Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Service Date:
31 January, 2010
Luke 9:10-17
It's a long way from this story of people thousands of years ago gathering in the Galilean countryside to hear what Jesus had to say to us in St Andrew's this morning. And it's a long way from us gathered here this morning to the people of Haiti, thousands of miles away on the other side of the world, still coming to terms with the terrible aftermath of the earthquake that hit them a fortnight ago. But this snippet of story told recently by an American missionary who used to live and work in Haiti brings us all together. Listen to what happens when he finally manages to get through by phone to people he knew in Haiti, and asks of news of those he knew there:
As the names flew by too fast over the iffy phone connection, I didn't recognize them all. Most of the names he said were alive, some dead.
Then he said, "We don't have food or water." What do you mean? "No food or water." Same answer.
I believe in the God who multiplied fish and loaves to feed the hungry. I believe in the God who says I'm always with you. And right now, it's achingly clear - heartbreakingly, angrily clear - isn't it, that we who believe also believe in the God who is hidden sometimes, sometimes when we are most in need, to whom the psalmist cried out, "How long, oh Lord, how long?"
The people in our Gospel reading were in need. Otherwise they'd not have bothered to leave their homes and villages, go hungry and thirsty, in order to hear what Jesus had to say to start with.
The people in Haiti are in need right now: hungry and thirsty, homeless and desperate. I'm sure some of us have already given money to buy supplies for them, and at the end of this service we will make a closing collection for the Disasters Emergency Committee Haiti appeal.
And in this country and this city right now, people are also in need of food and drink, of a home to live in, of money to pay off debts, of work that pays a fair rate for their efforts. They too are asking, How long?
In the Gospel story, to start with it is Jesus who meets people's needs. First he speaks to them of God's kingdom, where there will be enough for all. Then he heals those in need of wholeness. When his friends see him meeting so many needs, maybe they are afraid of being overwhelmed; maybe that's why they want him to send the crowds away. They think they have no answers to all these problems. But Jesus points out they do have resources, even though the problem seems so much greater than they can solve. They have a few loaves and fishes. And when they give their own food to Jesus, it becomes enough to feed everyone.
In this week focussing on poverty and homelessness issues, it's easy for us to feel discouraged. The problems are so huge. Who can sort them out? Better to send people away than to raise false hopes. But Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows that a little love, a little generosity, can go a long way. Rather than saying, ‘We can do nothing,' we can offer money, buildings and time that is ours to God. For given with love, our shared wealth can do miracles, answering everyone's needs, even our own.
It's a long way from this story of people thousands of years ago gathering in the Galilean countryside to hear what Jesus had to say to us in St Andrew's this morning. And it's a long way from us gathered here this morning to the people of Haiti, thousands of miles away on the other side of the world, still coming to terms with the terrible aftermath of the earthquake that hit them a fortnight ago. But this snippet of story told recently by an American missionary who used to live and work in Haiti brings us all together. Listen to what happens when he finally manages to get through by phone to people he knew in Haiti, and asks of news of those he knew there:
As the names flew by too fast over the iffy phone connection, I didn't recognize them all. Most of the names he said were alive, some dead.
Then he said, "We don't have food or water." What do you mean? "No food or water." Same answer.
I believe in the God who multiplied fish and loaves to feed the hungry. I believe in the God who says I'm always with you. And right now, it's achingly clear - heartbreakingly, angrily clear - isn't it, that we who believe also believe in the God who is hidden sometimes, sometimes when we are most in need, to whom the psalmist cried out, "How long, oh Lord, how long?"
The people in our Gospel reading were in need. Otherwise they'd not have bothered to leave their homes and villages, go hungry and thirsty, in order to hear what Jesus had to say to start with.
The people in Haiti are in need right now: hungry and thirsty, homeless and desperate. I'm sure some of us have already given money to buy supplies for them, and at the end of this service we will make a closing collection for the Disasters Emergency Committee Haiti appeal.
And in this country and this city right now, people are also in need of food and drink, of a home to live in, of money to pay off debts, of work that pays a fair rate for their efforts. They too are asking, How long?
In the Gospel story, to start with it is Jesus who meets people's needs. First he speaks to them of God's kingdom, where there will be enough for all. Then he heals those in need of wholeness. When his friends see him meeting so many needs, maybe they are afraid of being overwhelmed; maybe that's why they want him to send the crowds away. They think they have no answers to all these problems. But Jesus points out they do have resources, even though the problem seems so much greater than they can solve. They have a few loaves and fishes. And when they give their own food to Jesus, it becomes enough to feed everyone.
In this week focussing on poverty and homelessness issues, it's easy for us to feel discouraged. The problems are so huge. Who can sort them out? Better to send people away than to raise false hopes. But Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows that a little love, a little generosity, can go a long way. Rather than saying, ‘We can do nothing,' we can offer money, buildings and time that is ours to God. For given with love, our shared wealth can do miracles, answering everyone's needs, even our own.
Hymns:
R&S 663: Love divineR&S 745: A new commandment
CG 2: We cannot own the sunlit sky
R&S 42: For the fruits of all creation
Sermon:
Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71; Luke 9:10-17; 1 Corinthians 13I'm pretty sure you'll have come across that reading from Paul's first letter to Corinth. For it turns up on all sorts of special occasions: weddings, baptisms, even funerals. Maybe that's because it talks about very human ways we have of getting approval from others. Some people have a real gift of the gab. Some become absolute experts in their field. Some may give away everything to charity, and diet or exercise themselves into a size 0, to show how self-denying they are. But none of that will make them any more worthwhile: for our worth is measured by love.
