First sermon.*)
John 6:1-15.
After this Jesus went over the sea to the city of Tiberias in Galilee. And great multitudes followed him, because they saw the miracles which he did on them that were sick. And Jesus went up into a mountain, and sat there with his disciples. Now the feast of the Jews, Easter, was at hand. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and behold, a great multitude come unto him, and saith unto Philip, Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat? (This he said to tempt him, for he knew well what he was about to do). Philip answered him, Two hundred pennies worth of bread is not enough among them.
*0 Held in house, 1532.
That every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Peter's brother Simonis, said to him, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what is this among so many? And Jesus said, Make the people lie down. And there was much grass in the place. And about five thousand men encamped there. And Jesus took the loaves, and gave thanks, and gave to the disciples; and the disciples to them that were encamped; and to them also of the fishes, as much as he would. And when they were full, he said unto his disciples, Gather the fragments that remain, that nothing perish. So they gathered, and filled twelve baskets with fragments, of the five barley loaves that remained for those who had been fed. When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done, they said: This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him, that they might make him king, he departed again into the mountain by himself.
This miracle, when our dear Lord Jesus Christ fed five thousand men in the wilderness with five barley loaves and two fishes, is prescribed for us to preach, hear, grasp and learn in Christianity from time to time. The reason why it is prescribed is that we should trust God to feed us. For there is no thing in the world that hinders faith so much as mammon or wealth on the one hand and poverty on the other. He who is rich and has something, throws God's word to the wind and runs over it with his feet; as the Gospel reports about those who are invited to the great supper and cannot come before their fields, oxen, and wives, Luc. 14. He who is poor does everything that pleases the devil and the world, so that he may take advantage of poverty. This is not right anywhere, neither to the right nor to the left. The rich despise God's word, think they do not need God and his word. The poor speak: How can I accept the word, be obedient to it and follow it? I am poor, I must have to eat and to drink; who wants something from the people, he must talk well and do what they want, even if he does not want gladly. There are whores, boys and godless people, who do everything that people want. So that riches on the right and poverty on the left always hinder God's word and faith.
2) Against these two things, which on both sides prevent things from going right, the Lord preaches here and makes a middle course, namely, neither to be too rich nor too poor, but to learn to trust God that he will feed us, and to be content with what
God gives you daily. If thou art not rich, yet shalt thou not be in want nor in need. God will provide as much food for you as a king has to eat, who has no more than a Christian. For what can a king do more, even though he has a great kingdom, than to eat, drink, clothe himself, have a warm room and bed? He will not drink up all the wine that grows in the land alone, nor consume all the money alone. When he dies, he brings nothing more of it than that he has eaten and drunk of it. Every Christian should also have this: even though he does not have as much as a king, yet he needs as much as a king and brings in as much as a king.
For this reason our dear Lord Christ wants to preach so much to his disciples and Christians with this miraculous work and say: You must not worry, nor strive for great things, what you need shall be given to you. Only believe that your heavenly Father will feed you. And so that you may believe, see what I set before you here. I am also poor and have nothing. There are two and seventy disciples, and twelve apostles, and have no more food than five loaves and two fishes, and no more money than two hundred pennies. Above these there are now with me five thousand men, and a great company of wives and children, all desirous of eating. Now behold, though I am already poor, having only five loaves of bread and two fishes, and there is no bread here in the wilderness to buy more, yet I am so anxious that I should feed them all, and so feed them that there shall be four times as much left over as there is now. This is what the Lord wants to preach to us.
4. the only thing to be done is that
one learns and grasps such things. For in poverty and want people begin to argue with themselves, saying: I have only one, two, five or ten florins, only one barrel of beer, so many bushels of grain; when that is all, it is over, there is no more. When such thoughts occur, one should think of this miracle and say: What is more to him? If I have much or little, I will believe that God will feed me and do what is pleasing to Him, and let Him take care where I take more. For I have heard the gospel preached, that with five loaves and two fishes Christ fed five thousand men in the wilderness. Why then would I doubt or care?
