I was standing behind an alter in a small crypt chapel of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth in the Holy Land, the place where Mary heard that she was going to have a baby. I looked down and saw familiar words carved into the alter in Latin, Verbum camo factum est. "The Word was made flesh." But then I noticed that there was one other little word in Latin that could only be written here. That word: h - i - c. Hic. Here. Verbum camo hic factum est. The Word was made flesh here. I almost had a heart attack when I saw that. I had the feeling that I was in a real place where the real God was pleased to come! Hic. Here in this place the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in a human being. God is with us. All of the explosion of love and compassion from the heart of a gracious God came here, hic, to the belly of this woman, Mary, hic, in this Arab town, in this world, forming a family to include all the world's children here, hic, with us.

I believe that we can speak of the hic-ness of God, the nearness of God. In our text for today in Matthew 14 that nearness of God becomes so vivid and so human. Now when Jesus heard this, the text says, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place by himself. What drove him to seek a lonely place, a deserted place for retreat? What drove him to withdraw?

Two things that happened just prior to this text. The first is that Jesus had been preaching and healing in his home region of Nazareth and the people gathered and asked him basically, "Who do you think you are?" And the Bible says that they took offense at him and they rejected him. Prophets are without honor except in their own country and in their own house is what Jesus said and he did not do many deeds of power there because of their unbelief. But how human that is. Who among us hasn't felt rejection and it hurts especially when it comes from those nearest to us and dearest to us? Who among us hasn't felt driven away or hasn't withdrawn? There's something very human and near and real about this detail in the ministry of Jesus. The Holy one does indeed come hic, here, in the middle of our unsettled lives, in the middle of our disappointments and rejections. God really did share it all. But there is more. Right after this Jesus received more bad news. He heard that his cousin John had been killed by beheading. And when he heard this, he did what we all do. He wanted to grieve. That's why he wanted to come to a lonely place.

And that is how near the Holy God comes to us. As near as our rejection. As near as our disappointments. As near as our grief. We, too, have wanted to withdraw to a lonely place. We, too, have heard that a loved one has died. We, too, have heard that we've lost a job. We, too, know what it feels like when a relationship is falling apart. We, too, know what it is like when the diagnosis is bad. All of us know in this human living what Jesus must have felt that day when he fed the people. When Jesus went to the shore, remember now, trying to get away, his heart full, his heart broken, he saw a crowd. And he had compassion for them. And he cured their sick. In the midst of his own rejection and pain, God in Christ still draws near, hic, to the rejection and pain of this world.

Now it is evening, it has been a long day. The lonely place that Jesus has sought is still far in the distance. The crowds are still there and by now they're all hungry. The disciples want to take care of Jesus so they draw him aside and tell him, "It's late. Send the crowd away so they can go into the village and buy food for themselves." Jesus said, "They need not go away. You give them something to eat." They replied, "We don't have anything here but five loaves and two fish." Now we're really in familiar territory. "There's not enough," the disciples say. "There's not enough food. There's not enough of the day. We don't have enough energy left. The crowds are hungry, but we can't do anything about it." How often is that echoed in our churches and in our world and in our lives? We sit in our congregations as our neighborhoods change, as the world around us changes, and we say, "We don't have enough. We can't do it." We remember a former time when our churches were full and we say, "There's not enough. The leaders are gone. The glory days are gone. The endowments are spent. It is now late. It is nighttime for our churches." Especially acute in the mainline Protestant churches has been this feeling that there's just not enough. There is not enough to meet the mission of the day.

On a global scale, we see countries crushed under poverty, and we see it close to home. We see places like Tanzania which is the companion synod in Africa with the synod that I serve as bishop, the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Lutheran Church. And we see how in that country the crush of death, the ravages of nature, and so much else has conspired to leave a place where healthcare, roads, food production and distribution, education, and much else that is basic to a sustainable and humane life is lacking. And we say, "We can't do anything about it. There's not enough to go around."

