July 25, 2021 – Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
It’s not knowing ‘about’ Jesus that matters. It’s knowing him, and therefore loving him.
Let us pray. Gracious and loving God, we give you thanks for the gift of your presence in this time and place, within each one of us, in the many places that we are gathered this day. Help us now to open our minds, our hearts, our whole lives, to receive the gift of your living Word for us this day; and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
In this sermon I am not going to dwell on the First Reading from 2 Samuel – the story of David, Bathsheba and her husband Uriah, other than to say the temptation for men in power to exploit women, sadly, goes back a long way.
So instead, I want to focus on the Gospel Reading from John – the feeding of the five thousand, and then on the Second Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians, and the author’s powerful prayer of the love of Christ at work in us through the Holy Spirit. The purpose of both of these authors, both Ephesians and John, is to introduce the hearers to the deep and truthful identity of Jesus Christ in a way that touches them deeply.
Now in John’s Gospel reading the author sets up parallels between Jesus and the great ancestral spiritual leader of the Israelites – Moses. For 1st century Jews, Moses was God’s emissary that formed them into Israel, that delivered them out of slavery in Egypt, and miraculously sustained them in the wilderness with the gift of manna – the bread from heaven – and gave them God’s Law – the 10 Commandments that Moses received from God on the mountain - and this great initiatory event was celebrated in the Feast of the Passover every year. In the 1st century, Jewish people in Israel were occupied by the oppressive Roman Empire, and they were looking for, and hoping for, a prophet from God like Moses to deliver them from Rome and to establish God’s reign over them and with them, so that they could live fully as God’s People, in freedom and prosperity.
So how does John’s Gospel then present Jesus in a way that he will be recognized and embraced. Listen to the parallels: first of all, Jesus is out in the wilderness as the Israelites were in the Exodus; there are no towns or villages nearby to buy food. Jesus goes up on a mountain, like Moses did; the Passover festival is near and so the people have the Exodus in their conscious minds. A large crowd in this story appears in the wilderness without food supplies, and Jesus miraculously provides food – bread – not like a kind of “pop-up food bank” where he sort of hands out things, but rather has everyone sit down in an orderly fashion – more like a banquet – and they become together – a congregation – provided for by Jesus. So what was the result of this beautifully set up parallel with Moses? This is what we read: “When the people saw the sign that Jesus had done they began to say, ‘This is indeed the prophet who was to come into the world’.” They had a deep and clear picture of who this Jesus is. They recognized him a – modern day Moses. And they didn’t just get, sort of, to know about him – like reading it in a newspaper or online or something. They got to know him as their Saviour and, as a result, they wanted to make him king to liberate them from Rome.
Now the author of today’s passage from Ephesians also is trying to help the Christian disciples – like us – to know Jesus Christ deeply and intimately – not just to know about him – you know – facts about this life. But rather, Ephesians makes it very clear – you come to know the person of Jesus by receiving his love, and receiving it fully and deeply. It’s a little bit like that popular song, at least for some of us – I’m dating myself terribly here – some 50 or 60 years ago, originally recorded in 1958 by a group called “The Teddy Bears” (never heard of them – sorry). They recorded the song “To Know Him is to Love him”, and it concludes with “And I do, and I do, and I do …” and so on. Many of us probably better remember a rewritten version of that song where they take it from ‘third person’ and put it into ‘second person’ – recorded by Bobby Vinton in 1969: “To know, know, know you; is to love, love, love you; and I do, and I do …” and so on. Okay – familiar? Right, but that’s in a sense the point that the author of the Ephesians is trying to get across. That’s how you come to know who Jesus is!
So this is the same sense with which Ephesians is trying to reach out to us. Let’s look more deeply at the prayer that the author is making for the Christian disciples because that 2nd Reading is basically a prayer - for the disciples in the 1st century and for us in the 21st century. It begins, “I pray that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit.” That makes sense. St. Paul, in his letter to the Church in Rome refers to the gift of the Spirit as “the love of God spread abroad in our hearts.” So this involves some act of reception of God’s Spirit on our part – an openness – an expectation of the gift of God’s grace for each one of us. And then, in the second part of that prayer he prays, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.” That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” You know what that means? It means really believing that Christ is in you because he promises to be! It’s not dependent on whether you and I have earned it, or deserved it, or think we’re good enough, or fear that we’re not good enough. It’s taking Christ at his word. Can you do that? Are you doing it – who promises to dwell within us through the Spirit. The prayer then concludes with this, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” To know the love of Christ. You and I know when someone really love us, don’t we? There are probably outward signs initially that help convince us of that. But when we really know it, it becomes a kind of certainty of their love. It’s not longer based on nice little things they do as evidence. But rather, those outward signs we simply enjoy as further demonstrations of the love that we know to already be there.
This is the place that God wants to get us to – all of us. And Ephesians tells us the result of receiving that love, “so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” It’s hard to believe isn’t it? That’s because we keep focussed, most of the time, on our own limitations, rather than on God’s limitless power and grace. As expressed in the final, beautiful verse of this reading, “Now to him whom by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
There it is – what Christ can and will do in and through each one of us. Now do those words sound a little bit familiar – that final verse – of Ephesians chapter 3? Take a look, near the end of your service – turn to p. 10 please in your service bulletin, and the second section of bold print, which the Presider starts “Glory to God, whose power working in us …” We say those words at the end of every Communion service. And they’re not just nice words in our parish worship service to end our liturgy. Now I want to challenge you – when you come to that point in today’s service – I want to challenge you to say them with personal conviction and passion, because of the love of Christ at work in you and me. Say them like you mean them – not just for the congregation but for you – the power of God at work in you, because you know that God loves you! Open yourself – forget your perceived limitations – and instead remember God’s promise to you in Christ’s love, and make intentional time and space in your life to know Christ more deeply, and therefore to love him and to experience his power at work in you and in me.
Amen.
