The extract from Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians set  this morning is entitled in my Bible; ‘Rules for the new life’ and good words they are too. For life is never straight forward and sometimes we can leave things unsaid or undone that we would have been better off sorting out before the sun set on the day. It can be all too easy not to put things right as soon as possible and that can lead quite easily to estrangement or malice; neither of which are healthy. Paul tells the Ephesians, and it applies equally to all of us too, that we should always:

• Speak the truth at all times
• Try not to be malicious when angry
• To be honest in what you say
• To share what you have
• To hold your tongues and to think before speaking
• To be kind and compassionate
• To be ready and willing to forgive

These rules Paul suggests are the hallmarks of living a life based on the doctrine of living in the love of God. I wholeheartedly agree with Paul’s words and I suspect it is based on his own experience. Having a few rules or guidelines in one’s life is a good way of trying to love a good life and a life that is not selfish or hedonistic. Let his words seep into your being and refer to them every so often to remind yourself that we Christians are called to live a life based on love - the love of God. 

Cooking is something I enjoy doing. I also enjoy reading and re-reading cookery books, as well. Recently, while dipping into one of Claire MacDonald’s books I was struck how appropriate what she had written was to today’s readings. In particular, in relation to today’s Gospel reading; it is not as recipe but the introduction to a recipe for ‘Black olive, sun-dried tomato and garlic bread’ that I think is very apposite:

“I made this recipe first in the summer of 1992, making it up as I went along. Initially I tried baking it in oiled loaf tins… but I didn’t like the texture that resulted… then I discovered that in my enthusiasm I was using too much olive oil. This revelation came via the Chubb inspector of our fire extinguishers, who arrived one day as I was happily kneading away, and gazed long and thoughtfully at my bread making (sadly not at me!). Then unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed to the sink and washed his hands, and said ‘Here let me have a go.’ He took over kneading with the sure touch of an expert and told me that he had been a master baker till he was made redundant and got a job with Chubb. I learnt so much from him in twenty minutes! Amongst the tips was that the amount of olive oil I was using was too much for the flour, and my olive and garlic etc., bread has been better ever since!”

                                        From ‘Suppers’ by Claire MacDonald of Macdonald. Published by Corgi 1996   

Why I thought this was so apt for today was the way in which from something unexpected came something ordinary and how the ordinary everyday event of making bread for Claire MacDonald became something extraordinary. It can’t be everyone who is taught to make better bread by the fire extinguisher man! Nor is it common place to be told by a prophet that he is the ‘bread of life’!

Bread is an important staple in the diet of most of us and I have to admit the one food I would hate to do without. It has been the main source of nourishment for our forebears for millennia and will hopefully continue to be so for generations to come too.

Bread, ‘which earth has given and human hands have made’ – to quote our Eucharistic liturgy - sustains our physical bodies but as Jesus says in order to sustain the spiritual body you have to eat of the bread of eternal life. For it is the bread of heaven that contains life not the stuff made from cereal. Ordinary bread like the manna from heaven given to the Israelites in the wilderness stops the physical hunger we all experience but it is only by communion with the ‘bread of life’ -  Jesus himself, that the spiritual hunger can be sated.  

Through the Eucharist we are fed spiritually for as we receive the body of Christ we allow his spirit to permeate our whole being.

How often have you, like me, come to the Eucharist ‘out of sorts’ or at your ‘wits end’ and have left after receiving Holy Communion feeling restored, calmer, renewed and able to go on?

This is part of what the Eucharist is about, for in receiving Holy Communion we are strengthened and supported by Christ. Whether or not you believe that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ or that in someway they represent his body and blood is your choice, so long as you recognise that in receiving communion you come into an intimate relationship with Jesus.  

