It is a blessing to be empty. - 10th Sunday after Pentecost
Author: Pastor Scott Schul
August 02, 2026
I would wager that every person now
hearing these words, and every person who will later read this sermon on our
website, has at some point in their life faced a problem so big that it’s
beyond your understanding… a dilemma so daunting that it threatens to overwhelm
you… a choice you have to make that’s so difficult or so complex that you are
frozen in place, paralyzed into inactivity… a crossroads moment, a turning
point with potentially lifechanging consequences. In fact, there’s a very high chance that right
now some of you are wrestling with just such a moment.
If so, please know that you are not
alone. You are in good company with
God’s people of the present and God’s people of the past. Today’s Bible lessons contain two examples
we’re going to unpack in a moment. But
the Lord doesn’t offer those stories to us merely to provide us with the
temporary solace that others are stuck in the same mud as we are. No, in Holy Scripture today, our Lord is also
pointing our way forward.
And that way forward is this: It
is a blessing to be empty. I’m going
to say it again, because I want to embed this notion deeply into your heart,
long after the sermon has ended, and long after we’ve all gone home today. It is a blessing to be empty.
At first hearing, that probably
strikes you, at best, as strange and counterintuitive, and at worst,
as downright loony. Who in their right
mind wants to be empty? We don’t
go to a restaurant and ask for the waiter to scrape half the food off our plate
before serving it to us. We don’t go to
the grocery store and buy a case of Coca Cola and intentionally leave six cans
behind. And who among us hasn’t
complained about companies that sell us the same product, like breakfast
cereal, for the same price, but in a significantly smaller box? To be empty means to have less, and just the thought of having less invites fear and insecurity to set up camp inside us.
If the notion of having less
makes us uncomfortable, the idea of being less is even worse. Our culture places high value on achieving and
being self-sufficient. Generally
speaking, we men especially suffer from the need to fix things. In fact, sometimes the stress of not being
able to fix a problem in our life or our family’s life is worse than the
problem itself. And so when I tell you
that it is a blessing to be empty, you may be hearing it as an invitation to
not only have less but to be less, and that’s not something any
of us are inclined to accept or welcome.
So let’s turn to two stories in
scripture to explore this concept. In
Genesis we heard a portion of the long saga of Jacob. Just to recap, by this point in the story,
Jacob had a lot of history and most of it wasn’t good. His name is a big clue to his character;
Jacob literally means “one who cheats.” Jacob conspired with his mother to swindle his
older brother Esau out of the birthright Esau possessed by virtue of being the eldest
son. Jacob exploited that unearned
advantage to accumulate wives and wealth and herds. There was a price though; he lived in exile
from his brother and the place he once called home.
But as today’s lesson from Genesis opens,
Jacob’s house of cards is now collapsing. Brother Esau and a large and powerful force are nearby. Jacob fears the worst, so to cut his
potential losses, he sends his family, his property, and his herds away to
safety. Now it’s night. Jacob waits for an uncertain fate. He waits for a morning that might be his
last. Jacob is all alone. He is empty.
Let’s leave Jacob for a moment and
consider the parallels between his story and that of the disciples in our
Gospel lesson. Those disciples are a remarkably
flawed bunch. Throughout the New
Testament we see them lecturing Jesus on how to be a proper messiah. They quarrel with one another as to which one
is the greatest or most beloved. Their pride
and insecurity rage out of control as they confront others who infringe upon
their territory or threaten to compete for Jesus’s attention. And of course we know how they abandon Jesus
just prior to the crucifixion.
Against that backdrop of
dysfunction, the disciples and their inflated egos are on full display in
Matthew 14 as they lecture Jesus on what he should do. “If you haven’t noticed, Jesus, it’s late,
people are hungry, and there’s no food here in wilderness. You clearly haven’t thought through all this. Good thing we’re here. Send them home.” But their vanity and overconfidence shatters
when Jesus says, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Suddenly, the disciples realize that despite how
full of wisdom they think they are, they are actually empty.
But remember what I said. It is a blessing to be empty. It is in that state of emptiness that Jacob
finally lets go of everything he had been holding onto- bitterness, jealousy,
greed, and fear- and clings to the Lord and wrestles all night until he finally
becomes the person God made him to be, a holy man, a leader, a father of
nations. Jacob the cheater now had a new
name, Israel, the one who wrestled with God and prevailed. Jacob received a blessing and would be a blessing. But first he had to be empty.
The learning curve for the
disciples would take much longer, but in that miraculous feeding they’d learn
that what’s impossible for them is well within Christ’s power. They’d learn that they can’t replace
Jesus. Instead, to feed that crowd and
become the leaders Jesus knew they could become and needed to
become, the disciples would first have to be empty.
Friends, it’s the same for us. In the face of the daunting problems,
challenges, and choices we face throughout our lives, and especially the ones
keeping you awake at night right now, the pathway forward is to become empty. This doesn’t mean we just sit back like a
fairytale cobbler who expects magic fairies to do all our work while we
sleep. But it calls us to drop the
illusion that we can do it all on our own and turn instead to Jesus. Because when we become empty, we have a
space for Jesus, a space he rushes to fill with peace, consolation, inspiration,
and direction.
Jacob had to hit absolute rock
bottom before he could be empty and turn away from himself and toward God. Likewise, the disciples didn’t have anywhere
they could run or hide when Jesus exposed them by saying, “you solve the
problem.” And indeed, speaking now from
personal experience, sometimes reaching rock bottom is the only place where we can finally be empty enough to look away from ourselves and toward Jesus. But wouldn’t it be preferable to avoid all
that?
In the case of Jacob, his wrestling
match with the Lord left him with a permanent limp. But every step he took for the rest of his
life reminded him of the need to be empty, the blessing of being
empty. The disciples had a different
sort of reminder. All their foibles and
failures were forever preserved in scripture, as an ongoing memorial of how
disaster ensued whenever they thought they knew better than Jesus or didn’t
need Jesus. I can imagine that every
time Peter proposed a really bad idea, one of his colleagues only had to say,
“Hey Peter, before you take this much farther, remember that time you tried to
walk on water?”
How will we remember the
risks of trying to be our own savior? Give
that some thought, because we’ll all continue to face problems. When we do, instead of trying to go it alone,
Jesus calls us to embrace our holy emptiness, and turn to him. Because it’s a blessing to be empty. Amen.
© 2026 Rev. Scott E. Schul, all rights reserved
Sermon Text: Genesis 32:22-3
Gospel
Text: Matthew 14:13-21
13 Now when Jesus heard [about the beheading of John the
Baptist,] 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.
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