Readings: 2 Kings 4:42-44 John 6:1-21
We pray: May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight
O God, our rock and our sustainer.
Amen.
We begin with a story
– of an experienced church youth leader asked to speak to the children based on
the reading of the feeding of the 5000.
Usually he could come up with something fresh – a new take on a familiar
story – but this time – zilch.
Then just before
the service began he found a way in – he just needed a few baskets. He asked the children to each take a basket,
head into the congregation and be prepared for a miracle. There were blank looks all round until he
explained. One thing that they might not
know about the adults, said the youth leader, is that a whole bunch of them
were in the habit of having a lolly or two in their pockets to suck on during
the service. A widespread sheepish
nodding of heads confirmed this. So he
asked everyone who had some to put them in the baskets – and lo, there was a
multitude of them. Then the children
were asked to go and pass round the baskets with everyone taking a lolly each –
and of course there was a whole lot left over which were then gifted to the
food bank for special treats. He had
found a new way to make this familiar story meaningful to a new generation of
children.
The feeding of the
five thousand and Jesus walking on water – two of the more significant stories
of our Christian heritage – the feeding narrative is in all four Gospels and
Jesus walking on water is missing only from Luke.
There is a not
unexpected different rhythm to the stories in John - and there are some
differences of course but the stories resonate throughout the Gospels.
There are a few challenges
for us as we approach these miracle stories.
We have the
problem of over familiarity – looking for a new and fresh way to hear God’s
word in these readings.
We have the
problem of how to approach miracles in this day and age.
We have the problem
of how to interpret these teachings for today in a way that dig deeper than a
simple call to share our food or learn to walk on water.
Will fifteen
minutes be enough? I doubt it. But neither would an hour be so fifteen
minutes it is.
There is a distinct
familiarity – that is for sure. So much so that we might can easily be missing
the pizzazz that is there for first timers to discover. So much so that we might hear it only as a
known entity where there is nothing new to learn or to shy away because of the
difficulty we have in relating to these miracle stories in this day and
age.
The thorny issue
of miracles. The approach of some is to
explain miracles away – you know the standard one ‘it encourages everyone to
bring out their packed lunches to share’ -
and, coupled with the unwillingness in this day and age to see bread and
fish suddenly multiplying before our eyes, we feel we have to choose between
these two interpretations of disbelief or gullibility.
I don’t know what
happened on that day. I do know how that
there are layers of interpretation, perspective, context, symbolism implicit in
this the finally written word and the way it has been since related to. We
might understand that the presentation of physical miracle was needed at the time
of the writing of the gospels to claim, to prove Jesus divine origin and nature
yet there is no sense that the Gospel writers thought the events did not
occur. In our context as rational human
beings, products of the enlightenment and modernity, we are inclined to either
explain away the stories or simply leave them to one side, as parable rather
than narrative. Or we accept them as is,
a literal truth. Whichever way we approach them, the miracle stories can be a
huge barrier to belief for many people today.
But this I would
say: it would be a mistake to let our sceptical nature deprive us of the wonder
and the mystery, the surprise that is a world and a life inhabited by Jesus, to
live in a world that is so flat, where our imaginations and expectations are
severely curtailed by the limits of our rational self.
So the answer is
not to apologise for the miracles, neither is to feel we have to reject the
stories completely if we can’t believe them literally. This is the Word we are
talking about here. The wonderful,
gracefilled, spectacular Word that is Jesus Christ.
When we
concentrate just on the veracity or not of these extraordinary events narrated
to us, we are in danger of obscuring the truly miraculous found in Jesus
Christ. I think it is clear that the gospel writers, all of them, used these
stories in ways that went far beyond the focus on the detailed miracle. John’s account in fact heightens the
miraculous character of the story by emphasising the fact that Jesus knew what
was coming: ‘for he himself knew what he
was going to do.’[1]
John certainly had
no doubt about Jesus miraculous power – he saw Jesus as the very logos, the word of God.
To quote Douglas
Hall ‘For what is truly wonderful in
biblical terms is not that a seeming human could multiply loaves and fishes in
so astounding a manner but that this human being could represent, by his words
and deeds, such a sign of hope and healing that hundreds of people would follow
him about, and feel that their hunger for ‘the bread of life’ had been assuaged.
What is truly awe inspiring is not that someone could walk on the surface
of the water without sinking but that his presence among ordinary, insecure and
timid persons could calm their anxieties and cause them to walk where they had
feared to walk before – in the end, all the way to their own Golgotha.’
He goes on to say
that when we concentrate exclusively on and respond to only the act of miracle,
we neglect the divine grace that is the miracle of Christ in the whole of our
lives.
The words of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning say it best:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush alive with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes –
The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.
So, when we hear
these words from John’s gospel, can we go beyond the detail to understand that,
within the story of the bread and the fishes, we find a truly astounding truth
that in Jesus all hunger is satisfied, that leftovers are considered neither
insignificant nor abandoned. That in
Jesus no scenario is hopeless, what is seemingly impossible is, in faith, made
possible. John is asking us to look beyond our stomachs and recognise the
miracle that Jesus is the bread of life - filling our whole lives with full
extravagant abundance and leaving no-one hungry. We remember this story of the 5000 each time
we share in holy communion – as we pass round the bread and the wine we are the
people sitting on the ground, hungry, thirsty yet compelled to stay for it is
certain that this man is who we need to be near, who we trust to sustain
us. Jesus said: ‘I am the bread of life’.[2]
And when we hear
the story of Jesus walking on the water, can we think past the physical act to
see that the power of Jesus over the deep, the unknown, the threatening is a
statement of his victory over all that we fear. That his desire to accompany us
through all that is tough and terrible is dependant only on our ability to
recognise his presence – otherwise we end up labouring alone in the midst of
our turmoil. Jesus said to them: ‘It is I. I am….’
Jesus says: I am
the bread of life. I am the light of the
world. I am the resurrection and the
life. This is John taking stories from
the tradition about Jesus, and moulding them so that they make statements about
who Jesus is for us. Using images of
bread, water, life and light John is declaring that our deepest needs find a
home in Jesus, that our sustenance, our shelter, our courage for right living
and our hope for the coming of the kingdom is found in the miracle of Christ for us and with us– and, through him,
with God. In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God….
For this we say
thanks be to God. Amen.
Margaret Garland
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