Sermon: 13th Sunday after Pentecost

 Sermon: 13^th Sunday after Pentecost

22 August 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Ephesians 6:10-20, Psalm 84, and John 6:56-69; NRSV

Today we complete our journey with the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. We began the journey with the crowds as Jesus fed the five thousand with a few barley loaves and some dried fish – a powerful reminder that God’s action is not only abundant but also satisfying – and we end it with the disciples as they grapple with what it means to truly follow Jesus. 

We have been presented over these six weeks with what we know and understand: hunger, real food, bread and fish. We’ve also been presented with the metaphor of Jesus as God’s provision for us. Reality and metaphor have been woven together, and we are asked to accept the body and blood of Jesus as real sustainance for life and faith. We’ve been invited by John to understand our gathering together in Eucharistic worship as no different in nature to crowds gathered on the mountainside sharing barley bread and dried fish: both meals are abundant, both are satisfying, both are life giving. We are asked, though, to do more than just accept the similarities of the two meals; we’re invited to see that while the barley bread and dry fish are abundant in the moment and able to satisfy our physical hunger for the day, what we are offered in Jesus is eternally abundant and satisfies hunger beyond the physical, and yet embracing our humanity in its fullness. 

Just as we’re beginning to get our minds around all of that, we’re reminded that not only are we invited to feed on the body and blood of Christ, but we’re also asked to be the body and blood of Christ with all that that implies. Just as the barley loaves and fish were broken apart and shared out, just as the bread is broken in the Eucharist and shared with the wine, so you and I are asked to be that for God’s Creation and for the day-to-day world in which we live. We’re asked to trust that the seemingly insufficient is sufficient, and more than sufficient: it is satisfying. We’re asked to trust that in God we are more than adequate for God’s purposes, and that the seeming paucity of our lives when we abandon ourselves into God’s hands, will be ample in the breaking. 

Think on that for a moment {pause}. Is it any surprise that we hear many in the larger crowd of disciples around Jesus asking, “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”[1] These disciples are not responding just to the opening verses of today’s reading, but to the fullness of what Jesus has been saying through this sixth Chapter of John’s Gospel. It is discomforting stuff, even if only read superficially. However, when the implications of Jesus teaching begin to be understood it becomes deeply disturbing. What Jesus is asking of those who follow him, and by implication of ourselves, too, is to recognise that this is an all-in commitment and not an add on for when we have a bit of time. It is a call to abide as we heard in the opening verse of today’s window on this chapter, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”[2] As I reflected in my sermon last week, “‘To abide’ has a number of different meanings, but it is used here actively: it is to belong, it is to live with, it is to embrace, and it is to persist in doing so.”[3] This teaching is no gentle add-on for those occasional moments when we desire a little distraction from our busy lives, and therefore again no surprise that we hear that “[b]ecause of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him.”[4] It is a call to believe in such a manner that it is visible in our active belonging, embracing, and persistence in living this commitment. 

It is important to recognise that there is a choice, always a choice; as we become more awake to the reality of what our faith increasingly requires of us, so we need to reconsider our willingness to continue on the path we’ve chosen. Jesus offers the Twelve that option, even as others in the broader crowd of disciples make the choice to leave. Jesus asks them, “Do you also wish to go away?”[5] It is Peter who answers for them all, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”[6] You and I of course know how the story continues: this commitment will test them all; Judas will betray, Peter deny, and a good few run away. However, at this particular point of awakening for the Twelve, and for Peter in particular, at the heart of this declaration is a belief based on their relationship with Jesus, “We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”[7] It is sufficient and in that moment satisfying, and despite how Jesus’ arrest, trial, and subsequent crucifixion will break them, it will prove sufficient and satisfying for them beyond this moment. 

As I said last week, “We are challenged … to accept that God has acted through the real life of Jesus, and that God continues to act in and through the reality of our lives.”[8] What today’s Gospel adds is that this challenge is accepted within the context of relationship with Jesus, in the context of our willingness to immerse ourselves in the fullness of all that God is; and the touchstone is that we, like  the Twelve, have come to believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God. 

The additional challenge is what does this look like as we move beyond today? Personally, I take courage that the Twelve and others who responded to Jesus were in fact everyday human beings, not too different to you and myself: capable of betrayal and denial, uncertainty and doubt, even fear; yet also capable of great courage, kindness, and love. You and I live in a broken world, and are often broken by it, too. There is much heartache in our day-by-day lives, but also opportunity for joy. Afghanistan and Haiti, our own Nation’s corrupt leadership, institutional racism and economic disparity, xenophobia, colonialism, patriarchy, gender-based violence, gang warfare, murder and rape, addiction, ecological disaster; all these and more define the brokenness of the world we live in and they all occupy various levels of our awareness and concern, our anxiety and fear. Into this broken world, as we embrace Jesus as the Holy One of God, we – the Body of Christ – are broken and shared. 