(5) Therefore we need this history to exercise and strengthen our faith. For this is not the reason why it is prescribed to be read alone (the devil is able to do this), but that it may remind and awaken us, so that we may believe and say: What Christ did in the wilderness at that time, he can and will still do: if I only trust in him, I shall have food; if it is not superfluous, it shall be for our need.
(6) Therefore, whatever the poor have, be it ever so little, it is good for them, tastes good to them, and often better than to a rich man who has superfluities. A prince and a great lord shall hardly find a piece of meat among ten dishes that tastes as good to him as a poor man's dear dry bread and kofent.*) There is vain disgust and unwillingness; here is vain pleasure. The rich man fills only the eyes with it and not the belly; the poor man fills the belly, becomes full and strong from it. Therefore it is better to have little, and enjoy it with pleasure and joy, so that it tastes good; than to have much, and look at it with disgust and disgust, and not be able to enjoy it. For it is said, as St. Paul says, 1 Tim. 6:17: "God gives abundantly to enjoy all things." God must give the enjoyment so that it tastes good. If God does not give the enjoyment, it does not help whether one already has much. As can be seen in kings, princes, great lords and rich people,
*) S. Note, Columne 1592. D. Red.
who are full of everything, and cannot have the enjoyment, it does not taste good to them.
Therefore Christ wants to provoke us to faith with this miraculous work, so that we should trust in him. As if he wanted to say: I will feed you well, only believe. If ye will do this, I will provide that out of two fishes shall grow three thousand in my hands, and out of one loaf shall be a thousand. And this I prove every year for and for. In winter the trees stand bare, there is neither fruit nor leaf; but as soon as summer comes, out of the trees come so many leaves, cherries, spilling (spindle plum), apples, pears etc. There is no dough, no glue, no wood, since one could carve them out, but only vain dry shoots. So also the grain in the field comes from the earth, that one gathers it in heaps. So who clothes the trees with leaves and fruit? Who makes the grain grow in heaps? Does not he who feeds five thousand men with two fish and five loaves?
008 But here saith reason, Yea, that with the trees, and the fields, and other things, is done every year; therefore it is not strange, neither is it a miracle: but this, that with two fishes and five loaves five thousand men were fed, was done once; therefore it is strange, and it is a miracle. Answer: The devil thanks you. What is the fault that this is strange and a miracle to you, and that from a single grain countless grow, is not strange and a miracle to you? This is not the fault of God or His works, but it is the fault of your unbelief that you are so blind and stubborn and cannot recognize God's miracles. And the same unbelief makes that not only you are so blind, but also that we all pass by like blocks and stones; otherwise we would have to learn forever and comfort ourselves daily with God's miraculous works.
9 But Christians are to recognize God's miraculous works and learn to trust God in them. For why would you despair? The cherry tree does not despair, even if it stands bare in winter, without leaves and fruit! It has the word that God has spoken: On the summer strike out and blossom;
That's what he's waiting for. When summer comes, it will sprout and blossom. So also the field does not despair, even if it is already frozen in winter and covered with snow, so that no grass can be seen on it. Such are vain miraculous signs, in which we should learn to believe, so that we do not despair of God. Even if it is miserable at times, there is no harm in it; we shall have our need if we trust in God.
(10) And what more shall we have? If we have so much that we do not freeze to death or die of hunger, we have enough. For if we have our necessities, both our heart and body remain light, merry, and in good spirits. Again, if we have superfluity, our heart and body are weighed down with care and stinginess. Therefore we should be content when God satisfies us (as the 145th Psalm v. 16. says) with pleasure, that is, that we have enough and are satisfied. If wealth falls to us, we have all the more worry, trouble and discontent. As we see in kings, princes and great lords: they have all the more trouble, and must give more answer and account at the last judgment, the emperor more than a prince, a prince more than a count, a count more than a nobleman, a nobleman more than a peasant, a mayor more than a commoner. Therefore we should be content, and not become impatient nor angry with God, even if we are not rich. If we were rich, we would become more angry and sin more.
