Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Lent
So, how is he doing it?
Five small barley loaves,
Two small fish
Twelve baskets over
Five thousand fed.
What do we see?
Does Our Lord
put the bread
into a magic hat,
or a magic bag
and then produce more bread
like Tubbo the Clown produces
a coin
from behind the ear
of a jelly-smeared urchin?
Or does he break some off
from a loaf
that never seems
to get smaller?
Is one of the disciples
behind Our Lord
secretly handing Him
bread smuggled
from the bags
of the multitudes around.
Just what are we seeing,
when we behold
this miracle?
[PAUSE]
We know that magicians
like to reproduce miracles.
We even see that
in the plagues of Egypt
when Pharaoh's Court Sorcerors
replicate some of the plagues
that Moses instigates.
Don't they realise that
they are adding to
Egypt's suffering?
But magicians
are using
sleight of hand,
special props,
misdirection
and our assumptions
about the situation
to deceive us.
And that's the key.
Magic is amusement by deception.
We try to figure out
how it is done
as well as being amazed.
But we know it's a trick.
We know the coin
hasn't appeared from
the ear of the child
unless the child is in fact
Dumbo the Elephant,
and Tubbo is wearing rubber gloves.
Is that what Our Lord is doing?
He isn't prancing about
In top hat and cloak
because He is not a showman.
He's not a trickster.
He does not deceive.
His concern
is what these five thousand
will eat.
Perhaps He turns
the stones on the mountain
into bread?
[PAUSE]
And now we're back
to the beginning of Lent.
Man shall not live
by bread alone
but by every word
that proceeds
from the mouth of God.
We can be sure
that Our Lord
is not contradicting Himself.
He is concerned only
that these people are fed,
body and soul.
Somehow,
he is multiplying the bread,
not by magic or deceit
but by some act of creation
that we cannot be privy to
by the fact that
are created.
It's a mystery,
not lost to Time,
but above our concepts
of Time, Space, Matter and Reality.
It's not how Jesus does it,
it's why He does it that matters,
and that lies
entirely in His intention
not to gather followers
by impressing them
but to gather those who
hunger and thirst
for righteousness
and feed them until they are
fully satisfied
with Truth and not deceit.
All He asks of us
is to use the gift of faith
that He gives us
to receive salvation,
refreshment
and restoration.
Our salvation comes
out of the empty tomb,
not from behind our ear.
No comments:
Post a Comment