The bread which we break, is it not a sharing of the body of Christ?

We, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one bread[9] 

As I close, let us take courage and wisdom from the opening words of today’s epistle reading, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”[10] 

A prayer by Irish Theologian and Poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama: 

Let us pray, 

Jesus,

our dead and living friend,

we walk the ways of death and life

holding fear in one hand

and courage in the other.

Come find us when we are locked away.

Come enliven us.

Come bless us with your peace.

Because you are the first day of creation

and all days of creation.

Amen.[11]

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[1] John 6:60b; NRSV

[2] John 6:56; NRSV

[3] Mark Long, Sermon: 12^th Sunday after Pentecost, https://thelongviewza.blogspot.com/2021/08/sermon-12th-sunday-after-pentecost.html

[4] John 6:66; NRSV

[5] John 6:67; NRSV

[6] John 6:68; NRSV

[7] John 6:69; NRSV

[8] Mark Long, Ibid.

[9] An Anglican Prayer Book 1989

[10] Ephesians 6:10-11; NRSV

[11] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.

Sermon: 12th Sunday after Pentecost

 Sermon: 12^th Sunday after Pentecost

15 August 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Ephesians 5:15-20, Psalm 111, and John 6:51-58; NRSV

We continue today with our journey through the theologically rich sixth chapter of St John’s Gospel. Verse 51 is the bridge from last week’s Scripture passage to today’s: 

“I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”[1] 

In my sermon last week to the Parish of St Saviour in Claremont I commented in relation to this verse that, “We need to hear in these words of Jesus that you and I are the Body of Christ; you and I are given for the life of the world.”[2] Stephen similarly commented in his sermon here at St Andrew’s that, “… as we ingest the Truth from God and allow God’s Spirit to really fill us – we too can be food for others. God has chosen to work through the Church and that means you and [me] – we can feed and nourish people through our presence and guidance and teaching; through our healing words, our compassion and generosity of spirit.”[3] 

As the ‘Body of Christ’ we are Jesus’ flesh, God’s hands and feet in the world. As we are reminded in the first letter to the Corinthians this phrase is both a Eucharistic one, “The bread which we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?”[4] which speaks to our unity as we share together in the Eucharistic meal; it is also a definitive one as the Apostle Paul reminds us, “… you are the Body of Christ and individually members of it.”[5] One of the reasons, if not the reason, that we spend so much time journeying with this particular chapter in John’s Gospel is that this sign that John offers us is key to who we are as God’s people, and core to what we are called to be. We are invited to see Jesus for who and what he is, the source of all being. As the bread of life, broken and shared in and through us, Jesus not only satisfies but also sustains, and does so primarily by inviting us into direct relationship with God, whom we call Source of all Being. And the call on each one of us as people of faith is to offer the same gift to the world in which we live, knowing and trusting that through the constant presence of the Spirit of God our own brokenness is never an obstacle, but rather an opportunity for life to be shared over and over, again and again. 

If you’re finding this hard to get your mind around, take comfort from the fact that both last week and this week in John’s narrative the people around Jesus struggled, too. Remember that he was not speaking to strangers but to a community amongst whom he had grown up: they knew his parents and they recognised him. It’s generally true that as Anglicans many of us have grown up with Jesus being part of the fabric of our lives in some form or another, at times a distant relative that we visit on special occasions, at other times a good friend with whom we are in regular contact, at another time a counsellor in moments of hardship and difficulty, and often the one around whom our lives may revolve constantly. As we explore this chapter of John we are asked to see Jesus afresh, to have our perspective of God’s role in our lives shifted, and to explore a changed narrative for how we see ourselves. This is discomforting, and we join those around Jesus in their responses: “We know him, how can he now say …?”; “How can he ask us to …?” 

No matter our discomfort, reality has shifted because God has acted, and we’re invited to see different kinds of truth about Jesus,[6] about what God is up to, about what we are called to. It is also an invitation not just to be onlookers, but to abide: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”[7] ‘To abide’ has a number of different meanings, but it is used here actively: it is to belong, it is to live with, it is to embrace, and it is to persist in doing so. 

