This morning’s Old Testament and Gospel readings are
on that same theme of how God provides for us. Isaiah writes at the start of
Chapter 55: The Lord says this: Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and
you that have no money, come, buy and eat! In the Gospel from Matthew 14 we read the Lord had compassion for the crowd and cured their
sick and went on to feed them supernaturally, sensing their
hunger. All
ate and were filled and those who ate were about five thousand. The two passages point to the heavenly banquet and to the eucharist but
they are also reminders of how God is a provider.
I am aware as I go round the
village of how far we are on the
ground from the nationally trumpeted economic recovery. Living in Horsted
Keynes requires transport and petrol’s not cheap. Our bus service is diminished
and under threat. Many are living on fixed or falling incomes with our minimal
interest rates. There’s a sense in some households of living on a knife edge.
Again I find encouragement from stories from you of God’s provision, in answer
to prayer and sometimes through fellow church members. Where we entrust our
lives to Christ we don’t find that knife edge so sharp.
Why do you spend your money for
that which is not bread, says God through Isaiah this morning and your labour for that which does not
satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight
yourselves in rich food. To live in God’s presence, as we do, is to be
led into the best use of money. I
want to affirm this, whatever the faults of the Church Commissioners, that the
church of Jesus Christ is the best steward of money you’ll ever find. I’m
talking of Christians who know what’s theirs isn’t theirs but entrusted to
them. When you know that you’re freed
from useless care however low your income. You give –and you receive far more
than you give. Your joy in that overflows, as Isaiah indicates in the close of
the passage. Nations that do not know you
shall run to you, because of the Lord
your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
That
sense of infectious overflow is to be found in the most unlikely places.
Several of you are carers in households including frail or elderly folk. The
selflessness that serves unrelenting physical and emotional demands can be
inspirational. You think – how on earth do they cope? How little I myself,
however much I complain, suffer anything like them in being taken out of my
comfort zone. When you realize your friend has regularly to drop everything and
drive across the land to help their parents in a crisis! And they talk about it
in such a matter of fact manner!
I was
reading on the train and vaguely saw a man with a blind stick come on. A young man
across the aisle from me jumped up and offered him his seat. It was an action
that showed me my lack of watchfulness. You know – watchfulness – a virtue underlined in monasticism as a receipe for
Christian perfection. Watching, to give out for Christ!
In
the Gospel Jesus was watchful. We read how he had compassion for the hungry and
needy around him. He felt their hunger, with them in the desert, and looked to his
Father to provide. One of his actions in this passage is repeated by priests at
the eucharist – you may have seen me doing it when I say Jesus gave thanks. Taking the…loaves…he looked up to heaven,
and blessed and broke the loaves. In the eucharist we make a big ask – the
priest looks up to heaven for a miracle, for God’s Spirit to change bread and
wine into Christ’s body and blood!
Sometimes
it’s easier to believe that miracle of God coming down from heaven to his altar
than his coming down from heaven to help a chronic state of disease. Our faith
shows most, I think, when we counter the negativity of a poor health condition
with an arrow prayer to heaven. God provides - but we don’t ask him to. That’s
why St James whose Feast we kept the other Friday in his letter chapter 4 verse 2 says
in so ‘in your face’ manner: you do not
have because you do not ask (James 4:2)
For a
plethora of reasons we don’t ask God, as we should, to provide for us. There’s
the false pride that refuses to ask for my own needs. There’s unbelief in which
we sink to the default of Horsted Keynes woman or man who, unlike us, don’t
believe God took our flesh. Unless you believe God took flesh in Jesus you’re
unlikely to believe he can take diseased bodies and animate them. One of the
great encouragements in recent years at St Giles has been the renewal of the
ministry of healing through which there are people well today who wouldn’t be -
and people alive today who wouldn’t be - if
they hadn’t asked God.
The
collect for Trinity 7 addresses the Lord
of all power and might who is the
author and giver of all good things: it goes on to pray that he will graft in our hearts the love of [his] name,
increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of [his] great
mercy keep us in the same. We prayed that prayer with the universal church
but are we ready to let it echo down through the week ahead, to percolate our
circumstances so that we act always mindful of the author and giver of all good things.
God
is giver of all good things. It may
be you are sensing a move ahead, a change of life or home or job. Are you taking
it to God to seek the best provision so you’ll see good things ahead and not the fruits of a wild, selfish impulse?
Better to get things right than get them now – better, above all, to get good things.
I’ve
been touching on a number of material needs but I end with a reminder
concerning spiritual needs.
Is
your prayer dry? Are the scriptures closed to you? Is the eucharist empty
ritual? Ask for the provision of God’s Holy Spirit maybe taking away the hymn
book this week and reading hymn 116 to God with these words in verse 4:
Heal our wounds; our strength
renew; on our dryness pour thy dew; wash the stains of guilt away; bend the
stubborn heart and will; melt the frozen, warm the chill; guide the steps that
go astray.
Our
Blessed Lord started his great Sermon on the Mount which we’ve been reading
through this summer of the Year of Matthew with these words: Blessed are those who know their need of God.
Do you know your need of God? Do
you want to know your need of God? Do you want to want to know your need of
God?
The Lord says this morning through Isaiah: Everyone who thirsts, come to the
waters; come and drink of the Holy Spirit. It may be you need prayer
from another to attain this – ask one of our prayer ministry team for that this
morning. Or confession and absolution – there’ll be special times next week
before the Feast of the Virgin Mary but you can make a private appointment with
the priest.
The Lord says this morning through Matthew: all ate and were filled. Put faith in
God’s provision this morning - that the bread and wine you receive are his gift
to you, bringing healing, joy and peace deep within you, so others who see you later
today will be led to wonder where you’ve been this morning! Let’s reflect for a minute or two.
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