Think of our own lives in our own communities. Think of public catastrophes in this past year like the tragedy in Littleton, CO, in the high school and that kind of thing happening again and again in many different ways throughout our country. Think of those who touch our lives, who need from us love and reassurance. In our communities we see our young people faced with lethal choices, we see an escalation of violence, we see older adults unable to live on fixed incomes with a modicum of dignity, and we, too, say, "There's not enough. We can't do it."

Underlining all of this is the unspoken assertion that God is holding out on us. That we don't have the gifts we need for the mission of the day. And then we hear in this gospel, Jesus who looks us in the eye through the eyes of the disciples and he says, "You give them something to eat." We say, "We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish." And he says, "Bring them here to me." And he says to us, "Bring what gifts you have. I'll bless them and multiply them." Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, Taking the five loaves and the two fish, the nothing the disciples thought they had, 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.

You see, that's the thing about the hic-ness of God. The one who says, "You give them something to eat" is the one who is also near us and provides us with the giftedness even when it doesn't seem like there's anything at all. "There is enough," Jesus said as he made the Eucharist on the mountain, thanking God, breaking the bread, sharing it with the disciples who shared it with the hungry crowd, and they ate, and they saw that God had not abandoned them to their hunger. And that, indeed, that there is a great and deep giftedness in this world and in this creation. It is a giftedness we are reminded of every time in our churches the pastor holds up the bread and gives thanks and breaks it and shares it. And all ate and were filled and they took up what was left over of the pieces twelve baskets full and those who ate were about 5,000 men, women, and children.

Our delegation approaches the village of Bushasha near Lake Victoria by the border with Uganda and Rwanda. We hear the welcome before we see it. As the beating drums anticipate our arrival, as we pull up into this poor and destitute village, the crowd begins to shout, "Karibu! Karibu!" in Swahili, "Welcome, and welcome again in the name of Jesus!" This is a part of the world where everyday one's meal is a struggle. Praying "Give us this day our daily bread" is a literal prayer and yet they have prepared for us a feast. We could not go into the church because it has still not been rebuilt after the war with Uganda years ago and so out under some trees, they prepared a feast for us. The pastor told me that they had saved much of the food for days in order to greet us with their abundance. This poor congregation also used their welcome of our delegation as a means to collect the food necessary to feed the even more poor of Bushasha. So, in a place where it looked like there weren't even two loaves or any fish, God's abundance and the great faith of the people produced a vision of what it looks like when people hear the words of Jesus, "YOU give them something to eat. And believe that indeed the one who gave the command is the one who provides the food and is the one who is near and in all of it. That's what the hic-ness of God looks like in Africa.

We remember the bread every time we return to the Communion table and see the blessing given, the bread broken, and the food shared. We again commune in memory of and in the presence of the one who gazed towards the crowds and us with compassion. We are all like sheep without a shepherd apart from the presence of God.

Hic. A room in a nursing home where my grandmother sits. I have not seen her for over a year and I am afraid that she will not remember me. She has begun to lapse into the long forgetfulness that will end in death. I was once the apple of her eye, her eldest grandchild. She taught me prayers and the nearness and closeness of God from my very first days. Jesus said, "You give them something to eat." I walked into this room with my grandmother bearing bread and wine. She looked up and her eyes were cloudy and then she smiled. And then she held out her arms and said, "I think you belong to me." And then she cried out my name, "Stevie!" and we hugged. It is, I tell you, a Holy thing to be remembered. God was in the room.

"Do this to remember me," Jesus said. And so I took bread and wine and blessed it. "Give them something to eat," Jesus said. "Grandma, the body of Christ for you. Grandma, the blood of Christ for you." Hic. Here.

And this room of sadness and impending death was transformed by the presence of Jesus even as on a mountain so long ago as one was reeling from sadness and death and rejection and saw the crowds and said to the disciples as he says to each of us today, "You give them something to eat." Hic.