An almost entirely Olympics-free sermon.

Sermon. St Anselm’s Hayes, 29 July 2012

Trinity 8.

2 Kings 4.42-44

John 6.1-21

Some say the preacher should always be relevant, and relevance at this time must mean a sermon full of references to sport and the Olympics. I have to warn you that I am not one such.  

And so to the gospel today. The multiplication of the loaves and the walking on water. What is happening? I mean: How (if at all) do you picture it? What are we imagining? We might say simply ‘miracles’. Okay, I agree. But what happened? Do we imagine loaves of bread ‘extending themselves’, renewing themselves, once broken apart, or whole loaves spontaneously appearing in the basket? Does it matter that we cannot imagine quite the details of the miracle?

Some say – and don’t dismiss this out of hand – that it happened like this. The boy with the loaves and the fish was the one person who was willing to share the little food he had. Once his offering was presented to the people, the rest were freed from their fears and their selfishness. They were then willing to ‘admit’ that they had food about them, and could of course (they now realise) share it with others. The miracle was the miracle of generosity over fear. It’s not to be dismissed, I think. I mean: surely that boy who ‘admitted’ that he had those bits of food was being quite courageous in offering them. At the very least, he’d have less food for himself. More: he might have been mobbed, and/or he might have been ridiculed.

One thing we cannot do is say that it does not matter what happened because the story is unimportant, just a gloss, a detail, a triviality. No. That does not work. I think we do have some sense that the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are similar in many ways, and/but John is very different. That is right. And indeed I might ask: what is there which is in all four gospels? The story of the passion, death and resurrection of the Lord. And… what else? Not much. The Christmas story, let us remember, is found in Matthew and Luke but not Mark or John. But certainly these two stories, of the multiplication of the loaves and the walking on the water are dound in all four. What is more, like everything of importance in the New Testament, it reflects a story in the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament. We’ve heard that today as well. Elisha has confidence that twenty loaves can feed a hundred people. And they can and there is, as in the gospels, food left over.

I don’t know what happened. You know that I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where the emphasis should lie. Is it with the conviction that Jesus performed miracles? That he gave us a whole new sense of what is possible? Is it with the miracle of generosity and courage, when things look hard and narrow? Is it with the continuity between the Testaments of the Bible, that the story of the people of faith, whatever they call themselves, is one? I am tempted to say: yes, yes and yes.

But, brothers and sisters, I am going to say this as well: there is something that is irritating or worse about this story, and about all other stories of miracles in both Testaments and in the history of the Christian community. If God works through miracles – loaves of bread extending themselves or spontaneously appearing – then where is God for us? Our loaves of bread do not do this. If we run out of bread, we have to buy or bake some more. If we cannot do that, we go hungry. We cannot walk on water. If we try, we may drown. Each story of a miracle that we hear is both a blessing – and encouragement – and potentially a curse – a reminder that their story is not our story.

And I speak to you on 29 July. If this 29 July were not a Sunday, it would be the Feast of Mary, Martha and Lazarus. The Feast of Lazarus! The person whom Jesus – according to the same gospel of John – raised from the dead! Miracles are in the air, today, in the Church’s readings and mediations. But… where are they for us? We might be asking: Are we less deserving of miracles? Are we too dull, or too sinful, to receive them? Are our problems, which so mar our lives and hold them back, really trivial, uninteresting to God? Or, is it even worse than that: Are our problems sent to us by God?

Brothers and sisters, I cannot believe that. I start from a different place. I start from the conviction that we are made for each other. And we are made to need each other. If we are to need each other, we must have some problems or issues which others, with us, can solve or work with. We are meant to need our doctors and nurses, and all the rest, and we are meant to need all those people who pray for us. If healing always came in a miraculous instant, none of this would be necessary. None of this would be possible. We are meant to need each other, and there is this good and its way miraculous news: When we own that we need each other, things happen. They shift, they move, they open up.

So, sisters and brothers, I do believe in the possibility of miracles. I do not think we human beings should try to ‘contain’ God, with our cynicism, be it philosophical or emotional. I do want to treat the Bible stories as serious. When a story is repeated, four times (that is: when it is in all four gospels), then I don’t want to be the one who limits its meaning. But I do not stand before you today as one who is in any sense promising more miracles in that style. I stand before you today as someone who believes we are meant to need each other. God means us to need each other.

In that spirit, then, we offer today the liturgy of healing. You are free, if you want, in just a moment, to come forward for prayer. This will involve the laying on of hands and, if you further want this, anointing with the oil of healing. You can come forward for prayer for yourself, or for another. You can just mention the name of the other person when you are with me. It is offered, not because God works through offering instant miraculous solutions to our problems. It is offered because one way of our needing each other, can be for our asking for prayer. For strengthening. For spiritual food, sustenance for the journey. And since the anointing is itslf a sacrament, you are asking for the help of the whole Church, mystically present with us, as at every sacrament. Don’t feel under any pressure to come forward. Certainly, don’t do it to please me. But don’t stay away because you are not sure you believe in miracles any way. I hope I’ve said enough to make it clear it’s not about magical miracles as they might be understood. It is about another way of letting God work with what is already going on in your life.

Whatever actually happened, the message of the multiplication of the loaves is that Jesus feeds us. He nourishes us. He nourishes us, time and time again. He meets us at the point of our need, and we are strengthened, and things are opened up, and there is light for us. If we keep on, knowing that we are for each other and that we are meant to need each other, we will be nourished by our Lord. We may be more than strengthened. We may find there is a spring in our step. We may even find ourselves drawn to be, ever so slightly, sporty. It’s a good time for that sort of thing, I hear! Amen.