Sermon for the 8th Sunday after Trinity

Sunday 6th August 2006

Preached by Rev Brian Parker

 

Balance

‘Morelli’ is a name synonymous with ice cream. In Portstewart this Italian family run a thriving business. When their home country won the world cup the Morellis celebrated by offering free ice creams for one hour.

The news spread so fast that queues stretched along the seafront and beyond. They consequently offered free ice cream for two hours. Apparently this brought Portstewart to a standstill.

Of course there were those who tried to jump the queues and others who sneaked in for a second and third helping. There was greed in the air as well as celebration.

A few years ago the American lottery offered a Powerball jackpot of $150 million. For days on end people queued across the country to buy a ticket. The queues were so long they overflowed onto motorways.

It was said that never before on this planet had so much money been available to a single player in a lottery game. As it happened a syndicate of 13 people won. They said the win would set them up for life.

A different kind of queue often appears on our television news. The constant, never ending queues in Southern Sudan, and in other parts of the world, stretch across arid wastelands outside feeding centres. We see images of poverty on a grand scale as thousands of people wait patiently for food. Many are at the point of death, barely surviving on a diet of leaves and roots.

We are told that this diet is a bitter mixture but it fills their bellies. One reporter said they were a very resilient people who could cope with floods and drought. But what they couldn’t cope with was war and greed. In Southern Sudan the people try to survive in a society where hunger is used as a weapon. They hunger for justice.

Free ice creams, lucky lottery tickets, and food. When we compare and contrast these queues of people we sense a terrible imbalance in the complexities of human life. But as Christians we are required to find the balance, to recognise the benefits and the responsibilities of our relative wealth.

In the Bible wealth is a blessing. It is never downgraded – quite the contrary. Its value in maintaining the physical well being of people is accepted. God created wealth – it is good.

When God saved Israel he gave them a prosperous land as well as forming a special relationship. It is this affirmation of the rightness of material prosperity that gives us the motive for trying to better ourselves and to enjoy God’s creation in all its goodness

But there is an underpinning principle. God’s creation does not provide for our needs without work and co-operation. We are created to care for God’s world and to use our wealth for good.

Poverty is not idealised – it is something to be avoided by diligence and goodwill. The New Testament shows us people who work to the extent of having more than they need and are thus able to share with others not so fortunate.

The principle of sharing applies to nations. It is a moral duty to share and to work for a fair distribution of wealth. ‘Make Poverty History’ is not just a catchphrase it’s a profound obligation. We need to work hard to eliminate poverty and all the suffering that goes with it

When the crowds queued and clamoured to get close to Jesus many of them were hoping for a piece of free fish wrapped in bread. The news of the feeding of the 5000 had spread. Their enthusiasm to get close to Jesus was robust to say the least.

Many no doubt used all kinds of tricks to jump the queue and to cut corners in their determination to get what they wanted.

Many of them were coming to Jesus for all the wrong reasons. Their enthusiasm was misplaced, unbalanced and out of sink with the Kingdom of God. Indeed when they didn’t get what they wanted St John tells us “many went back and walked no more with him.

Jesus knew their motives. He told them: “You are looking for me only because you ate the loaves and had your fill”. They wanted more. Their motives were centred on material things – they were greedy. They had no vision of the grace of God.

“You cannot think about your souls for thinking about your stomachs”. God’s grace enabled the crowd to be fed but instead of turning to God with gratitude and a sense of responsibility they came looking for more.

In today’s mega rich publishing world there are those who follow the Jesus story. They produce many weird and outrageous publications and a gullible public queue to feed on their every word – at a price.

A case in point is Kathy McGowan’s book in which she claims to be a descendant of Christ. She stands to make two million dollars and this for a book that she had to publish herself a few years ago.

Then it barely sold a thousand copies. But such is the feeding frenzy around the Da Vinci Code; trash titles that abuse the gospel story are now money-spinners. In our literary diet we need to strike a balance between a good read and a load of rubbish. It seems that in a greedy, grasping market place anything sells regardless of value.

Jesus warns us that greed attacks our human integrity like a disease. It corrodes the soul and spreads false notions. It promotes the belief that ‘being set up for life’ depends on a lottery win. It expresses itself in vulgar, ostentatious, self-centred displays of wealth. It encourages a craving for more. It ignores Our Lord’s command to ‘feed the hungry’, to seek justice and to love mercy.

The ancient Romans recognised this unbalanced attitude to life. They said it was like drinking seawater – the more you drank the thirstier you became. In all this there is no satisfaction in life only a craving for more and more.

Such was the attitude of the rich fool who couldn’t see beyond himself. His values were cheap and self-centred.

Jesus desired that people would receive him, not simply for what he might give them, but for what he might be to them. He wanted them to get the balance right, to follow Him for the right reasons, to believe in Him as a person.

In this bond of trust, in this relationship Jesus promised to help his followers hold within them the balance between the transitory and the eternal, to know the certainty of God in the midst of perplexity, to see light in darkness, to find hope in death.

Mary Lathbury’s prayer is for the vision to see ‘beyond the sacred page’ and to discover the real Jesus, the ‘living word’ as her eternal satisfaction.

“Break thou the bread of life

Dear Lord to me

As thou didst break the loaves

Beside the sea

Beyond the sacred page

I seek thee Lord

My Spirit longs for thee

O living word.”

Amen