Sermon at Parish Mass Trinity 7 2014

Isaiah 55:1-5

Romans 9:1-5

Matthew 14:13-21

In the little town of Cannero on Lake Maggiore there is a piazza behind the town hall that has been decorated with frescoes depicting significant events in the history of the town. There is the great flood which swept away the old parish church one day in 1829. There is the freeing of the serfs in the middle ages. There is the building of the Malpaga castles on rocks out on the lake, now picturesque ruins but once the base of marauding local warlords.

In a remote community like Cannero, which doesn’t change much over the years, story and identity are intertwined. This doesn’t mean that the identity of the local people is stuck in the past. The freeing of the serfs reminds them that they are free today. The ruins of the castles are reminders that freedom can’t be taken for granted. The parish church moved on to a new place, literally, after the floods.

Here, too, on Colney Hatch Lane, story and identity go together, even though ours is a much more mobile and changing community. Tomorrow is the centenary of Britain’s entry into the First World War, and our war memorial is a visible reminder of the cost of that war here, so many young men who went to the front never to return. Tomorrow their names will be read, at Mass, in this their parish church. Because, although none of us was alive 100 years ago, we are part of the same church community that began praying for them back then and hasn’t stopped praying for them since. The church has its own role in being the custodian of local story and identity, in holding the memory of a place, all the more so in places of great social mobility and change. But, like the people of Cannero, this doesn’t mean that we are stuck in the past. We tell the story of what has gone tragically wrong because we believe in a greater story of hope and redemption.

The stories in the Bible are like that. They are about the identity of a people, their collective memory. When we read the Old Testament we are reading the story of God’s providence and care which formed the Jewish people, those who were rescued from slavery in Egypt and received God’s revelation through the law and the prophets.

The early Christians continued telling those stories in their own gatherings, discovering new meanings in the light of Jesus. They also added their own stories, memories of the life of Jesus and his teachings, and the teaching of those who were closest to him in his earthly life. The Gospels, like the earlier Jewish scriptures, were written to be read aloud at the gathering of the people.

On the first day of every week, the day that Jesus rose from the dead, his followers gathered to do what he had commanded, celebrating the Eucharist, and telling the stories that told them who they were.

The Eucharist is about remembering, re-membering, that is the opposite of dismembering, putting a body back together again, keeping the parts together in a living whole. We become what we receive, the Body of Christ, the people of God whom Jesus has called and established. We hear our story and it becomes our story by us hearing it. The feeding of the five thousand, which we heard this morning, is part of that story. And it has much to tell us about who we are.

It recalls the exodus from Egypt, God’s deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery. When the Israelites left Egypt they were led by Moses into the desert, the wilderness of Sinai. And in the feeding of the five thousand Jesus goes out into a desert, followed by the crowd. Jesus is like Moses, leading God’s people out into a new exodus.

Matthew’s Gospel places the feeding of the five thousand just after a contrasting scene – Herod’s banquet, and the murder of John the Baptist. Herod in his castle held a banquet to celebrate his birthday, surrounded by his fawning and fearful yes-men, people whose place depended on his favour. In spite of the material wealth they enjoyed they were really slaves, dependant on Herod for their position but also slaves to their own ambition and envy. Not one of them dared raise his voice to protest at Herod’s injustice when he ordered John the Baptist to be killed. But as we move to the feeding of the five thousand in the desert that scene of slavery and fear is left behind. The story moves on and the people of God move out.

While Herod kills, Jesus heals. While Herod keeps people in their place by fear, Jesus establishes a community of trust and openness – everyone sits down together to eat, all sorts and conditions. While Herod demonstrates his power by holding a banquet for people who already have enough to eat, but dare not refuse, Jesus simply feeds people who need to be fed.

The feeding of the five thousand also has obvious references to the Eucharist. In the desert, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the disciples –the same words as are used at the last supper.

And just as in the Eucharist, there is more than enough, and no-one goes hungry. The miracle of the loaves and fishes points to the greater miracle of the Eucharist, in which Jesus continually feeds his people with himself and is never diminished.

The Last Supper, when Jesus instituted the Eucharist, was a Passover, a meal enacting and re-telling the Exodus, making real in the present God’s saving acts for his people of old.

So, too, the Eucharist enacts, re-tells, makes real, God’s saving acts in Jesus. His death and resurrection are our liberation from sin and death, and our entry into new life. The Eucharist enacts the new exodus, in which we follow Jesus into freedom.

But the Eucharist is not a destination. It is a departure, the Passover of the Lord, the bread of exodus for the people of God as they leave behind the old order of sin and death and journey towards God’s kingdom. The Eucharist is a foretaste of the banquet in the Kingdom of God, when God will be all in all.

Today we re-hear the story of our identity, the story of God’s saving work in Jesus, and we re-member our place in the people he has claimed for his own.

But that crowd in the desert wasn’t a select few. It was an enormous multitude, everyone and anyone, all sorts and conditions. Everyone has a place in the story of salvation which we hold and tell. Everyone is called by Jesus out of the old order of sin and death and into new life in him.

The journey that Jesus calls us on is the journey to the Kingdom of God.  To be on that journey means leaving behind the old order of sin and death, the fleshpots of Egypt or the banquets of Herod, whatever those may be for us. Those places where security is founded on fear, and fear stops us embracing the risk of freedom, generosity and love.

Jesus calls us out, like Moses, to the desert place, where we have nothing to depend on except what he will give us in his own limitless generosity. This is a journey of faith and trust. There is no road map. It is an unpredictable adventure. We have no control over our companions on the way. Jesus will ask us to sit down with whoever we find ourselves next to, and be fed. But with them we will find ourselves on the journey to a life that we will never find if we stay in the place of secure but deadly slavery.