In spite of the wedding connections we've given this passage, Paul's not talking romantic love here. This is something that anyone and everyone may display in their lives. Oddly, it's more easily recognised by what it's not: impatience, unkindness, envy, arrogance, rudeness, selfishness, irritableness, resentfulness, glee when someone else messes up. And however much success with others we can rack up by our eloquence or our knowledge or our ability to do without, whenever these unpleasant symptoms of lovelessness show up in our lives we can be sure we've got ourselves onto the wrong track.
Why is love so much more important than all these other gifts and abilities? Paul reckons it's because it's the one thing that lasts. Even the most eloquent person will run out of things to say. Our knowledge is always superseded by a better theory. Maybe it's more surprising in a congregation like ours that Paul doesn't even think living well and doing good things for others ranks above love. But he's looking not at results, but at motivation. If we think we can make God love us if we only show God how good we are, again, we've lost the plot. For God loves us before we ever do anything good; God loves us when we do nothing good; God will never stop loving us, however we decide to live. It's impossible to make God love us more than God already does, because God's very substance is love, and God's love for each of us is infinite.
When we truly realise that - not just in our heads, but in our hearts - we can relax, and pass on that love to others, nourishing as bread and fish shared on a picnic when there's enough to go around.
Doesn't that sound simple, obvious? So why does Paul go to the bother of describing all those ways of living that aren't in line with love? And why is Jeremiah warned, in our Hebrew Bible reading this morning, not to be afraid of the people to whom God will send him as a prophet? If he is giving them a message from God, why should he fear them? Sometimes people falsely think that while the God of the New Testament is loving and mild, the God seen in the Hebrew Bible is angry and vengeful. In this news report from Haiti we see a similar split of understanding:
Drumbeats called the faithful to a Sunday Mass praising God amid a scene resembling the Apocalypse - a collapsed cathedral in a city cloaked with the smell of death and rattled by gunfire.... Sunlight streamed through what little was left of blown-out stained-glass windows as the Rev. Eric Toussaint preached to a small crowd of survivors. A rotting body lay in its main entrance.
"Why give thanks to God? Because we are here," Toussaint said. "We say 'Thank you God.' What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now." Mondesir Raymone, a 27-year-old single mother of two, was grateful. "We have survived by the grace of God," she said. But others were angry.
"It's a catastrophe and it is God who has put this upon us," said Jean-Andre Noel, 39, a computer technician.
On the face of it, there seems to be nothing of a God who is love about the Haitian earthquake. Yet blaming its horrific results on the collision of tectonic plates in that region of creation would not tell the full story. Here is another eyewitness account:
We just passed the Presidential Palace. The TV photos have done this no justice. Collapsed. The dome sunk into the middle of the structure. The health, justice, and education departments collapsed as well. No government structure left. The Agriculture building survived. Now across the street from this palace is "tent city." A beautiful park has now been transformed into living quarters for displaced Haitians. As far as the naked eye could see - people. Clothes are hanging over the fence from apparent washing, tents, sheets pitched everywhere. Lord, if this is a way to remind a president, then he is certainly being reminded...Then it dawned on me - poverty and the earthquake have now collided. Part of this is simply the poverty they live in every day and the other part is the devastation of the earthquake. It is all one horrific problem now.
Though the first Black state of freed slaves, Haiti has always been a very poor country, where bad government at home has coincided with lack of help abroad. The earthquake, bad as it was, has highlighted poverty and injustice previously ignored by the international community; modern Jeremiahs have previously had very little success bringing this to international attention. Though much of its international debt was cancelled last September, Haiti still owes £552 million. And I suspect I am not the only one here to have known little about the country before this latest blow - I didn't even know that Haiti shares an island with the Dominican Republic (check it out on the world map in the hall).
God is love, and those who live in love know God. But expressing love beyond our own comfort zone of family and friends and neighbours can be hard work. It's not a matter of ‘buying' our worthiness, of giving money to a good cause and then turning away; Paul reminds us of that. It is a matter of using mind and heart to build relationships over time, of trusting God's generosity to supply our needs as we share what we have with others, of risking opposition or disappointment when we try to be signs of God's generous love within a situation.
You'll remember that last autumn Ruth Grayson came to St Andrew's to talk about a night shelter for Sheffield that would run over January and February as a pilot project. We discussed this in church meeting, and decided we would support this new venture. The project has got off to a poor start because of all the snow earlier this month, and so far, there has been a limited take-up, even now the thaw has come; partly because it takes time for any new set-up to become known and trusted. So it has been suggested that the project be extended for another month; Elders will be discussing this at our next meeting.
Here we see love in action, addressing in a small way the big issue of poverty and homelessness in Sheffield: willing to be patient and generous with what we have, allowing others the freedom to take or leave what is on offer. As we prepare to show our love for the people of Haiti by increased prayer and interest in their situation as well as by financial generosity I'll end with a prayer by a Haitian-American journalist, Martha St. Jean. Let us pray:
We are a people well acquainted with grief,
but you O Lord are still merciful
Though the earth give way and mountains be removed,
you are still Lord of all
Words cannot express the depths of my people's sorrow
We weep and cannot be consoled
but today choose to believe that you are still faithful
We choose to believe that joy still comes in the morning
Imbue us with courage to face the day
Give us the strength to rise once more
Extend to us charity and justice, peace and truth
And allow us to always seek your face.
In the name of your son Jesus we pray. Amen.
