Sermon preached at St John’s Church Farnham Common on Sunday August 3rd
By Rev’d Stanley Bedwell
Throughout the history of mankind, individuals blessed with insight, faith and vision, have issued rallying calls to people and nations; to recall them to their purpose and mission in life. In the book of Isaiah there are many examples, issued over several hundred years by a succession of likeminded Jewish prophets.
It is fairly obvious from today’s reading, that the language is poetic, and not to be taken literally. This is no special offer of free groceries for all. But it is a special offer, issued to every reader and hearer of the message – an offer of God’s free love for the people.
But it is more than a special offer. It has an accompanying missionary vocation. It reminds the Jewish people that they have been chosen by God to spread the message of salvation to other lands. This was the message which travelled from the Holy Land to these distant islands and converted its inhabitants to Christianity. And this country too has adopted the mission of spreading the news of God’s love to many parts of the world, albeit often accompanied by a selfish motive of colonial expansion. The Lambeth Conference is an eventual result of this missionary activity.
The gospel reading for today gives us a similar reminder of God’s abundant love. Jesus finds himself in a deserted spot with his disciples, surrounded by a crowd of some 5000 people. They too are in need of God’s free love and especially of food to satisfy their bodily hunger. Jesus gives his disciples an object lesson – ‘You feed them’ he says. They assess their resources – five loaves and two fish. It is enough for the task, and Jesus proves this by feeding everyone and gathering baskets full of leftovers! This reported incident is an illustration of the overflowing love of God, and also a lesson for the disciples on using what gifts they possess in the service of God.
St Paul, that great early Jewish convert to Christianity and mission, bemoans the fact that not all his fellow Jews have been similarly converted. He has to come to terms with the fact that the God of love is in charge, and his will reigns supreme. The same lesson has to be learned by later Western Christians when their attempts to convert Muslims by the force of the Crusades also failed.
And only last week, for the first time in its history, the Lambeth Conference was addressed by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sachs. He stressed the growing understanding and friendship between the two faiths, and looked forward to an extension of this movement to those of other faiths so that all could join in witness to God’s universal and abundant love by meeting the challenges of poverty, hunger, disease and environmental disaster which threaten our modern world.
That is an immense challenge to people of different faiths, but we all believe in God’s universal love for His people. In our own nation there is a desperate need for people to be able to recover their faith in God, so that His will may be done.
‘Give us this day our daily bread’ Jesus taught His followers to pray. May we and all Christians be fed with that living bread and give witness to the love of God in us, using wisely those resources which we possess, to the glory of God.
