RonBlog

Sunday 29th July, 2012 Ninth Sunday after Pentecost Sentence Jesus said, ‘I am the bread of life that came down from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.’ John 6: 51 Collect Gracious God, You have placed in the hearts of all Your children, a longing for Your word and a hunger for Your truth; grant that we, believing in the One Whom You have sent, may know Him to be the true bread from heaven, and the food of eternal life, Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom with You and the Holy Spirit be glory and honour for ever and ever. Amen Old Testament Lesson 2 Samuel 11: 1 – 15 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. It happened, late one afternoon, when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king's house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful. David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, "This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite." So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house. The woman conceived; and she sent and told David, "I am pregnant." So David sent word to Joab, "Send me Uriah the Hittite." And Joab sent Uriah to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, "Go down to your house, and wash your feet." Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house. When they told David, "Uriah did not go down to his house," David said to Uriah, "You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?" Uriah said to David, "The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths; and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing." Then David said to Uriah, "Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back." So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day, David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk; and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house. In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab, and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, "Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die." Psalm 14 Fools have said in their hearts ‘There is no God”: they have all become vile and abominable in their doings, there is not one that does good The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of Adam: to see if there were any who would act wisely and seek after God But they have all turned out of the way, they have all alike become corrupt: there is none that does good, no not one Are all evildoers devoid of understanding: who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not pray to the Lord? They shall be struck with terror: for God is with the company of the righteous Though they frustrate the poor in their hopes: surely the Lord is their refuge O that deliverance for Israel might come forth from Zion: when the Lord turns again the fortunes of His people, then shall Jacob rejoice and Israel shall be glad. Epistle Ephesians 3: 14 – 21 I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. GOSPEL John 6: 1 – 21 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, "There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world." When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going. © New Revised Standard Version of the Bible Copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and used by permission. All rights reserved NOTES ON THE READINGS If you had wondered why last week’s Gospel from Mark omitted reference to the Feeding Sign, then your answer is here today, with John’s account of that event. Mind you, you are asked to notice that following Sundays provide further excerpts from John 6, which should result in quite something of a dilation of your views of Jesus, Eucharist and all sorts of things. Do not forget that you have been warned! Old Testament If you thought I was being rude, last week, with reference to King David, now you should see why I referred to propaganda! Now before you go too crook on David, remember that he was human like the rest of us, and that we are just as capable of sin as anyone, Christian or otherwise. This is not a pretty story, rendered even less pretty by the fact that poor old Uriah – cuckolded by his king, -- retained his sense of duty and integrity by refusing to go home to the little lady. This story is reputed to have evinced Psalm 51, a powerful penitential confession if ever there was one. If God could handle David’s misbehaviour, I suspect that He is able also to handle yours and mine. What a relief. Psalm Before you get too excited and charge every unbeliever with mortal sins, stop and see what is being said here, or by what is becoming evident in our own day and age and society. Read your newspapers and see how the reality is that (a) more and more people are rejecting any concept of God, or to put it another way, they are rejecting any concept of being responsible for acting with integrity and honesty with other people. In other words, the more I turn my back on (all that) God (represents,) the more I will turn my back on other people. If/when I choose to consider myself as the arbiter of right and wrong, truth and falsehood, the less you will show up in my value system. And you do not need your Bible or anything else to establish the reality of that now do you! Perhaps now some of us may be able to translate the Faith into terms that ordinary people can understand and recognize as valid. And that is something we have needed for quite a long time, is it not? Epistle Now I have to say that, in my experience with lots of Christians, such a passage as this tends to have lovely Christians getting that faraway look in their eyes, and becoming all holy and off the planet. The reality of what Paul points to is rather more substantial than that, and certainly more relevant. What Paul is expressing is oh! So very similar to what Jesus is on about in today’s Gospel. It has far more to do with the way a person operates because they have seen and understood what the Gospel is really on about, and that it provides significant bases for people in whatever culture to find reconciliation and purpose as humans in this somewhat crazy world GOSPEL You may be running intro difficulty right here and now, for what Chapter 6 has to say about Jesus, about the Faith, and about the Gospel, may be too much to take in one sitting. Not surprisingly, the Lectionary has us spreading Chapter 6 over several Sundays. First of all, I suggest that you forget about miracle. If we concentrate there, then we miss most of the point, purpose and direction of this incident. You are free to disagree with me, but wait till we have finished with this story, please. On top of that, please see that John describes this incident and others, not as ‘miracle’ but as sign. Just to be very naughty, I usually edit the NIV translation for its constant misuse of the Greek text. That translation shows