Readings: Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:1-21
We pray: Holy one, guide us, challenge us, transform
us as we hear your word for us, for your church, for your world. In Jesus name. Amen.
The love of Christ
that surpasses knowledge….to him who can accomplish far more than we can ask or
imagine….
Today is a day to
ponder impossibility – to crack open our contained view of the world and to
know that which we could not, by ourselves, imagine.
Let us begin with
a story that Mark sent me through, a story that connects the loaves and the
fishes with our struggle to imagine knowing that which is beyond our
experience, our contained view of what is.
It is from a
book called "The Man Who Counted" by Malba Tahan and is about a
series of mathematical adventures and riddles, and with a great deal about
spirituality woven in. Here the man who
counted is being tested by great mathematicians from all over Asia and Arabia
He is asked
to demonstrate that he could unite the material with the spiritual, solving not
just human problems but problems of the spirit.
The question: “Which is the famous act of multiplication, which all
histories mention and all men of culture know well, which uses only one
factor?” There were grumblings of ‘outrageous question’ and utter surprise and
impatience.
Beremiz
replied: “The only multiplication using a single factor, known to all
historians, men of culture, is the multiplication of loaves and fishes
performed by Jesus, the son of Mary. In
that multiplication there is only one factor: the miraculous power of the will
of God.”
An excellent
reply, says his questioner – problem solved irrefutably!
This story
breaks into the impossible: an outrageously impossible question (especially in
the midst of a Muslim gathering) and an unimagined answer – much like the story
of the loaves and fishes
And the
connection is this:
The single
factor in our lives that takes us beyond that which we know into the realms of
that which surpasses knowledge, from what we think is possible to that which
accomplishes more than we could imagine, is God. God present and active in the
world.
The loaves
and fishes – a story surpassing knowledge, going beyond what we could
imagine. A miracle story.
But
immediately we call it a miracle, in this day and age, we run the risk of
trying to contain it to our understanding.
Think of our reactions: we either try to explain it away (everyone got
generous and pulled out their food to share) or we label it miracle, some magical
material multiplication of matter.
Whichever way we see it we are still trying to haul this event in to a
comprehensible (to us) explanation. How
many of us have sat through sermons which have sought to align the parting of
the Red Sea with moon, tidal movements etc or others which have insisted on a
hook, line and sinker swallowing of every single syllable. We get caught up in the detail!
The reality
is, the word miracle today is much more likely to invite disbelief, doubt,
suspicion, be the butt of jokes precisely because we concentrate on the detail
(either negatively or positively) so emphatically.
And
commentator Douglas Hall suggests that when we spend too much time on the
detail, we are missing the truly miraculous.
What was truly miraculous about the loaves and fishes, says Hall, is not
that a seeming human could multiply loaves and fishes in such an astounding
manner, but that this person could represent, by his words and deeds, such a
sign of hope for the people that they would follow him, their hunger for the
bread of life assuaged. And what was
truly awe inspiring is not that someone could walk on the surface of the water
without sinking but that Jesus presence among ordinary, insecure and timid
persons could calm their anxieties and cause them to walk where they had feared to walk before. When the miraculous is identified too
exclusively with the literal, the detail – then we miss the divine grace that
permeates the whole of life.
Is this not
part of what Paul was talking about when he said that the love of Christ
surpasses knowledge and the fact that in Christ we can accomplish more that we
could ever imagine. I think so.
He affirms the
limitless love of Christ in several ways in this passage and encourages us to
know that it is more than we could ever imagine.
In this prayer for
the people of Ephesus, Paul recognises our need for the mind to understand,
praying that the people might, with the saints, ‘comprehend’ the breadth and
length and height and depth of God’s love. With our mind we might know the
truly miraculous.
And yet it is with
our mind that we so easily contain or limit the miraculous to the
ordinary. To know or have knowledge is
to have something understood by the rational mind, within the bounds of logic
and experience. It’s part of why we have the need to explain and defend and win
arguments about what it is we believe.
There is no doubt
that that it is good that we seek to ‘know’ the love of God with our minds – to
read and study and discuss - to hear the witness of others as we seek to
understand. To see the fruits of the spirit around us and to remember. But
here’s the thing – the questions are actually more important than the answers,
are they not? And the journey is much
more important than arriving? For
whenever our mind seeks to contain, bind God with detail and explanation or
even complacent answer we are confining the love of God to our knowledge, our
perspective, not continually seeking the God beyond our knowledge. Not a comfortable space to acknowledge that
we don’t know it all, don’t have all the answers, that we are always going to
falter in our ability to comprehend fully the extent, the breadth and length and
height and depth of Christ’s love for us. So we continue to seek
understanding of the love of Christ,
knowing and accepting that the grace of God is truly miraculous, utterly beyond
adequate imagining.
Paul speaks too of
the joys of faith – the boundless capacity of God’s love for us – that God’s
loves encompasses every human family – there is no nation, no clan, no family,
no person – who is beyond the love of God.
When we try to confine this to ourselves, our ideology alone, to this
time or race or perspective then we are diminishing the possibilities of God’s
boundless love to human divisiveness and arrogance. The truly miraculous is that we live into a
faith where forgiveness, compassion, grace and mercy are not only taught but
lived through Christ – and that only God knows the limits of how that faith
might look in action. The possibilities, the fruits are beyond our imagining.
And then Paul
assures us of the power of the Spirit, the ‘miraculous power of the will of
God’ as Beremiz said, that lives in us and through us. He appeals to our hearts – that Christ might
dwell in our hearts through faith. That
the love of God is so deeply held in our hearts that we are assured and
strengthened even when we are struggling.
That in God all things are possible – that by living in love miracles do
happen. Paul prays that we might
experience the love of God in heart and soul – we can’t understand how this is,
we don’t get to measure it or adequately describe it, words fail us, we can
only ‘know’ it, experience what Paul calls the fullness of God in our
hearts. In that strength, in that
knowledge of God, we step out onto the risky waters, we extend dangerous
hospitality, we look for the miracle among the mundane and the truly
spectacular from the littlest of seeds.
So can we live
into this impossibility do you think?
Live heart, mind and soul in relationship with a God whose love for us
will always surpass our understanding, our boundaries, our experiences, and not
be surprised at the miraculous power of the will of God.
Now to God who by the power at work
within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or
imagine, to God be glory in the
church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
Margaret
Garland
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