Second Sunday after Trinity 2024

James explores the feeding of the five thousand — one of the most dramatic and multi-layered miracles in the Gospels — as a sign of Christ's provision, his compassion, and the abundance of the Kingdom of God.

Transcript

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And so may I speak in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God's abounding generosity to us in the wilderness is quite astounding. For my curacy, I was sent to a small town of about sixteen thousand people in Yorkshire, in Leeds Diocese, called Otley. Now, when I was sent there, I can honestly tell you that I felt like I was being cast into the outer darkness. I could not imagine at the time living anywhere as small as Otley. I was a Londoner and then I'd moved to Leeds for University, and I remember moving to Leeds thinking, this city is tiny. So the idea that the bishop, and depending on how much faith you have in the structures of the Church of England, that God might have sent me to Otley for my curacy, felt like madness to me. It really did. I was really nervous about going there. It did feel when I arrived like a desert place. It had no Starbucks. It had no wine bar. I knew almost no one in the town, had no contacts, no friendships, no networks. I'm stepping into this deserted place. I'm young and energetic, and I wanted to be at the time a church planter. And somehow, some combination of God and the Church of England had sent me to this place that felt sleepy and quiet and small. It felt like a desert. And nonetheless, God was extremely generous to me in that place. I had found wonderful friends and networks. I was able to enjoy an exciting and fruitful ministry. And I found God providing for me, giving for me in this place, which at first looked like a wasteland to me. And of course, just to make the sarcasm clear, I was wrong to feel the way I did. It's a it oddly is a wonderful place to live, and if I'd known better, I wouldn't have had the upset that I had in the first place. The people of Israel experience something similar and far more profound when they enter the wilderness after the Exodus. They're in this liminal space, this halfway house. They've been set free from the oppression of the Egyptians, and they're not quite in the promised land. And so they wander around in the desert for 40 years. And in that time, wonderful things happen to them. Firstly, they receive God's law. The Ten Commandments and the law of Moses is given to the people of Israel in their wilderness experience over the course of those 40 years. Secondly, they experience God's dwelling in their midst. They build the tabernacle, they receive the instruction, and then they build it, and it sits in the middle of their community. And they're led by this pillar of cloud and fire around the town. God's presence is powerfully there in the midst of their life together. And God provides for their material needs. Water from the rock, manna from heaven, quail, meat so they can eat. You know, the the the um the Israelites are grumbling and they've completely misremembered their time in captivity. They start saying to Moses, What have you brought us out here to die, Moses? Don't you know how good we had it back in Egypt? We were eating pots of meat and cucumbers and all sorts, and you brought us out here to die. Complete kind of Stockholm syndrome or something. They've completely misremembered their experience as slaves. But God provides for them in the wilderness with water and bread from heaven and quail. I've had many times in my life that have felt like desert experiences. I hope you're currently remembering times, or maybe you're in the middle of a season that feels like a desert experience, when family members have died, or when they've lost their jobs, or when you've lost your job and suddenly you can't make ends meet, and things are really tight. I remember when my parents got divorced, or when key relationships ended, and I found that I had found I was I'd been betrayed by people who I thought loved me. In these seasons of life, your very soul can feel thirsty, and the challenges you face can be insurmountable. Many of us have experienced times so tight that every penny or dime counts, and you have to be so careful with how you spend your money, and life feels small and almost claustrophobic. Nevertheless, I can say hand on heart that God has always provided for me in the wilderness. He might not have provided an easy solution or a way out of the wilderness, but God has provided nonetheless sustenance, something to sustain me and to keep me going. Many of the themes that we've been discussing so far are picked up in our gospel reading as Jesus feeds the 5,000. Firstly, did you notice in the reading the three times it's described as a deserted place? Let's go to a deserted place. They find themselves in a deserted place, and then the disciples say, We're in a deserted place. That's the why they need to find food for these people. And Jesus is there teaching them, teaching them how to live, giving them a new commandment, giving them the law of his life. How do we follow you, Jesus? Well, he fulfills the law of the Old Testament and He provides them with this new teaching. God's presence is in their midst, no longer a pillar of cloud and smoke, but now a human person, God's only Son, standing there in the midst of them. And God provides for them, miraculously, giving them bread from these five loaves and two fishes. Now, if you're not quite yet convinced by the parallel that I'm trying to draw here, there's one more clue that I think is the Mark winking at us, and that is the twelve baskets that are left over at the end, mirroring the twelve tribes