovered… Ruby Sales went on to become a nationally recognized human rights activist and public theologian. In a documentary about the event, Coleman claimed he acted in self defense before an all-white, all male jury 40 days after the shooting. In 1965, he was acquitted.
Those who make the annual pilgrimage do so in the August heat around the anniversary of Daniels’ death. They meet in front of the Lowndes County courthouse, walk to the site of the jail and then just a few more steps away to the grocery store. Some pilgrims kneel and touch their hands and faces to the ground. Why do you think they do that? To remind them this REALLY happened right here. As they retraced Daniels’ steps, fourteen (14) other civil rights martyrs’ stories were told. When their names were called, a young person holding their name on a poster, raised it high and announced, “Present.” At the conclusion, all the pilgrims met back at the courthouse. District Judge Adrian Johnson of the Alabama circuit court acknowledged that that courtroom has been the site of many injustices. Then his bench served as an altar for communion. The unholy, made holy.
Rituals like these convert ordinary places into sacred, holy ground; and ordinary people into pilgrims and saints. Rituals of remembrance, real life experiences cause us to taste, touch, and smell our way to deeper understanding of ourselves and our neighbors. Like being on that lakeside with Jesus, breaking bread with all those folks – saints and sinners alike – all God’s children are hungry. Judges, and juries, deputy sheriffs and seminary students. Black, white, southerners and Yankees. All are hungry. That’s how we come to God and to the communion table. Hungry.
Maybe that’s what Jesus wanted the disciples to see for themselves as they walked through the people that evening. Everybody, no matter who they are, comes to the table hungry and in need of grace. But you might miss seeing it, if you try to outsource caring for your neighbor, or if you forsake gathering at this table (or makeshift communion tables wherever you are!)
This month, you’ll be reminded over and over that being a neighbor starts here in the pews. Being a neighbor means we allow another person’s life story to connect with ours – even when that story transcends decades or miles between us.
How do we know what’s real?[5] It’s a common question these days… The Gospels point us to incarnation, the Divine embodied in flesh, Love with skin on for a reason! This is who bids you to come to him every day. This is who wants to take your life, break it open, and bless it so that you may be a blessing. That is what he did for you.
[1] Huska, Liuan, “What Claude Can’t Generate,” Sojourners magazine July 2026
[2] Garnaas-Holmes, Steve, Unfolding Light Worship Resources OT 18: 10th Sunday after Pentecost
[3] Adapted from a feature article by Emilee Walker-Cornetta, Formed for Solidarity, Christian Century April 2026
[4] Here Am I, Send Me: The Journey of Jonathan Daniels, 1999 documentary
[5] Huska, Liuan, “What Claude Can’t Generate,” Sojourners magazine July 2026