11 Therefore this miracle is prescribed for our comfort, that we may cleave unto it, saying, I believe, and know of a surety, that I shall have enough, though it be poor. For the Lord has here only two fish and five barley loaves, and yet he feeds five thousand men with them, without wife or child, that they may all be filled. And what he does here, he proves every year and every day in trees, fields, meadows, waters and all creatures, that they give out apples, pears, grain, barley, grass, fish, and what we need for the necessities of life and limb. He does all this so that we may believe that he will feed us. He wants to give us enough to eat, and should
like a fish to ten thousand, and a loaf to a hundred thousand. Therefore we shall be fearless in poverty, and wait for his goodness. If anyone dies of hunger, it is the fault of his unbelief. But he that believeth, the whole world should rather die of hunger, than that such a man should die of hunger.
The other part of this gospel is that our dear Lord Christ is called to gather the remaining fragments so that nothing will perish. This is also a necessary teaching. For this is how it is: when God gives little, people want to despair and worry that they will die of hunger; when he gives in full, they become reckless and despise God's blessing. As happens in the court of the lords, where the rest is wasted and squandered uselessly and shamefully. As little, then, does our Lord God want the worrying and the worrying, so little does He want the squandering; but He wants people to take the middle road, to trust Him, and to keep the rest to themselves. If a thing is cheap, they say, you should pick it up.
(13) This is to be understood not only of bread, but also of all other gifts of God, whether bodily or spiritual. Today, God's word is going forth and all the arts are flourishing. But how one gives thanks to God for it and picks it up is seen before one's eyes. Everyone despises both the word of God and the good arts, and walks over them with his feet. But he who would be wise should gather them up and keep them, because he has them, so that he might find them when he needs them. For God does not want to create new bread all the time, if the rest is left to perish; but He wants us to take up what He has created and given.
14 There is a common saying in the home: He who keeps when he has, finds when he needs; item: Pick it up, it will take place. For it is a disgraceful thing in the house government to have a full brother who chases everything through and keeps nothing to counsel, and to have a wife who is not domestic. There it goes, as that man said to his wife: "Beware, Else, that we don't get rich. In other reigns, it is also done in this way. It
is especially a hostile thing in the church for a lazy preacher, and for a full, weary man who is weary of hearing God's word; and in the school it is a vexatious thing for an ill-advised pupil who forgets more than he learns.
At this time all the arts are abundantly fed, if only one had baskets in which to store them. Likewise the holy scripture lies everywhere like lumps, which the dogs almost cannot eat. Young people, see that you are baskets and gather it up. For the time will come when one would like to have a single sheet of it, since one now has a whole pamphlet full; and after this time will come such a temptation that one would like to have a few sermons, since one now has a hundred sermons; as happened to me under the papacy, when I would have gladly gone to Rome for a righteous sermon, and yet could not find it.
When our Lord God gives, he gives abundantly, so that it is overflowing. Again, when he takes away, he takes away so completely that not a grain remains. Among the pontiffs, there was not one who knew grammaticam, dialecticam, rhetoricam (grammar, dialectic, rhetoric). It was the same with the Gospel: no doctor of the Holy Scriptures could be found who knew what was law and what was Gospel. Now it is superfluous, and it can be heard and read everywhere; but
no one respects it. When our Lord God will pick up again, then there will be nothing left. Moses writes that God threatened the Jewish people that he would make their heaven like iron and their earth like ore, Deut. 26, 19. And when such punishment came upon the people, they died like flies. So it was under the papacy: since God had abolished His gospel, no one could understand anything of the holy Scriptures; the Scriptures had become so closed and iron that no one could understand them.
(17) Therefore it is said, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing perish. A good householder should gather up and take counsel, that nothing perish. In the worldly government a good ruler should not waste anything; as Joseph in Egypt poured out the seven rich years, that he might have the seven good years. So also in school a diligent pupil should learn, because the art goes after bread. In the church one should hear and learn the gospel, because the light shines, Joh. 12, 35. Summa, one needs time before it goes away. When the time is over, see how you can get back what you missed. If God has once given bread, then think and keep it in counsel. He does not always want to give new bread, but wants you to pick up what is left. But if thou wilt be a sow, and despise and waste the bread that is present, thou shalt also be in want when the time cometh that thou needest it.