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Sermon - The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost (A) - 3rd August 2008
St Aidan ’s West Epping 8.30 am
Readings: Genesis 32.22-31 & Matthew 14:13-21
One thing I always like to do when I am in Canberra is to visit the War Memorial. But as you approach the entrance you are confronted by two statues. One is a reminder of the First World War and the other is a reminder of the Second. The first statue is of Simpson and his donkey. No doubt you remember that he carried the wounded from the front lines at Gallipoli on his donkey back to the hospital tents where they could be treated. It was one of the most dangerous jobs and yet Simpson never stopped. What we often forget is that he only lasted a few weeks before he was hit by machine gun fire and was killed.
The second statue is of Weary Dunlop who headed up medical care in one of the Japanese camps during the Second World War. Fortunately, he survived the experience in spite of the appalling conditions he endured. But both men are a reminder as you approach the War Memorial of one important lesson. War is always about putting your life on the line while attempting to do your job. In one sense it offers great clarity. It’s about life and death, about taking the greatest risks to get the job done with no guarantee of safety or survival.
At the beginning of our gospel reading today a harsh note is struck – there is that same sense of danger that our war heroes faced with no hope of escape. It begins with the announcement of the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. What had he done? He had criticised Herod for a marriage that was illegal by Jewish law. And for that he was beheaded. Jesus knew his ministry brought him into danger. He knew that one day he would face the cross. But John’s death is a reminder of how close death was to him. The shadow of death is cast over his whole ministry. And his first response was to withdraw in a boat to a place by himself. It may be that for a while the danger he was in overwhelmed him. Perhaps he needed the time alone to prepare himself for the ministry that was ahead of him. No doubt he used that time to pray. He knew he would die soon. But not it had come so close.
The crowds soon sought him out and people came from everywhere. The result was a vast crowd. We are told of 5000 men – so you can imagine how great the number was when you add the women and then the children as well. And Jesus’ response to this crowd is very revealing. At one level this crowd only increased the danger Jesus was in. The Romans didn’t like crowds. Crowds quickly became riots. The Romans were famous for their ability to keep the peace through brute force. So the mere presence of a crowd would be reason enough to arrest Jesus. He could have run away. He could have hidden himself.
But Jesus took a different path. Rather than fear, he responded to the crowd with compassion and with healing. He did this in spite of the danger. Its in this way that his behaviour reminds me of Simpson and Weary Dunlop. They saw the need, and they responded to it. It cost them time, it cost them effort but it also put them in extreme danger. But they did it anyway. Jesus should have headed for the wilderness. He should have stopped drawing attention to himself. But he didn’t. He looked at the need that was there and he responded to it.
If we see ourselves as followers of Jesus then it is a pattern that we should follow. I was in Koorong bookshop the other day and they were selling those bangles that carry the initials WWJD which stands for “What would Jesus do?” I was interested because the bangles were made in China. But here we have an example of what Jesus would do. It wasn’t difficult for him to work out. The needs of the crowd were obvious. He responded to the need, in spite of the danger to himself.
So we should be asking ourselves how are we responding to the needs of those around us. The first step is to go looking for the needs. The second step is to think about what our response should be. In this way, in a practical way we begin to fulfil the second great command to love our neighbour as ourselves. This command is asking us to do more than to think kindly of our neighbour. It asks the harder question of what will we do to put that love into action.
It concerns me that often Christians don’t see the care for others as part of their Christian responsibility. I was shocked when I first became a hospital chaplain when some of my friends asked me if I had any plans to ever return to Christian ministry. Surely, caring for the dying was what Christians ought to be doing. Surely my ministry in the hospital was thoroughly Christian. When we pray, “Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” what do we mean? Surely it means we should be caught up in living the love of God amongst our friends and neighbours. That by the way we live we bring heaven down to earth, that through us our friends get a glimpse of heaven.
Now some people get troubled over size. They say the task is too great and they are so small so what can they do? Take for example the poverty in India. The problem can overwhelm us. Yet a loan of d$100 is enough for an Indian woman to begin her own business. These micro loans are now very popular. Usually they are paid back within a single year. But it is enough to give her a start. And it not only takes the woman out of poverty. Rather she brings her whole family with her as well. The man who began giving these loans has now won a Nobel Prize so there’s been clear recognition that it works. He realised that something should be done, and he responded. There are so many ways available these days to help others both here and overseas. We don’t have to do much. The trick is to do something. It is as simple as Jesus seeing the crowd and having the compassion. And as a result, he acted.
But of course, being Jesus, there was something else he could do and so we have the story of the feeing of the 5000. This event is recorded in Mark and Luke’s gospel as well. There is also a second feeding of 4000 on another occasion. Altogether, this gives us five stories of feeding. And hat is interesting is that each of these accounts ah the same structure. But what makes them more interesting is they have the same structure as the three accounts of Jesus institution of the Lord’s Supper. Jesus took the bread, he blessed or gave thanks for it, he broke it and he gave it out. The same sequence is used at the meal in the Emmaus story after Jesus resurrection. So each of the gospel writers have used the structure of the events to tie them to the Lord’s Supper.
But there is still more. The way this story is told is a direct parallel with the miraculous feeding that Elisha performed in 2 Kings, though he had more loaves and a smaller crowd. But again there was the objection that there was not enough for everyone and yet they were all fed. And finally, the feeding in the wilderness is an echo of the Exodus where God fed Israel on their journey to the promised land with the manna and the quail. All of these pictures tell the same story of God rescuing his people. The feeding is a symbol of life itself. But it is more than that, it is also the antidote to death. This is how Jesus explains it in John 6.
So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’ Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
So the feeding of the 5000 directs us to look in three places at once. It encourages us to look back to the many times God has rescued his people in the past, often a rescue through feeding. It encourages us to look to the present where God is at work in our lives, transforming us from death to life. We now possess the Spirit of God which is also the Spirit of life, sometimes called the very breath of God, which breaths life into us. We are told that if the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us, it will bring to life our mortal bodies.
And finally, the feeding of the 5000 encourages us to look to the future to the great banquet at the end of time where we will celebrate with Christ his great victory over all his enemies, where death and all the forces opposed to life have been overthrown and we will experience the fullness of life that we possess even now in our weakness, and frailty as we trust in him who loved us who died for us that we might live.