For some outside the Church when we speak of eating Christ’s body and blood it sounds somewhat cannibalistic. In fact this was something the early Christians were accused of but it is no more cannibalistic than to say to a loved one that we ‘want to eat them all up’. It is nothing gruesome but rather it is something very loving for it says that the one we want to ‘eat up’ is so loved by us that we want to be one with them. This is what Jesus wants for us, to be truly one with him; that’s why we have the ‘holy bread’ so that we can come into an intimate relationship with him. For those ‘eat his flesh’ abide in him and he in them.

To be one with Christ, one with our God, our Creator and Redeemer is more than any of us can truly hope for but to know that through Holy Communion this happens is mind blowing. Even more so when we remember that this gift is open to ALL God’s people without exception. As such the Eucharist should be something we hold dear and value beyond measure. It should also be the thing that enables and encourages us to do the things we feel we could never do on our own. 

Manna from heaven, a wholemeal or a Scottish plain loaf may sustain our physical bodies but otherwise it is dead. Eucharistic bread, the very essence of God not only nourishes us physically but also sustains us and builds us up spiritually as we live our lives in communion with the Christ of God. For in this ‘Holy Communion’ we receive LOVE - Jesus’ love. He was born out of love and died for love of us and in his Eucharistic body we are renewed in his love. It takes love and love with a passion to make good bread, as the Chubb man proved, and it is love as strong as Jesus’ that makes Eucharistic bread the truly life-giving nourishment it is.

As you come to communion this morning remember that in doing so you are allowing Christ to love you and to work his ways of love through you. As you return to the world outside this Church share God’s love with those who are seeking to be loved and spiritually fed and keep coming back to repeat the process.

I’d like to take a little time this morning to reflect on the first verses of our Gospel reading, the passage describing the feeding of the five thousand. That scene is described in all four Gospels, but John gives it a special significance by designating it as one of the seven signs in which Jesus is revealed as having power over material things. It is also a first sign of Him as the Bread of Life.

Initially, Jesus has wanted to take his disciples away by boat from the towns of Galilee, to have some time alone with them to hear about their travels and to teach them. But he is defeated by the crowds, who have seen where his boat is headed and are determined to follow him. The crowds are larger than might normally be expected from the small local towns, even allowing for Jesus’ increasing popularity as a healer and teacher, because the time of Passover is near, and numerous pilgrims will be passing through these towns on their way to Jerusalem. Many of them will have had to walk a long way - about nine miles - to come to the deserted site where Jesus is meeting with his disciples.

Jesus takes pity on them as He knows how much they want to hear him speak. John does not say, but the Gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus spends some time in teaching them, until the afternoon draws on and the question of food arises. The people are tired and hungry and must be fed. Jesus turns first to Philip, who comes from Bethsaida, the nearest town of any size. Philip is totally discouraging; to feed a crowd this size would take more than six months’ wages, a lot of money which they haven’t got.

So Jesus turns to Andrew, who at least has something positive to offer. A lad from in the crowd has come to him to offer his picnic lunch of five cheap barley loaves and two small pickled fish. That is sufficient for Jesus. He makes the crowd sit down. He takes and blesses the offered food which is then distributed among the crowd. There is enough for everyone to be satisfied. When they are finished, the leftovers fill twelve baskets.

The crowds know that they have witnessed a miracle. They want to take Jesus and make him king. But he escapes from them.

I do not doubt for one minute that a miracle took place. As John portrays it, it is a sign of Jesus’ power. It is also a sign of Jesus as the bread of life. But I have had lingering doubts about the actual mechanics of it. These were reinforced when I attended a Eucharist service at St Clement’s, a church in North Vancouver, Canada. The celebrating priest there did not use wafers as we do. Instead, a small round loaf of specially baked bread was duly consecrated. We all stood in a circle to receive; there were I think about 25 of us. The officiating priest broke off a piece of the loaf which she ate. She then passed the loaf to the person next to her to break off a bit, and so on around the circle. It was lovely – but it took so long! My grandchildren were getting a bit restive! And I found myself wondering how long it would have taken for five thousand people in the crowd each to receive a bit of the boy’s barley loaves and a bit of his pickled fish. It would have taken ages. And it was beginning to get dark. And they had a long walk home.

