Join the Right Party!
This sermon can be listened to here
Readings:
Psalm Psalm: 17:1-7, 15
First Reading: Gen 32:22-31
Second Reading: Rom 9:1-5
Gospel: Matt 14:13-21
What I want to say:
Who are our role models of faith in the bible
For some it is Jacob, who wrestles with God for his whole story.
We are invited to wrestle with the story of Jesus being compelled to act, out of compassion, getting the disciples to feed 5000 men plus women and children.
What I want to happen:
· How does that help us into our celebration of Eucharist?
· What does that mean for us today?
Invite to wrestle with what to do with this invitation – you feed them!
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
As I was preparing for this weeks sermon
Question came up in one resources about who our role models of faith from scripture might be?
- Mary – Theotokos – God-bearer
- Mary Magdalene (not prostitute) but is healed and follows with such devotion?
o First to witness the resurrection
o First preach good news
- Mary and or Martha?
- Thomas – quick to follow
- Peter
- Paul
- Jacob
Some – story heard this morning of Jacob’s wrestling with God is their favourite story
Metaphor of what life of faith is about
- Wrestling with God
- Wrestling with what it means to live in response to all God offers us
o honesty about the story
o never willing to trust God
o uses own cunning and sneakery to get what he wants
- as returns to homeland
o to face brother cheated out inheritance
- come to terms not only with Esau
- own deceit and dishonesty
o created reasonably dysfunctional family
- also God of their father and father’s father
seen by many what faith is about
I wonder how that speaks to your own life of faith?
2. Parties
Our gospel reading this morning is one that invites wrestling
Difficult to know what to make of it or what to do in response to it.
Jesus finished teaching about Kingdom heaven
- Wasteful farmer scattering seed all over
- Weeds and good crops being allowed to grow together
- Deliberately planting weedy mustard seeds
- Hiding yeast in flour
- And so on……
Then goes home – not very welcome
Then hears that his cousin John is beheaded at one of Herod’s debauched parties
- Guests are the powerful and want to be’s
- Where too much of everything is available
o Food
o Drink
o women
Many suggest John also friend, mentor and teacher
- His rabbi
- Is executed on a whim
In face of that, filled with grief and (maybe) anger
- He goes out into wilderness to be alone and just “be”
- Not alone in grief and rage
Maybe with same deep sense of powerlessness in face such brutal and callous power
Great crowd people gone out to find him
Huge group for those times
- Larger that population of all but largest cities
- Size very large army
o Larger than a legion
- Risky
- Will attract attention of both Romans and Herod
Jesus is moved with compassion
- Greek here isn’t just feeling
- Bodily response with whole digestive system
- Moved to act
- To share their grief and helplessness
- Meet them in their weakness
- Offer healing
Then disciples note the time and suggest Jesus sends them away to fine food
This very large crowd of hungry people.
It is impossible
Small villages around would simply not have enough food for such a large crowd
So Jesus says “you feed them”
- Which seems also impossible given they have 5 loafs of bread and 2 fish between them
But Jesus takes this meagre pile of food
- So little compared to that feast Herod threw
Gives thanks
Gives it to disciples to share
At the end everyone had eaten more than enough
- For many maybe for the first time in their lives
And there is lots left over to be shared out
I’m not going to try to explain it
- That misses the point
The point is the contrast between the two meals
The point is that the disciples were invited to be as moved with compassion as Jesus was
- But with the amount of faith the size of a mustard seed
- And the amount of food available being like a mustard seed given the task at hand
- They ended up with food left over
- The hidden yeast in that vast quantity of flour had been found
3. Wrestling time
Going back to our story about Jacob wrestling
There is a lot to wrestle with here
- We want to wrestle with how did this happen?
- We too often ignore that Jesus said to the disciples
o You do it
o And they did with help
- And we could wrestle with how this story speaks to our weekly gathering around the communion table
o When disciples gathered with Jesus, they knew that all these other meals were part of what was happening
o This wasn’t just a special holy meal for them
o They were reminded of all times Jesus fed crowds
§ Accepted invitations to honour and bless by eating with outsiderse
§ Reminded kingdom of God is often described (Isaiah and Ezekiel) as great banquet when all will have enough and justice will reign
- So we too are reminded of those meals
o We know that we too are being fed with more that we can imagine
§ Fed with compassion, generosity, grace, forgiveness, love
§ Fed with God’s life
o And that even when we are not feeling worthy
§ We are invited in and honoured and blessed.
- But I suspect that too often I leave it there.
o It becomes about me
o And I forget that Jesus said to the disciples
o “now you feed them with what little you have”
To be honest I don’t know what to do with that
I don’t know where to begin
- Support foodbank
- Look ways to support Kai Aroha
4. More Than That
But kingdom of heaven/reign of God is more than that
It invites us to ask why so many people are hungry in our country
Why so many people do not have enough food
- When I have more than enough
- More than enough
Why so many people around world do not have enough food
- Why so many die of malnutrition and starvation
- When we in west dump vast quantities into rubbish heaps
I don’t know what to do with that invitation
“you feed them”
In the face of all that
I feel like Jacob wrestling
What do you think?
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