kai time ... with tardis dimensions

 

SERMON PREACHED at St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN,

St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN and the GLENORCHY MISSION HALL

ORDINARY SUNDAY 17         (July 28^th) 2024

 

READINGS

 

Psalm 14

Ephesians 3:14-21

John 6: 1-21

Those of you who have looked into such matters will have noticed that a feeding miracle of one numerical form or another appears no fewer than six times in the New Testament, and indeed that it is the only miracle that occurs in all four of the gospel records. At the very least this would indicate that the early Christians saw this event in the life of Jesus as incredibly important. I refuse to stand with those biblical interpreters who see this merely as a made-up and best symbolic tale. I believe something fairly dramatic had to happen in the lives of those witnessing and following Jesus for this seen to take such hold in the hearts and minds of his subsequent followers.

John is a masterful writer. In his gospel account he tells of seven miracles, and we should never dismiss the possibility that this number, seven, which was so symbolic as the number of perfection in the ancient world is being used very deliberately by the author of the fourth gospel. I suspect it is so widely attested, that is to say six times across the four gospel records, because it holds together questions of both compassion and what I'll have to call sacramentality, by which more or less ordinary things come to symbolise the extraordinary, the miraculous the beyond understanding.

In this vivid little story Jesus meets basic human needs. Many of you will know Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a pyramid of priority, at the base of which, ahead of all other things, is the fundamental need for food, water, warmth and rest. Here Jesus addresses the formative most visceral human need of empty bellies. This is not necessarily to say that's 5000 people were going to starve to death that afternoon if Jesus didn't address their needs, but a powerful reminder for those of us who seek to bear Christ in our world, that everyday millions of human beings are starving, dehydrating, brutally cold or increasingly in a globally warming world unbearably hot, and exhausted through overwork and exploitation. Many a commentator will remind us that we are scorning the sacramental sense of liturgical bread and wine in this passage if we go out and forget the visceral need for nourishment of our brothers and sisters across the globe. And let me confess I do, and I fear almost all of us do to some perhaps even large extent. We should never think that we are speaking or intoning the ancient words Lord, have mercy, kyrie eleison, et te Ariki, kia aroha mai, glibly.

But while preachers may leave us wallowing in guilt, and there is a place for guilt if not for wallowing, John at this point wants us to see something else. As one of the seven signs this is part of John's attempt to tell us that in the incarnation of the one he calls, Word, Logos, not only does the fullness of divinity dwell but simultaneously the fullness of what it means to be truly human. Jesus, Ashley compassionate, actually committed to entering and even alleviating the plight of human beings, and I would add, the plight of all created beings. We do not see the outcome of that in the world around us and so again we plead those ancient prayers, Kyrie elieson and even that Aramaic prayer, Maranatha, come, Lord, come. And neither of those prayers can be an excuse for us to do nothing.

And yes I've slipped back into guilt again, but there I want to open that other great theme of John, the theme of light. Because in our flawed humanness Christlight can shine. A small boy offers his scruffy packed lunch. We are called to be that small boy, offering the scruffiness of our own lives so that God may touch and transform the world God has placed us in. Some of you will know the Paul Kelly song, from little things big things come. It's not Plato, it's not Shakespeare, but it's pretty darned close to the essence of this passage. We are called to be that small child an offer as best we can ah flawed lives. At the end of the liturgy we will do that by offering ourselves sometimes in the exact words, we offer ourselves soul and body to be a living sacrifice in the world.

Jesus is not condemning us for our imperfections but asking us to strive to do our best if I can put it this way, to do our best as best we can. He invades our lives as we remember and like an electric vehicle recharge ourselves each time we worship, invades us to take our not enough, even our not good enough, to make it enough and good enough in the service of God.

Though it is worth remembering that like that small boy we need to take the brave step of handing our packed lunch, the packed lunch of our lives to the passing Christ.