Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 6 October 2019.
Readings
Old Testament: Deuteronomy 26: 1-11
Epistle: Philippians 4: 4-9
Gospel: John 6: 25-35
There are some interesting questions around in our current political debates – and no I am not talking about THAT* question.
Take our decision making: is it about the discussion or about the decisions? Or the environment: is it only about our physical surroundings or the way we live in them? Or our land and cities: what they look like and feel like or how we live in it and use them?
And perhaps the same applies to our harvest celebration: is it how we celebrate the harvest or how we worship God?
Is it the gift or the giver? It is about us or is it about God?
A celebration of human achievement and organization, of technology and transport – or about the fertility of the soil that God has created and our relations with God and with one another as we bring it in, distribute it and consume it?
In the OT, the answer was clear, for the people of Israel were commanded to make their first harvest a special celebration.
In this they rejoiced not only in the harvest but in how they had come to be there, and how a wandering herdsman had become the father or a mighty nation.
Here they celebrated their story of how they had grown from a family of 3 to the mighty army, and of how they had suffered slavery, been rescued and travelled through the wilderness before entering the land.
Not only this but they were under strict instructions to remember those who had nothing – as they had endured privation themselves.
And more than this, this time of year was to be the new year celebration. The New Year would be followed by a solemn Day of Atonement, and only after this be the festival of booths or tabernacles – flimsy field shelters, again to remind them of times past.
The harvest celebration was one of the great religious festivals of the year, never to be neglected or trivialized.
In the gospel, our approach to the harvest is different. The gospel lesson is about more than food – it is centered on life.
And the life it celebrates is far more than the celebration of an agrarian community.
It is life as Jesus knows it and proclaims it – life in and with God.
Life in the fullness of His promise, the celebration of the Word now made flesh. And Jesus Himself is the Bread of Life.
The Word which had designed and knew all the sub-atomic particles and waves of the universe was now with them, taking to them, to be seen and touched and heard.
The Word whose gift to His people was always going to be far greater and more extravagant than anything that they had ever imagined or dreamed of.
The Word was there and while Jesus had indeed fed the people – 5000 in Galilee and 4000 in the Golan, the vision was always going to be to introduce them to a life far beyond survival, a sight far beyond pictures and a hearing far beyond harmony.
This was a new agenda, in which God in Jesus was taking a radical new initiative, at hideous personal cost.
Reconciliation with His would be a new departure centered on His forgiveness and new life.
Relationships and attitudes would change, loyalties would be re-formed, ambitions and aspirations would take wings.
The work of God would start in each soul as he and she came to personal faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ. He would no longer be a picture on a wall or a story in a book. Now he would be closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.
He would be closer than the deepest and most personal love of our lives, accessible in the moment and only a prayer away.
To do the work of God would be to allow the person of God to become wholly intimate with us so that His thoughts may become ours, His deeds ours, His tears and His body and blood again, intimate with our own.
This is why our central act of worship is an act of thanksgiving, and we celebrate it with rejoicing.
Together we hear the scriptures and reflect on them; together we gather around what is now a new kind of family table and share a meal.
God does not seek our fellowship through Herculean efforts – Jesus has already done that. Neither does He seek great learning, the fighting of battles or the building of cities.
Instead He is saying, ‘Love Me above and beyond all else’ and then, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians is important here. Rejoice – sometimes as an act of obedience, especially when we do not feel like it.
The starting point is always with God, and not a God of the clouds or the ether. This is a God who presents Himself in flesh and blood, seeking our fellowship and our loyalty.
For with this then there is another Harvest to be brought in, greater that our imagination and more glorious than any splendour that we can contrive. This is the real celebration that we are working towards.
There are some interesting questions around in our current political debates – and no I am not talking about THAT question.
Take our decision making: is it about the discussion or about the decisions? Or the environment: is it only about our physical surroundings or the way we live in them? Or our land and cities: what they look like and feel like or how we live in it and use them?
And perhaps the same applies to our harvest celebration: is it how we celebrate the harvest or how we worship God?
Is it the gift or the giver? It is about us or is it about God?
A celebration of human achievement and organization, of technology and transport – or about the fertility of the soil that God has created and our relations with God and with one another as we bring it in, distribute it and consume it?
In the OT, the answer was clear, for the people of Israel were commanded to make their first harvest a special celebration.
In this they rejoiced not only in the harvest but in how they had come to be there, and how a wandering herdsman had become the father or a mighty nation.
Here they celebrated their story of how they had grown from a family of 3 to the mighty army, and of how they had suffered slavery, been rescued and travelled through the wilderness before entering the land.
Not only this but they were under strict instructions to remember those who had nothing – as they had endured privation themselves.
And more than this, this time of year was to be the new year celebration. The New Year would be followed by a solemn Day of Atonement, and only after this be the festival of booths or tabernacles – flimsy field shelters, again to remind them of times past.
The harvest celebration was one of the great religious festivals of the year, never to be neglected or trivialized.
In the gospel, our approach to the harvest is different. The gospel lesson is about more than food – it is centered on life.
And the life it celebrates is far more than the celebration of an agrarian community.
It is life as Jesus knows it and proclaims it – life in and with God.
Life in the fullness of His promise, the celebration of the Word now made flesh. And Jesus Himself is the Bread of Life.
The Word which had designed and knew all the sub-atomic particles and waves of the universe was now with them, taking to them, to be seen and touched and heard.
The Word whose gift to His people was always going to be far greater and more extravagant than anything that they had ever imagined or dreamed of.
The Word was there and while Jesus had indeed fed the people – 5000 in Galilee and 4000 in the Golan, the vision was always going to be to introduce them to a life far beyond survival, a sight far beyond pictures and a hearing far beyond harmony.
This was a new agenda, in which God in Jesus was taking a radical new initiative, at hideous personal cost.
Reconciliation with His would be a new departure centered on His forgiveness and new life.
Relationships and attitudes would change, loyalties would be re-formed, ambitions and aspirations would take wings.
The work of God would start in each soul as he and she came to personal faith in and commitment to Jesus Christ. He would no longer be a picture on a wall or a story in a book. Now he would be closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet.
He would be closer than the deepest and most personal love of our lives, accessible in the moment and only a prayer away.
To do the work of God would be to allow the person of God to become wholly intimate with us so that His thoughts may become ours, His deeds ours, His tears and His body and blood again, intimate with our own.
This is why our central act of worship is an act of thanksgiving, and we celebrate it with rejoicing.
Together we hear the scriptures and reflect on them; together we gather around what is now a new kind of family table and share a meal.
God does not seek our fellowship through Herculean efforts – Jesus has already done that. Neither does He seek great learning, the fighting of battles or the building of cities.
Instead He is saying, ‘Love Me above and beyond all else’ and then, ‘Love one another as I have loved you’.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians is important here. Rejoice – sometimes as an act of obedience, especially when we do not feel like it.
The starting point is always with God, and not a God of the clouds or the ether. This is a God who presents Himself in flesh and blood, seeking our fellowship and our loyalty.
For with this then there is another Harvest to be brought in, greater that our imagination and more glorious than any splendour that we can contrive. This is the real celebration that we are working towards.
*For readers in the future … Brexit fever was running high when this sermon was delivered.
