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Sermon - Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (B) - 2nd August 2009
St Aidan's Anglican Church West Epping
Reading: John 6:24-35
Last Tuesday a group of us from St Albans and St Aidans attended an Anglicare Seminar on Pastoral Care. During the seminar we broke into groups for an exercise. We had a list of items such as food, rent, credit cards, doctors bills and so on. We had to put them in their order of importance. Which bills come first and which are less important. I think most people rated food and shelter at the top and placed items like cigarettes and Foxtel at the bottom of their lists. Except no one worked out where chocolate should go. This was an exercise where you sort out with your limited resources what is more important, what is essential for life and what are the optional extras. It was an enjoyable exercise.
But really, it’s a Western economic problem. We have some resources and we need to decide their best use. We know that food, clothing and shelter must come first. but for us, that doesn’t consume all our resources. Having worked out the basics, we usually have some money left over, and the we decide what to do with that. But that’s not the experience of the majority of people in our world. The basics of food, clothing and shelter are questions that are never resolved. There’s never enough food, clothing is inadequate and homelessness is common. It is difficult for these people to plan ahead when their primary concern is their next meal.
Given these circumstances we can understand Jesus’ impact when he fed the 5,000. We may marvel that he fed so many. But they would have rejoiced that they were fed at all! We may not see feeding these people as so important. We are more impressed when Jesus heals the blind man or raises the dead. But for a starving people, you can imagine the impact when Jesus fed them with an abundance of food. They could eat as much as they likes and there were left overs! In their society there were never any left overs. The left overs are a sign of the abundance of the feeding. No one had ever done this before. Its no wonder that these people wanted to follow him. It is no wonder they wanted to make Jesus their king.
Notice too the frequent mention of bread in this passage. I think it is significant. We see bread as an alternative to many foods. If we have no bread we can eat cake. But in the ancient near east, bread was their staple diet. Every meal was bread. Sometimes, it was bread with something else. But there was always bread in the meal if they had food at all. One reason why civilisation developed in the ancient near east was because they had suitable grains for cooking that grew in abundance for a large population. The ability to make bread fostered civilisation. Bread was basic to existence. Bread equalled life.
So Jesus accurately identified what was happening in verse 26. The crowds were following Jesus because they ate and had their fill. Common sense would tell people that was a very good reason to follow Jesus. If he could supply food in abundance why not follow him? But Jesus is point out that his job was bigger than that. Notice how Jesus refers to his miracles as miraculous signs. These miracles are actually signs for something. First, they are a sign that Jesus has God’s approval. Many leading Jews distrusted Jesus. He had come from Nazareth, on the boarders of Israel. He had not studied in Jerusalem under a respected teacher. Where had his wisdom come from? Were did he get all this teaching? It was very suspicious. Others had attacked his heritage. Who was his father? Wasn’t he Mary’s son. It looked dubious. Repeatedly, Jesus was asked by what authority he did the miracles he performed. Yet the miracles were a sign that he had God’s approval, that he was God’s man for the world. Jesus expected the crowd to see the sign and understand what the sign meant. These miracles were telling them something about who Jesus is.
But the crowd responded by asking for more signs, more miracles just like Moses’ miracles. It may be what the crowd wanted was relief from their physical hunger. They wanted relief from the day-to-day grind of finding enough to eat. But Jesus message was that he was not just another Moses. He was far more than that. He would bring the true bread from heaven. Not surprisingly the crowd asked for this better bread. And if you are that hungry its not surprising that they kept thinking of their stomachs.
But what was Jesus’ response to the crowd? Jesus said he was the bread of life. Those who believe will never be hungry or thirsty. Jesus had promised the woman at the well he would give her living water. So what was he talking about?
The temptation is to criticize the crowds for being so concerned about eating. They ought to look beyond that to heaven when they won’t be hungry or thirsty any more. But I don’t think Jesu is angry with them for being unspiritual. I think he is trying to grab their attention, to encourage them to look beyond their present circumstances. It was certainly true that life was hard for them. Survival took up so much of their time. But Jesus is attempting to alert them to a much bigger story. They live in the age of hunger and thirst, but Jesus is looking forward to an age where hunger and thirst will be gone. Mere survival will no longer be an issue. Instead, people will feast on the bread of life and they will have that bead in abundance. The great feast that came from the 5 barley loaves and the two fish is a picture of the future age to come. And Jesus message is that they will enjoy that age if they come to him, if they believe in him.
And the challenge is for us today as well. We may not be troubled with hunger and thirst, but day-to-day worries can still crowd in upon us. It may be the state of our superannuation, or our investments or our pensions. It may be the state of our health and wondering what tomorrow may bring. We may be troubled over our family and friends. Its so easy for the immediate pressures of life to overwhelm us and have us believe that is all that matters. And when that happens we become less concerned for one another, less concerned for those worse off than ourselves, less concerned for those who really need our help. Jesus alerts us to the bigger story, that we are the inheritors of the age to come, an age where no one will be hungry and thirsty. We are to encourage one another with our future hope. It is a hope we can all celebrate.
And encouraged by Jesus’ words, we are strengthened in our service of one another. Jesus’ message of hope refreshes us so that we are more able to give of ourselves in supporting those who are discouraged, those who are lonely, those who are in need, those who have ho family, no friends. That as we look to the new age, as citizens of that new creation of abundance we can bring the future into the present by how we live and how we serve each other. Jesus teaching is very practical, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
So as we look forward to the age of blessing, as we are encouraged by that hope, we can be a blessing, in our time, with those we meet, day by day.