Throughout history, and across many very different religious traditions, there’s long been a curious connection between spirituality and food. Faith has dictated what to eat, how to prepare it, and when to eat it. So also yoked to belief are times and seasons of fasting and abstinence.
But none of the world’s great religions has ever demanded that its followers eat nothing at all. And the reason why is obvious: You must eat and drink to live. When you go much more than three days without water, or a month-or-so without food, you die. Dead as a doornail, plain and simple.
Those of us blessed with food security enjoy the luxury of savoring Creation’s delicious bounty in all its assorted variety. We even celebrate those skilled at serving up particularly tasty cuisine. Which, of course, whets the appetite with memories of Karen, aptly described as “a magician in the kitchen.”
Her menu of comfort food was both sweet and savory: pies, pies, and more pies; gobs of fluffy, tender dough floating atop pots of bubbling stew – chicken and dumplings not only mouth-watering but so also a vital ingredient in Karen’s recipe for child-rearing and crowd-control when rambunctious littles create a little too much indoor chaos. “Quit jumping around! My dumplings will go flat!”
That’s pure genius, parenting gold! Even if it’s not entirely a culinary reality!
But perhaps the bigger wonder of Karen the Magician’s kitchen conjuring lay in two basic ingredients, loaves and fishes: 15 loaves at a time, routinely from scratch, thus triggering the sibling rivalry for a thick slice off the heal, slathered in creamery-fresh butter and finger-licking good. Loaves and fishes: the image of a fish adorns Karen’s cemetery headstone, because Karen was all about the nourishment and refreshment of fishing, too.
As I understand the story, when Karen and Dennis got married, they waited a year to go on their honeymoon, a two-week fishing trip to Canada, which somewhere along the way included being chased by a roaming bear in the far-northern wilderness. Later adventures went another way, the newlyweds trailering their boat south to Kentucky for a couple weeks of early-season fishing, and returning to Lansing just in time to catch spawning season on the Mississippi.
Timing is everything, right? Especially when it comes to making life better, particularly when you’re making life better for others. Chicken and dumplings, pies and pies, loaves and fishes: the very stuff of life, faith’s spiritual connection with food across the generations. Loaves and fishes: compassion that brings people together.
Listen, now, for the Word of the Lord in a story of loaves and fishes, a witness to the power of compassion in the Gospel of Matthew.
When he heard [news about the execution of his cousin John the Baptist], Jesus withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard [of his departure], they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late. Send away the crowds so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And he said, “Bring them here to me.”
Then Jesus 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. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, 12 baskets full. And those who ate were about 5,000 men, women and, children. (Matthew 14:13-21)
Loaves and fishes, the very stuff of life: That’s what captures the imagination, waters the mouth, and touches the heart. What’s easily overlooked in this amazing scene is the context: Jesus reaches out to quiet the hunger of growling stomachs from the midst of profound sadness and grief for his beheaded cousin, John the Baptist.
To unearth the real power of this exceedingly familiar story, we best-not picture Jesus serenely above it all, pulling the necessary levers behind the scenes to miraculously generate an abundance of bread and fish. Maybe our souls and spirits are more richly fed in seeing Jesus as the One with red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks, the One whose hands tremble for the sorrow and insanity of it all, the One whose very-own heart is freshly broken by death.
Out of his own scarcity, out of his own emotional trainwreck, out of his own grieving wilderness place, Jesus still manages to bring forth an abundance of life and joy: loaves and fishes. As the Gospels proclaim he’s done before, Jesus gazes upon the crowd and instantly feels compassion for the teeming mass of human hunger. And Jesus wastes no time setting himself to holy work that enacts compassion into feeding and healing – loaves and fishes.
Jesus enlists his disciples in an epic, missional task: “You fix supper.” The disciples have gone out on their own and worked their own miraculous healings in Jesus’s name, but the thought never crosses their mind that they also might ask Jesus about making enough for supper.
Maybe the prestige of healing goes to their heads. Realizing and experiencing that they could do great things in Jesus’s name, the disciples become oblivious to the more mundane, everyday miracles right before their very eyes. After all, being healed of sickness lasts a lifetime, but a full stomach will be gone by morning. Fifty years later, you’re more likely to remember the person who performed a great miracle than the person who shared a countryside meal with you and thousands of others.
Jesus works miracles of all kinds, from the memorable and other-worldly to the workaday and forgettable. Jesus works miracles in which people don’t even realize they’re participating.
With mere loaves and fishes, Jesus takes the ordinary and does the extraordinary – just like he does during his final, earthly meal with his disciples. At that Last Supper, Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to others for their own physical and spiritual good. Bread and wine, loaves and fishes: the Lord’s performance of compassion flowing from recognition that the needs of another are greater than his pain.
That kind of selflessness rises from deep within the human spirit, so it’s easily overlooked, taken for granted. But perhaps that’s no sin. Because compassion isn’t about recognition. If compassion seeks recognition or reward, it really isn’t compassion. What we see from Jesus here, and throughout Scripture, is that God’s compassion has no limits or demands, but instead is simply an outpouring of tangible grace, mercy, and love – even unto death.
So also, then, in this our moment of painful struggle with death, do we cherish and give thanks for Karen’s earthly life of tangible, oftentimes edible compassion. Let memory of her example – of her serving up the holy in the ordinary – shape our futures: Fashion our living, moving, and breathing in such ways that compassion endures – unto death and beyond, for all eternity. Love is an action word, and as Karen poured love into you, let us continue pouring compassionate love upon one another.
Apple pie, chicken and dumplings, loaves and fishes, need greater than pain: Please hold those close to heart and mind, as you listen with healthy appetite to the lyrics that Daryl will shortly sing.
Make me a blessing. Out of my life may Jesus shine.
Make me a blessing, O Savior, I pray.
Make me a blessing to someone today.
In Jesus’s name, for Christ’s sake. Amen, and amen.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during the funeral for church member Karen Milton on Thursday, June 19, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Lora Copley, Chelsey Harmon, and Scott Hoezee inform the message.