of Israel in the wilderness. This is a big clue that we're supposed to be seeing a parallel here between these two stories. And yet there are also some major distinctions, differences between the two stories. Firstly, in the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus says to his disciples, you give them something to eat. This is no longer manna from heaven passively received, but the offering of a small boy's lunchbox, five loaves and two fishes. The people of Israel don't just wake up in the morning and find the bread there to pick up as they did with the manor in the wilderness. Now Jesus' disciples play a crucial role in the feeding of the people. They do the distributic, they feed the people. And the boy who comes forward with this laughably small offering, given the size of the problem in front of them, is what Jesus takes and blesses and somehow makes work for the people that he was trying to feed. A second distinction between these two passages is that moment when Jesus takes the offering, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it. This fourfold movement of taking the offering, blessing it before God, breaking it, and giving it to his people. These are the same directions that Canon Jenny will do in a moment as she stands behind the Eucharist table. And for thousands of years, Christians have seen in this story a prototype of the communion table, of the Eucharist table. The moment when the priest, embodying Jesus' role, takes the offering of the people, as meager as it might be, lifts it before God, asks Him to bless it, breaks it, and gives it back to the people, but somehow multiplied, somehow a miracle in our midst, feeding and sustaining us despite the many different wildernesses that we may well find ourselves in at the moment. Just as Jesus gives bread and sustains people in the desert, so we receive the bread of communion and it sustains us for the journey ahead. So, what does this mean for us in Blackburn Cathedral in 2024? As you may remember, Dean Peter introduced us into a season of across this month, we'll be spending five weeks thinking about financial stewardship and the way we give our money, the way we spend what we earn. And I think this passage has some really helpful things to generate reflection as we think through our financial giving and stewardship in this season. Firstly, we must contend with the fact that Jesus' kingdom is outrageously generous. We must reflect on a kind on a gratuitous surplus that lives within this story. Thousands and thousands of people are fed by Jesus in this story. We're told 5,000 men, there were certainly women and children. So imagine 12,000 plus people there fed by Jesus in this story. This is an abundance that should shock us and dazzle us, leave us feeling awkward. And not just that, 12 baskets of leftovers, enough to feed many more people just left over by the gratuitous surplus in this story, God's generosity. It's something that us Brits do find very uncomfortable. We don't like thinking like this. We want to give just enough. We don't want to appear over-eager or giving too much or being too uh broad in our giving. You think that feels a bit unsightly? We must contend with the story in front of us, even if it doesn't fit our cultural norms. A little boy just gives of his lunch, and thousands of people receive from God. And so, secondly, I'd like us to reflect on this. Who are you in the story of the feeding of the 5,000? Who are you? Are you the little boy who gives what he has to Jesus? Maybe you're sitting here thinking, what is the point in my offering? I don't have much to give. I have so I have just this little thing in my hands. Please don't think like that this morning. Jesus can take our little and multiply it. Giving even a little can be used by God for miraculous things. So are you the little boy? Or secondly, are you here this morning one of the disciples who's commanded by Jesus to feed the thousands? I think it should is really telling, it should make us think that the disciples come to Jesus with a problem. There are thousands of people here who need to be fed Jesus. What are you going to do about it? And Jesus turns it immediately back on them and makes them responsible. You feed them. He asks them to take responsibility for the problem that they present him with. The mission and ministry of the church, building God's kingdom here in Blackburn, running a cathedral, requires resources. It costs money for it to function. And like Jesus calling his disciples to feed the thousands, maybe he is calling you and I this day to take more responsibility for providing for the needs of the ministry here in Blackburn in our day. So are you the little boy? Do you find yourselves in the position of one of the disciples this morning? Or are you one of the many people who need to be fed? As a team, we are not unaware that we're in the middle of a financial crisis and that times are really tight for many of us. And if you find yourself here today saying, I need to receive right now, I don't have anything to give, then that's entirely legitimate. That's a really important place to be. It's a place that I found myself many times before. So if you're here saying that, then help let us help you. God's generosity in the wilderness is abundant, it's gratuitous, it can leave us feeling uncomfortable. But God, through us, through his disciples, can take the little that we have and multiply it so that many people can be healed and saved and supported and cared for and fed through the ministry of this cathedral. Let us pray. Come, Holy Spirit, and speak to us in our hearts. Reveal to us your will for our lives. And help us hear afresh the generosity of God. Amen.