While much of this chapter in John’s Gospel has been metaphorical, in today’s portion we are presented with some Eucharistic realism, and asked to grapple with the concept of Jesus as the Bread of Life as we would with real food. The Greek verb used by Jesus here suggests a noisy eating that involves gnawing, nibbling, chewing; more like a dog with a bone than a cultured sit-down meal.[8] A little different from allowing a wafer to melt genteelly on our tongues at the altar rail, and more reminiscent of the chewing of baked bread I see going on in Gallery View[9] as we share in the Eucharist from our homes; and at the feeding of the five thousand it was after all barley bread and dried fish, neither of which would have been easy eating. As we grapple with the truths about Jesus presented to us here it does require more of us than we may be wanting to give. We are being asked to engage with our faith on a very deep level, to dig down, and not to be satisfied with easy and superficial answers. We are being asked to join the dots between what we believe, what we know, and what we experience, and to activate the link between all of this and how we act in the world. 

We are challenged today to accept that God has acted through the real life of Jesus, and that God continues to act in and through the reality of our lives. Eternal life in John’s Gospel is not some vague after-death experience; it is rather real life in the present moment, in the here and now, lived in and through the real presence of God’s Spirit among us, engaging us in the world as agents of hope, healing, and wholeness. 

I close with a prayer by Irish Theologian and Poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama: 

Let us pray, 

Jesus, you shared peace

around a table of anxiety,

peace with the bread, peace with the wine,

peace in the face of the uncertain,

peace in the place of pain.

May we share tables of peace

in places of pain,

sharing food and friendship

and words and life.

Because you came to a fearful world

and found your place

around those tables.

Amen.[10]

---

[1] John 6:51; NRSV

[2] The Ven Mark Long, https://thelongviewza.blogspot.com/2021/08/sermon-11th-sunday-after-pentecost.html

[3] The Rev’d Stephen Middelkoop, 20210808 John 6 SM.pdf

[4] 1 Corinthians 10:16b; NRSV

[5] 1 Corinthians 12:27; NRSV

[6] Karoline Lewis, Sermon Brainwave #792, https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/797-12th-sunday-after-pentecost-ord-20b-aug-15-2021

[7] John 6:56; NRSV

[8] Robert Hoch, Commentary on John 6:51-58, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-20-2/commentary-on-john-651-58-5

[9] Zoom

[10] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.

Sermon: 11th Sunday after Pentecost

 Sermon: 11^th Sunday after Pentecost

Feast of Title | St Saviour’s Parish, Claremont

8 August 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33, Psalm 130, Ephesians 4:25-5:2, and John 6:35, 41-51; NRSV

It is a joy to be with you all this morning as you celebrate your Feast of Title here at St Saviour’s, and my thanks to your Rector, the Revd Chesnay Frantz, for the generous invitation to be present this morning and to preach at this important milestone in the life of the Parish. Your journey over the past few years has not been an easy one and the Covid-19 pandemic continues to bring challenges to life and ministry as we seek to find ways to be faithful to our calling as God’s people within the shifting restrictions placed on our ability to gather together and to be the physical presence of God to one another and to the world around us. My thanks for the manner in which you have all welcomed Revd Chesnay and Samantha and their growing family, and the support you have given them, especially in relation to the substantial health challenges Samantha has faced recently. In addition you have coped with the untimely death of your Parish Secretary, Avril, and other shifts in the staff complement of the Parish, with doubtless the sadness of the loss of loved ones and good friends to Covid-19 and other illnesses in the greater breadth of your lives. Thank you for remaining faithful through it all, and may you continue to demonstrate the resilience of faith and trust that is a hallmark of this Parish and of the wider people of God.

As we celebrate the Parish’s Feast of Title today I am reminded of the gift we demonstrate as human beings to personify those elements of faith and life that are important to us. Normally when we think of Saints in the context of the names we give our Church communities, we reflect on those individuals in the history of our faith who have stood out, not because they were better human beings than their contemporaries, but because in some form their lives stood out as an example of faithfulness and trust that demonstrates a Godliness to which we aspire, and which we desire to embrace. In this Parish’s Title we have personified the greatest gift that God has offered all creation: salvation! And we honour that gift as it is personified in the Eternal Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Saviour. The Title, St Saviour, honours all that God is in Jesus Christ, and all that we are in Jesus as the Body of Christ. 

