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Sermon pent 11, yr B, 2024
Its hard being a parent. Trying to help your child grow healthy, strong, kind and compassionate. Trying to figure out what behavior is age appropriate and what is just rude! Children have different understanding and behavour at different ages and that is normal. Little ones are easily distracted, dropping one toy when they spot another. As they grow children start to learn the word No and push boundaries to learn how rules work. Adolescents stop looking to their parents for primary guidance and seek out their peers, in person or online to determine how they should speak, believe, and act. In all ages it is our job as parents to guide and direct, to help them interpret the world around them in a way that will help them grow into those healthy, strong, kind and compassionate adults we pray they will be.
It seems the parent child analogy goes way back, as something universally and indeed biblically understood. Paul uses it today to speak to the new faithful and those with experience, seeking to guide the Ephesian Christians into faithful adults.
“We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.”
As children, we often demanded what we desired in any particular moment, our thoughts were innocently self centered. We want ice cream for breakfast and to play games all day long. We were influenced easily by whatever will help us get what we want. We, as children, were led astray and easily deceived; because our goal, our desires, were intrinsically focused on our own selves.
In our gospel reading it seems Jesus views the crowds in much the same way, we read, that they went looking for Jesus, and when they found him Jesus remarked:
“‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
The crowds are fixated throughout the gospel reading on getting their daily bread, on their immediate needs and their individual wants.
‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’
What sign are you going to give us then?
What work are you performing?
This isn’t wrong necessarily, but it is short sighted. It also seems like focusing on their immediate needs also effects the crowds short term memory. In our gospel today the crowds demand a miracle like that of Moses and the miracle of the Manna, when Jesus had just given them the miracle of feeding 5000.
They are like children not able to see beyond their own needs. They are deceived tricked by their self interest, into focusing on their own desires and for the needs of the day. Whereas Jesus calls them to focus instead on the big picture, not only your daily bread, but the bread of life.
27Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life,
It is much the same in Ephesians. We are called to grow up. To grow from children into Him who is the head of body, moving from impulsiveness to a more balanced life, a life that is worthy of the calling to which we have each been called.
And I’m not singling anyone out, nor leaving myself out…Christ means all of us…the whole body of the church:
”joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.”
Not in one area only but in all.
The body of Christ, the church, does not consist of individuals and an individual’s needs, but is a true body…many pieces working together in mutuality to promote health and wholeness. Each of us is invaluable to the health of the church and each of us has a role to play, so that we may all grow into “him who is the head, into Christ.”
We are told that each of us has been given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
…11The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ .”
Each of us has been given a gift, not for our own benefit, but for the benefit on one another…to equip the saints. Not big ‘S’ saints, St. Andrew, St. Bridget…but small ‘s’ saints…you, me, our neighbours. Our gifts are not only to bring us pleasure and fulfilment, but for a greater purpose. It is good to have our daily bread, to be provided with gifts which bring us pleasure, but there is also a greater purpose. Christ bring us the bread of life, eternal life. Our gifts are not only for us, but for all. Yet we too can be short sighted in regards to these gifts.
When we read Ephesians we, read of pastors and imagine the priest dressed for the job and in a place of authority. We read of apostles…and we think of James and John. We read of prophets…and think of Elijah and Nathan. We read of evangelists and think of St. Paul, or even Billy Graham. We think of people that we set apart. We think of special people, we don’t often think of ourselves.
I believe that this is, in part, because these are words we, as Anglicans, don’t use to refer to each other. But perhaps we should.
The crowds in the Gospel see the miracles Christ does, and ask “what must we do to perform the works of God?” to which Jesus replies “This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent”. The crowds are looking at the miracles Jesus does, that Moses did and asking ‘how can I do that!’. However, they are being short sighted…the work of God is not just miracles and signs. Signs and miracles are not the end in and of themselves, rather they point to God, they point to the one in whom we should believe.
Apostles, Pastors, Evangelists are the ones who follow those signs; after all what is an apostle other than one who Christ sends into the world to do God’s work?
What is an evangelist except one who tells others of the grace God gives?
What is a prophet except one who speaks truth to power in love?
That is us…each one of us. Each one of us doing the works of God.
Priest, teacher…these are words we are comfortable with, but why we are also apostles, prophets, evangelists…each responding to the gifts God has given.
Each of us need not be all things to all people (and friendly reminder that includes the priest, thanks be to God). But we are each are given a measure of Christ’s gift…not for our own benefit, but to equip the saints. To build each other up.
Everyone has a calling and each calling has a purpose, to build up the body. To be people who do the good works of God, to help feed people with the bread of life.
So, that we can all reach the full stature of Christ, so that we can grow into the body of Christ and learn to recognise the true bread that is given to us and will feed us eternally.
This is something we can all work on…something we are called to and called to equip others to live into. Our call is one of mutual growth, communal growth, …we do indeed grow individually, but not as an end in and of itself, and can lend itself to short sightedness. We look at the big picture, to the signs that point beyond ourselves. So that each ligament with which the body is equipped, that is the body of the church, will grow; building itself up in love.
There is no self centeredness, no childlike focus on one’s own needs, no exclusion of the rest of the community.
“4There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. “
We along with the crowds ask for the bread of life, not only our bread for the day but the bread of eternity, big picture thinking. Not just bread to eat, but the bread which gives life to the whole world. We believe and we have been fed, we are no longer children but full grown members of the body of Christ, doing God’s works and following the signs God gives. Through God’s grace and by God’s grace we are fed with the bread of life and strengthened to do God’s work. May we continue to follow the signs God gives us so that we, being fed by the bread of life can continue to do God’s works that all the world may know the bread of life.