up as ‘miraculous sign’ where the Greek text has but sign. The first thing to notice is the fine print, so to speak, in John’s Gospel. The first is that after crossing the sea (Red Sea?) and climbing a mountain (Sinai) there is the feeding sign. Go back to the Exodus and recall the escape from Egypt, the encounters of Mount Sinai, and the manna and quail. What was going on there? And that is the salvation of Israel, in escape from slavery, and the sustenance offered them by God, not only in the food available but also in the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. Once that is absorbed, then try contrasting what happened here in the Gospel: in Horeb there was only just enough for the given day; and here there was stuff left over in droves. So now one can see that John is offering a comparison and contrast between Moses and Jesus. Please stop and realize that, in such a conservative religion as Judaism, such a process would hardly be at all welcome. So the outcome for those present had two prongs, so to speak: on the one hand there were those who saw Jesus as a prophet . Now that was progress of a sort. On the other hand some wanted to push Jesus into being king! And that was a step rather retrograde. They were looking for a messiah-like person who would simply be there to meed their needs, without effort or involvement from them. Small wonder then that Jesus disappeared from that scene. So here we have an interesting cameo of different people’s responses to Jesus’ ministry. And it will ever be the same. Even in this day and age there are those who look to God to solve all their issues, including praying for parking places or other minimally important issues. God is not some sort of miracle worker for anyone, least of all modern-day people, even Christians. But what He does have to offer to those who are looking to matters more important and valuable for everyone, is – in answer to John’s Prologue in his Gospel, - the Word, the Logos, the Reason for Existence and the Purpose in life. And when Jesus talked about the bread He offers is His flesh, then He is pointing to a way of life utterly contrary to that of Adam, do you see! NOTES FOR A SERMON (I do not know if the notes above offer sufficient material to create a sermon. On the off-chance that they do not, I will provide something here.) I recall, on my first Sunday in a new parish, having this Gospel on which to preach, and asking the small congregation to put aside for a while, the very idea of miracle, on the grounds that to do otherwise was to miss almost the entire point of the episode. By saying that, I was asking people to realize that when we think ‘miracle,’ we tend to see such things as way outside our capabilities, and so dismiss any further thought from our minds. And that outcome is tragically common...... What Jesus was (trying to) clarify to people, was His place in the economy of God, in the development of the Faith and in the direction that the Father was getting people to see. Here, in other words, was He Who is far greater than Moses and the prophets (a lesson that the Transfiguration was teaching) and yet very much in the mould and direction of that earlier faith. As the notes above indicate, Jesus, by His very actions more than His words, was pointing people to the source of their faith and life and sustenance, by reiterating something that their heilesgeschichte (their holy history) had underlined for them for millennia. Perhaps one of the things that meant many people failed to appreciate the story was the very familiarity that leads to contempt, as the saying goes. However, Jesus was never one to give up trying to get the message across, and here He was asking people to see that what He had to offer was something that even left Moses’ contribution somewhat in the shade. If one ponders the Sinai story, one is left with the rather short-sighted perception that the manna and quail thing was simply a matter of keeping the people fed and living. However, both the feeding there and the Law from the mountain was pointing to matters rather more significant. This worship of JHWH was not simply a matter of staying alive, but of having what was necessary to sustain life at its rather more full and complete. For instance, in spite of St. Paul’s constant tirade against the Law there is always great need for life to have shape to it, a possibility out of range when there are no boundaries. Ask any teenager, especially those who complain about restraints of any sort, that no restraints result in complete lack of direction for life and complete lack of value(s). My own kids would complain about ‘rules,’ but – in later years, expressed appreciation that they had something solid against which to kick There were two different directions to which people tried to move, in response to this sign from Jesus; the first was to see Jesus as prophet (in a sort of a way), who would do everything necessary for them to have a sedentary and easy life. The second option was to make Jesus King, which meant much the same – life without responsibilities, which after a moment’s thought, should have had them see that this would lead to a very rapid decline in life and life-style. That has never been the goal or telos of the Faith, Hebrew or Christian! Once the story is seen in such a light as this, there is a far greater impact from the story on each reader and hearer. First it becomes obvious that belief in Jesus does not point to some sort of relaxation into a nirvana of doubtful value. It does point to the challenge to follow in a direction that calls for both hard decisions and for continual growth and maturity – both of which are hardly popular directions these days. While it may be anticipating a little, what will follow in successive weeks, as John 6 is further explored, is – surprise, surprise, - that John follows up with Jesus’ own words about Eucharist, bread and wine, and His own self-giving for the life of the world. I recall being quite shocked when the Eucharist aspects of the story became laid open for me. Up till then I could see rather little connection between Jesus and Church, but all this required a rethink of somewhat marathon proportion. But that only meant a similar rethink about Eucharist, for this rethink does not simply mean the necessity of attending Communion more often, but realizing that to which the Eucharist itself points: when Jesu made clear that the bread He offers is His own flesh, it is underling, IN RED, that the entire Faith is about the resolution of the human dilemma by followers of Him ling for others, living a self-giving life as He did, in order to offer a path to reconciliation and peace. This faith is not just for Christians. It is offered to the entire human race, so that this world can be redeemed, as the Agnus Dei reminds us, Sunday by Sunday.