Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 Then he 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. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

The disciples said to Jesus, “Send the crowds away.” Out in such a deserted place with little food, a crowd can be a real headache - too needy and demanding, a strain on limited resources. Jesus said, “Give them something to eat.”

Most of us like it when we get something to eat. Eating is a very primitive, important activity, not just as nourishment for the body. When you get something good to eat - chocolate, ice cream, fresh bread, a ripe peach - this is very reassuring, and comforting, isn’t it? Some food is actually referred to as “comfort food.” It’s a sign that all is not wrong with the world.

Robin and I spent two weeks in Scotland in May. We went to many famous historical sites, many castles. We saw spectacular scenery. We visited the lovely town of Wick where Hugh and Betty Muir are from. We visited the Orkney Island, where we stood in a village of small stone huts that were built around 3000 B.C.

But even with all those glorious sites, what I loved most, what touched me most, was something actually quite “common” - the little baby lambs that were everywhere. Spring is the lamb season, and these lambs were soft, and wooly, and unbelievably cute. We would drive down one of the many single lane roads in Scotland, and there would be a grassy hillside with dozens of these adorable, endearing little lambs. I would stop the car, and get out, to get a closer look. And then the lambs would stop, stare, and become very still.

And if I took a few steps closer, they would immediately turn, in panic, run to hide behind their mothers, and start to nurse. They butted their heads against the udder several times. The ewes put up with this, but they didn’t like it. Sometimes it almost lifted them off the ground. I guess this action got the milk flowing. And then the lambs would start to nurse, as if they were famished, and as soon as they did this, their tails - their short, stubby, white tails - started not just to wag, but to quiver back and forth.

We saw this many times. It always happened the exact same way. When danger appears, when there’s a big bad monster who doesn’t belong there, run, hide behind mother, and nurse. It’s a response that is clearly hard-wired into the lambs’ nervous systems. It’s a very primitive response. And I use this example to describe what I mean by the word “primitive.”

This isn’t something the lambs think about, and ponder, and calculate. It isn’t as if the lambs say to themselves, “There’s a stranger. He may hurt me. What should I do? I think I’ll go nurse.” It comes from deep in their natures. When you feel anxious, you do what makes you feel better.

Now, we humans are not at all primitive like those lambs, right? We like to think of ourselves as very rational creatures. We evaluate dangers objectively, not emotionally. We’re sophisticated. We’re skeptical. We have our emotions under control. Unlike the lambs, we deliberately resist letting anyone, especially a potential enemy, know we’re nervous, or anxious, or afraid, because that just makes us more vulnerable.

So we humans have more sophisticated and complicated strategies for dealing with our anxiety. Running to hide behind our mothers and nurse every time we’re anxious just isn’t an option for us. That would be very awkward and disruptive at work for example.

We are more complicated than the lambs, but there’s something very primitive in us too. We feel anxious easily. We feel anxious a lot of the time. And most of the anxieties we feel are out of the proportion to the real danger involved. We feel anxiety that someone doesn’t like us. We feel anxiety when we enter a room full of people we don’t know. In fact, that’s quite anxiety producing. We feel anxiety that we won’t be appreciated. We feel anxiety that we won’t fit in, we won’t belong.

These anxieties are also very primitive. They’re built into our nervous systems because we’re social creatures. We want to fit in. We want to have a place in the world. We want to be liked. We want to be appreciated. If we’re not liked, or appreciated, or don’t fit in some particular place, it’s not as if we’re going to die. So our anxiety is out of proportion to the real danger. But it’s real, and it’s primitive, and our responses are primitive.

This is true even for people who have accomplished a lot, and have a lot to be proud of. It’s true even for people who have won the Nobel Prize. In fact, people who win the Nobel Prize may have greater anxieties about fitting in and measuring up than most of us.

One day in Scotland, I was hiking through a pasture with many more of those cute lambs, and I found myself saying, out loud, the words of the canticle we sang earlier in our service:

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.

Here I was, surrounded by all these little icons of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Why do we call Jesus the Lamb of God?

There’s a lot we could say about that, but I think part of the answer - at least this is a big part of the answer for me personally - is that both Jesus and the lambs help me remember, and help me accept, that I’m not so tough. I feel anxious, about many silly things in the course of a day, as all of us do. Most of the things we feel anxious about are not real dangers. They’re about being accepted, wanted, loved. I’m not as confident as I would like to be. I’m not as relaxed, or smart, or rich, or in control as I would like to be.

And there are many real dangers. We do get sick. We get hurt. We’re mortal. We bleed when we’re cut. Even the great ones. Even Jesus.

In our Eucharist service this morning, when you come forward to receive the elements, I encourage you to bring with you what is primitive in you. Not your sophistication. Not your theories about religion. Not your skepticism. There’s a place for those things in our lives, and when we need them, they’ll still be there for us. But let go of them just for now.

Bring to the table something more primitive. Bring your awareness of your anxiety, wherever it comes from. We are like those little lambs in that way. Bring your desire and willingness to be fed and comforted, because we’re not alone in those fears and needs.

This is what Jesus Christ came for. Give them something to eat.