Pentecost 12 - Year A

This week I tried really hard to get parishioners to write the sermon…we were in Friday Gospel group and I subtly said… now where would your starting points be for a sermon to this community this week?  not really subtle at all actually…however, however…but certainly revelationary.  I also “reckon” it’s a good pattern as we open the Word of God – we rely on God to reveal starting points, which will indeed be different for each person, and also we open the Word of God in community.  Actually we, I, trust God to make that connection well before we do…

One member said…“the starting point would have to be compassion.  It is what makes everything that Jesus does, different.”  In other words, she said, his God-heart stirs and God’s presence is there, making all the difference.  She also expanded this into the difference between the Old Testament writings and the New Testament – God has always had compassion, but Jesus came to reveal the very personal relationship this creates between each of us and God…as you can see we have a lot to ponder in these groups.

Another member said…“for me, it is all summed up in what Paul said in his letter to the church in Rome” (you can see we wander from the Gospel into the other readings of the day as well).  In particular, she said, verses 4 and 5 of today’s reading…Paul is speaking of his own people and what he would do for them.  “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed for ever.  Amen.”

Again, she went onto explain, it is all about the difference to life and the world that has come in the person of Christ, the Messiah, the perfect balance of fully human and fully divine.  We are all part of the old story, the genealogy of Abraham and Sarah, which we share with Jews and Islam people.  In that old story, the Hebrew Scriptures, the invitation to believe the prophecy of the Messiah was held out to all.  And it came true in a magnificent, but also unexpected way, in the person of Jesus Christ.  The invitation then and now is to accept Christ as God, the triumphant bringing together of the Old and New stories, and to live in his truth.  And it is an unexpected truth – a servant king, a wandering prophet, a controversial radical who upsets the power and wealth of this world.  As the wonderful hymn “Inspired by love and anger” says…he came to tip the balance with “fishermen and fools”.  And this is who has made the final difference to the whole world.

Well, I was getting wonderfully confused by now because I thought, and said…and all this has come through discussing the picnic Jesus held with five loaves and two fishes.  Because we had certainly begun our discussion with the Gospel, the very well known story that is actually in the four gospels in various ways of telling, the miracle of the loaves and fishes.   I had shared that it is from this story, the gathering of so many people around Jesus and them sharing a simple meal that satisfied all, that comes our understanding -and our actions - of the Holy Eucharist.  In this beautiful imagery of Christ encouraging the disciples to believe there is enough in everything he offers, there was enough.  In his simple actions of taking the bread and fish, blessing it, breaking it and distributing it, comes the four-fold action of what we all participate in around the holy meal of bread and wine which is again  the same actions Jesus does at the last supper.  In the mystery of the miracle of seemingly so little reaching so many, we come to the holy meal in faith that we will be fully renewed and resourced and replenished in this action of sharing the bread and wine. 

But all of this is not actually my starting point today…well, I shouldn’t really say that because we have started, and it is clear that the journey to share God’s word has to include the whole journey.  It is through the revelation of everyone that God speaks to us – it has always been so.  The really significant truth Christ brought to us is that this is actually the balance needed to share the meal he prepares.  He gathers, and he teaches.  With the people around him, the Word of God reveals God.  And so we take on this balance in the Eucharistic liturgy – we hear the scriptures and we open them in the preaching.  We then are prepared to participate in the bread and wine, in a sense completing the immersion of our very self in the Word of God.  We hear it, we take it on, we partake of it.

My starting point came later in the same day…I was sharing communion with home-based parishioners and read, as usual, the Collect and Gospel of the coming Sunday.  And it was the Collect, the special prayer for this particular Sunday, that really shafted me.  The Collects have been written, mainly by Archbishop Cranmer five hundred years ago, to literally “collect” the understanding of the readings of the day.  And so we can guess, presume or have a hunch usually as to what Gospel is coming.  It is all about linking the sentence, Collect and readings into the message of the day.

As I prayed it, I remember reflecting…and this comes from the loaves and fishes picnic?  Because it is a whole new way of looking at what Jesus did and offers..  or is it?  I was particularly struck by the lines…

refresh us with your grace, that we may not be weary in well-doing

which has to relate to the lines before

whose son Jesus Christ has called us to hunger and thirst for justice;

Why should I, why should we, be surprised by such truth?  We do have a radical, revolutionary, leader…who inspires and encourages us to not only hanker and know what is just in this world, but to actually hunger and thirst for justice.  We are not to accept the equilibrium the world offers, we are to hunger and thirst for God’s equilibrium, God’s balance in the world.  And what is that?  God’s balance is Christ’s Word real and actual – so the truth in all His teachings is the balance we are to hunger for.  A world of fathers loving prodigal sons; of good Samaritans; of the authority being held by the meek, the mourning and the peacemakers; of a world where the simplicity of faith of a child is our guideline to how the kingdom should, and will, be.  It is a truth that we are to hunger for in the actions of own lives; that we are to live a right justice with our family, with our friends, with our work colleagues, with our environment and with our neighbours.  We reveal this truth in our very actions – the words from our mouths, the doing of kind deeds, the sacrifices we make for others – how we spend our money, how we spend our time, indeed the very priorities of our life. 

It is a takeover, this hungering and thirsting for justice.  Christ calls us to let our lives be taken over with him.  “I am the way, and the truth and the life”, he claims…the only way, the only way, to be in right relationship with God is through Christ.  His actions are to be our actions, his way, our way.  You will remember the great marketing strategy some years ago that particularly took off with young people – WWJD – What Would Jesus Do?  Bracelets and bookmarks and T-shirts… they are still around and hopefully will be around forever because it is the perpetual message, isn’t it?  In all situations we need to ask – what would Jesus do? 

I feel guilty and get frustrated that it seems sometimes that we as a faith community are comfortable and looking after ourselves and not “out there” with this whole justice thing.  Part of that is my whole personal dilemma of asking God… why didn’t you call me to what seems the front line field of helping the poor, serving in those countries that will seemingly never recover from their poverty cycles.  That is so-when I need this prayer today;  “refresh me with your grace” God.  God’s call is God’s call, and I with you are to first and firstly have that hunger for Christ’s justice in our lives.  How we live it out will be different for each of us; some will be called to dire areas of need; some will be called to be generous with the material blessings to make that possible.  Some will be called to care for those with other needs – the vocations of parents, teachers and medical people come to mind.  Some will be called to continually prompt us all with that call for that hunger in our lives….  All of us though are called to daily living of WWJD…are called, as the Collect says, to be and live lives of well-doing.. Christ’s doing.

And here is the heart of the message today, revealed in the Collect and revealed in the Gospel.  We can only live as Christ calls in God’s grace – that is what we are praying for today and always.  That is that we will indeed be “refreshed with your grace” God.  The symbol and being of that grace is amazingly revealed in the meal we are about to share – this is my body, this is my blood.  Jesus gathered, and gathers, us in a miracle of participation.  It is the miracle of all our needs being met in the action of sharing the cup and plate.  We then go out into the world, hungering and thirsting for what Christ really wants us to hunger and thirst for.  Christ has met all our needs; we are to share that grace with the world.As a community, and as individuals, that is our call.  We pray together  that Christ’s burning zeal for the right balance in this world will be our burning passion as well.  We are not to grow weary in this – and we will not grow weary if we continually gather around him for the miracle picnic to end all picnics.  Amen.

I will conclude with the prayer of the Collect.