Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 27 July 2024.
Jesus walking on water. Armenian manuscript. Daniel of Uranc gospel, 1433. (Source)
• First Reading: 2 Samuel 11: 1-15 (David and Bathsheba)
• Epistle: Ephesians 3: 14-21 (A prayer for the Ephesians)
• Gospel: John 6: 1-21 (Jesus feeds the five thousand and walks on the water)
We have been seeing allegations of sports people mistreating their animals or dance partners, and how the whole episode goes viral. A past infraction of today’s codes of total purity, possibly taken out of context, but whether real, alleged or perceived and the whole reputation comes crashing down.
Maybe some of our performers are beginning to wonder whether it was all worthwhile, when they can be destroyed so easily by an hidden mob, sheltering behind anonymous messages on the social media.
Nobody is going to live such lives so wholly free from fault, and I seriously wonder whether their accusers even try. These also will find their words and actions being called to account. Judge not that you be not judged … with the same criteria.
And then there was King David, having an afternoon nap, as you do, and then watching an attractive neighbour – female – having a bath. Never mind that his troops were off to the wars with a neighbouring kingdom.
And this was just a few chapters in 2 Samuel after God’s incredible promise to David of an eternal heritage. And yet even King David, so certain and committed in his faith in God was still open to temptation and was able to use his position as king to satisfy his lusts.
This does not make him a monster or a tyrant: it only shows his humanity and openness to temptation, and the temptations that face all of us, in seeing, desiring and coveting, scheming and conspiring, even with ourselves, to satisfy and then conceal our desires.
None of this is unusual. But what is remarkable is that David was willing to admit his sins, and the searing words of Psalm 51 express his remorse and yet his trust in God even so. It is well worth reading.
And yes, God did set aside the sins of King David, and His promise was still given and not withdrawn. David later married Bathsheba and together they had a son, Solomon. Yes, that Solomon.
For whatever we think of ourselves, God still has His own purposes and so long as we return to Him in faith then He will never fail us or forsake us.
Looking at the gospel, we have another picture of faith.
It is getting late, they are in a desolate place, and the crowd is quite vulnerable and exposed. The disciples are getting concerned – for the crowds, for Jesus and for themselves. Something would have to be done, soon.
‘OK, you do something: what have you got?’
‘Well, some barley loaves and a couple of fish. That’s it.’
This was the point of crisis. The crowd they could see. Likewise the pathetically small offering of a packed lunch. And yes, Jesus was there too.
Many would have given up and walked away: ‘Nothing to do with me.’
But these disciples were learning something more. It was not about quantity, it was about quality. Not the quantity of the lunch, but the quality of their faith in Jesus and their willingness to obey Him. Stay with Him or walk away? You even might say that this was a pre-Gethsemane moment.
Rely on their own judgment or look to Jesus? Yet they were already committed for as His disciples they had already committed themselves to Him, so there was no walking away. Not now.
Yet what they also did was to offer the very smallness and inadequacy of what they had and were to Jesus without conditions. He would make up what was needed – and He did, beyond imagination or calculation. Like the mustard seed, their faith was what Jesus really needed and yet this was enough.
Writing to the Ephesians, Paul shares his vision with them. He sees a church, no matter how small and socially insignificant, being made into something wonderful and glorious in the sight of God.
Not their own doing – all His. All they had to do was to desire the fulness of God and in the power of the Holy Spirit they would indeed receive it.
Not just an occasional sprinkling but enough to float in. A drenching with the Holy Spirit that would fill them with a new kind of vison and a new kind of authority.
They might have been used to a humdrum lifestyle of daily routines with Sunday services thrown in. Not much more.
Paul saw the fulness of God just waiting to overflow onto them. The glorious riches with which God would strengthen them in the innermost parts of their lives. Jesus Christ really finding His home within and among them.
He saw them having the power to comprehend what is the length and the depth, the height and the width of the totally self-giving love of Jesus Christ.
Nothing less. I believe that what was true then lives on now, and God waits to be gracious to us.
We do not have to be defined or limited by our sins, failures or disappointments. Not when the glory of the fulness of Jesus Christ is just waiting to be poured over and into us.
