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Would you like to have been there: at Lambeth? 

On the Sunday Radio Programme this morning the Reporter asked Bishops what song summed up the Lambeth Conference for them.  I immediately thought “Tell me the old, old story” !   But no, the Reporter asked which Abba Song summed up the Lambeth Conference for the Bishop. One Bishop said “Knowing me, Knowing you”, (there is of course a tailpiece; “breaking up is hard to do”!)

Would you like to have been there: at the feeding of the 5,000?

Well we are actually here: Southwark Cathedral for this Eucharist.

We usually concentrate on the miraculous feeding in our Gospel story and the incredible bit about remains of food being gathered up.  But I think this story has more to tell us!

In this sermon I want to alternate between reflecting upon Jesus and reflecting on his disciples, what was going on for them at the lonely place, the venue of the miracle.  Then I want to end with a prayer.

First Jesus
John the Baptist had just died: killed, beheaded by King Herod (14:1-12).  Jesus learns about this from John’s disciples.  Jesus is bereaved – so goes off to a lonely place.

Jesus was probably exhausted from teaching.  The very pace of life had got out of control – so off to a lonely place.  Giving out 24/7 can drag you down, it can lead you into a place of depression. 

Jesus had been taken into that place and experience of desolation.  For we heard in chapter 13:55-59 that a prophet is without honour in his own country. So with rejection comes desolation.

He, as well as others, was hungry.  It is interesting that the gut, our stomach, is where the mystics believe our spiritual centre is situated: Food and fasting are therefore significant: very significant in the lonely place.

Bereaved, exhausted, depressed, desolate and hungry!

Jesus here is rather like the figure of Christ in Cragie Aitchison’s “Crucifixion” painting in the Tate: a “dwarfed and isolated, lost (figure) almost in a God forsaken wilderness”.  Indeed Jesus is found in many wilderness, lonely, or Gethsemane places to content with our human struggle with bereaved, exhaustion, depression, desolation and hunger!

Oh yes: there are those divine attributes shining through all this:

Jesus’ Authority.  A common theme in Matthew’s Gospel: Jesus exercises authority in verses 16 and 18+19 of this passage.  He shows he is the expected one, the prophet: for he feeds, like Moses and the end-time prophets Elijah and Elisa the needy people are fed in the place that is a lonely wilderness.  And Yes – we see divine Compassion for people and divine Patience. Yes – we see a divine Healing of the sick. Yes – we find the divine wholeness and unity at this gathering.  So we see Jesus “gives something”.

But meanwhile: The Disciples are gathered with their own needs.

The disciples had been taken to a safe place to integrate their thoughts and feelings with the teaching they had received from Jesus.  Again one of the things they may also have had to deal with was bereavement – for some had probably been disciples of John Baptist! So the disciples were in a situation that demanded support and sharing.   Henry Nouwen said

“ one very important way to befriend sorrow is to take it out of its isolation and share it with someone who receives it”   (1).  Jesus agenda was to “give something”

So perhaps the story of miraculous feeding, which is in four Gospels (2), has a greater significance in that it tells us about formation, the gathering of a new community with a bigger task. It is tied up with Jesus’ agenda:  “give something”

Jesus takes people out of their familiar place and takes them out of themselves through a process of transform.  It is nothing less than a transformation from being Takers to being Givers.

Back to the Disciples: What was going on in their lives that caused Jesus to bring them to this lonely place?

• Perhaps they were ANGRY at what had happened to John Baptist
• Maybe they had preferred, like the bereaved family that went to Antigua (3)  following the murder of Catherine Mullany, to go to where someone they loved had been killed (or for them at least where John’s Disciples had buried him!).
• Perhaps they just wanted to say “ for God’s sake tell this lot to clear off: they should have brought their own picnic” 

§  Perhaps they were HUNGRY themselves- wanting that Isaiah shopping list of good things! (Isaiah 55)

• Perhaps they were ANNOYED at being taken from the familiar fishing lake to this lonely place: out of their comfort zone!
• Maybe they felt HUMILIATED. In John’s account a boy had brought 2 fish –as well as 5 loaves: the fishermen who could catch hundreds of fish had nothing!  Even here in the other Gospel accounts it is still they the fishermen who have just two fish!

§  Maybe their MURMURING was because God’s agenda didn’t fit their own agendas!

Would life, work, eating ever return to normal for them? When the agenda is: “ give something”

Now back to Jesus:

He is concerned to give his disciples something:

§  Jesus wants to form disciples with identity as members of the community of faith but also with the intention to be practicing and faithful members of the community of faith.

                Those who have been given something
                who then give of themselves.

§  Jesus recognises that the disciples don’t “come on their own” to the lonely place but bring with them their past. He also know forming community involves complex relationships.  Our own formation as individuals involves others.

§  Jesus is concerned then to be sensitive, to listen: to them and others for the formation, gathering together of the new.

§  He wants to show that something, compassion, has far greater value than Anger, annoyance, murmuring, even humiliation and hunger.

         He wants to “give something”: Compassion

But Jesus to do that has to draw them out of themselves, away from their known experience, or preferred way of doing things, be that fishing or even being close to him, into new ways of being.   “To give something”

So the Disciples in this gathering get a shock: 1) “You give……. them……. something to eat”;  2) Then another shock when the crowd had what they “wanted” to eat, and yet 12 baskets of what was left were gathered!  A seismic shock from the generous God – and that still happens!

The Reporter asking Bishops for their Abba song got the response from one woman Bishop: “Take a chance on me”.

Now what of us: We weren’t thereat the feeding of the five thousand, even if we’d wanted to be. We are here…

Perhaps exhausted, bereaved.  Perhaps with anger, resentment or just self-agendas.  We may be like thousands who can connect with their own story but not with anyone else’s- especially God’s story. (4)

But as Jesus gathers us here – and that is what he does…

   Gathers us to draw out from us and form us to be his disciples

   So he calls us to be patient and listen to him and others here.

   To engage with his story.

And rather than moaning and groaning, based on what we know and have experience so far on the faith journey, be formed by his compassion. To give something  

We may need more time than a Sunday morning or two for that, and perhaps we may need a longer time on Retreat, as it were to a lonely place to be formed!!!    Certainly for the first Disciples there was a great awakening in that lonely place fed, formed, and freed to be what God wanted them to be.

………………………………………………………………………………

(1) (Henri Nouwen “Here and Now living in the Spirit” p45) 

(2) The miraculous feeding is told in all the Gospels:

      Mark 6:30-44, Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-13 and Matthew (14:15-21 & 15: 32- 38)

(3) Catherine Mullany was murdered and Benjamin Mullany brutally injured when 

      robbed in their room, whilst on honeymoon in Antigua.  25^th July 2008

(4) c.f. Christopher Jamieson: Finding Sanctuary p114

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