As Saviour, Jesus offers us an incredible gift, which the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, links very specifically to God’s resurrection of Jesus from the dead. In his book, God with Us: The Meaning of the Cross and Resurrection – Then and Now, Rowan speaks of Jesus as the bridge between God and humanity, and says the following in this regard:[1] 

“… [because of the Resurrection] Jesus is now free to act universally, eternally and without limit; but who is it that acts eternally, universally and without limit? The answer, of course, is God. … In the new age you can’t disentangle what Jesus is doing from what God is doing. 

“[Jesus] stands as a bridge between God and humanity: … bringing them together. … Jesus has created a space we can occupy, in his name. … if you occupy the same space, you can say you share the same embodiment. 

“So not only is he acting for God and in God; this action for God and in God makes space for us to live in God’s presence and to live for God and the world.” 

Key to what Rowan is saying here is that the gift of salvation is the space that Jesus creates where God and humanity are brought together; that Jesus is that space. You and I know that space as “the Body of Christ”. 

Interestingly, and helpfully, the root word in the Greek for both salvation and healing is the same, so when we ask the question, “What does salvation look like?” the answer is that it looks like healing, or in the words of John’s Gospel, it looks like abundant life.[2] The Lectionary presently has us immersed for a five week period in John 6, which began two weeks ago with a focus on the feeding of the five thousand, a sign in John’s Gospel of abundance where we saw that the edge is not just taken off the crowd’s hunger, their hunger is satisfied to the point where food was still available but not needed, and could be collected doubtless to be shared again with others. The nature of abundance is that there is always more than enough; and the nature of salvation is that we are given the insight to recognise this. 

Today’s Gospel opens with Jesus words, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”[3] We then see the controversy that arises among those that hear Jesus say this: it is one thing to enjoy physical nourishment in abundance; it is something else entirely to place our trust in God that this will always be the case, and not just physically but on every level of potential existence. Again, we are reminded, as Rowan Williams’ words reminded us earlier, that Jesus is this space of abundance, of salvation, of wholeness. Salvation is also an ever increasing space of healing and wholeness, just as we have discovered that the universe in which our planet exists as a tiniest spec is also ever expanding. One of the biggest challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic is that it limits and restricts us, causing us to think first and foremostly of safety, of protecting ourselves; and in so doing building ever expanding obstacles to abundance. The lived experience in South Africa, as the pandemic adds to the already overwhelming socio-economic and political problems of poverty, unemployment, violence, and corruption, also draws us ever deeper into a scarcity mentality; and our humanity is diminished. It also deafens us to the message of our Scriptures and the call of God on our lives. 

Your Feast of Title today is a reminder to look up, to look again to God. It is a call to once again recognise in the Eternal Son, Jesus Christ, the salvation God offers us firstly and foremostly as people of God, as the Body of Christ in which God and humanity are brought together to occupy the same space, a space that is one of abundance and healing. But just as there was food left over after the five thousand had been fed to the point of satisfaction, so this gift is also offered to the communities in which we live, work and worship; to the people of Southern Africa, and to the Nations of our world; and to Creation itself. It is a call to leave behind the mentality of our time, a mentality of scarcity and fear, and to embrace the abundance God offers in Jesus: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”[4] We need to hear in these words of Jesus that you and I are the Body of Christ; you and I are given for the life of the world. 

You and I are human. In moments of true self-awareness we are able to acknowledge that we are frail, we are hurt, we are broken. That is not a problem … only when we break bread can it be shared; only in the brokenness of our lives are we truly useful to God. Professor Denise Ackermann, in a Lenten address some years ago to your daughter Church, St Andrew’s in Newlands, reminded us that the beauty of a stained glass window is due to the fact that the glass is broken, and that the fractures are part of the beauty. Strangely perfection is never truly beautiful; it is the imperfections that add beauty. Never be embarrassed as individuals or as a Christian community of your imperfections; don’t seek to create them, but those that are there, offer them to God for his purposes. Where you are wounded and hurting, seek healing and wholeness, and offer that gift to one another. Be St Saviour’s! 

I close with some words from our New Testament reading today, 

“… we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; … do not make room for the devil. … Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up. … Put away from you all bitterness and wrath … and be kind to one another. … be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”[5] 

And a prayer by Irish Theologian and Poet, Pádraig Ó Tuama: 

Let us pray, 

God of the barley loaf,

God of the boy,

God of the fish,

And God of the humble brother;

When we do not have enough,

may we use what we have

to do what we can.

Because a small boy did this,

and generosity listened.

Amen.[6]

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[1] Chapter 4

[2] John 10:10; NRSV

[3] John 6:35; NRSV

[4] John 6:51; NRSV

[5] Ephesians 4:25-5:2; NRSV adapted

[6] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.