It was therefore with a sensation of relief and thankfulness that I read the words of the Reverend William Barclay, that great Scottish theologian of the last century:

“There may be another and very lovely explanation. It is not really to be thought that the crowd left on a nine-mile expedition without making any preparations at all. If there were pilgrims with them, they would certainly possess supplies for the way. But it may be that none of them would produce what they had, for they selfishly – and very humanly – wished to keep it all for themselves. It may be that Jesus, with that rare smile of his, produced the little store that He and his disciples had; with sunny faith He thanked God for it and shared it out. Moved by his example, everyone one who had anything did the same, and in the end there was enough and more than enough for all. It may that this is a miracle in which the presence of Jesus and his loveliness turned a crowd of selfish men and women into a fellowship of sharers.” [Barclay; the Gospel of John,  p. 206]

In other words, there were two miracles, not just one. The boy with his loaves and fishes and his willingness to share enabled both of them.

There are at least two lessons for us in this. First and foremost, we must never doubt the power of Jesus to work miracles. Through the Holy Spirit He can and does work for us today, just as He had power to multiply loaves and fishes to feed his needy followers. But second, sometimes miracles can be wrought through us, just normal people, when we look beyond ourselves to see the needs of others and offer what we have, even if it seems pitifully little and inadequate.

A recent Prime Minister – and we’ve had quite a few of them in the past five years – used regularly to criticise “Doomsters and Gloomsters”. He might well have had the author of today’s first lesson  in mind, for the Prophet Jeremiah’s name has long been proverbial for pessimism, and a Jeremiah is a speech or a piece of writing in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and predicts its imminent downfall. 

There is a great deal of doom and gloom in the Book of Jeremiah but today’s short passage suggests that there was much more to Jeremiah than sustained pessimism. It’s true that the first few verses roundly condemn the rulers who have been bad shepherds of their people. Jeremiah’s particular target was Jehoiakim, King of Judah, during whose reign King Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and forced much of the population of Judah into exile in Babylon. This, Jeremiah suggests, was God’s judgement on Jehoiakim’s corrupt rule. In the preceding chapters Jeremiah makes clear that Jehoiakim was guilty of ruling unjustly and oppressing the poor. 

But today’s passage doesn’t end on a gloomy note. 

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

“Justice and righteousness”. 

That phrase is used eleven times in the Hebrew Bible and five of those nine are to be found in Jeremiah. It is one of his key ideas, and his emphasis is always on the vocation of earthly rulers to provide justice and righteousness, 

That phrase brings us up with a bump against the difficulties of translation. The two Hebrew words which Jeremiah uses have overlapping meanings which aren’t clear in English versions of the passage. To quote the American Episcopalian priest and writer Fleming Rutledge:

“To our contemporary ears, ‘righteousness’ is a stuffy word connoting adherence to a set of moral codes.”

That’s not what Jeremiah meant by righteousness. A better translation of the Hebrew word would be “virtue” for virtue is a positive quality. Of course we want to be governed by people who don’t break the rules they are supposed to uphold,  but we also want to be governed by people who live virtuous lives, which is another way of saying people who live justly, people whose treatment of their fellow men and women is positive, supportive and caring. 

By way of an example or rather two; many years ago, travelling in a taxi down Regent Street in London, I caught a glimpse of one of my heroes. Bishop Trevor Huddleston was then a frail, elderly man and he was walking with the aid of a stick in his right hand, his left hand resting for support on the shoulder of a younger companion. As a young man, Trevor Huddleston served for some years as a priest in South Africa. He was a strong campaigner for racial justice in the era of Apartheid, and his African parishioners and fellow activists conferred on him the title Makhalipile, the dauntless one. One of the best-known stories about him is an excellent illustration of the power of virtue. One day in Johannesburg he saw a black woman who was cleaning the outside of a house, watched by her young son. Huddleston courteously greeted her by raising his hat. Her son was astonished. He had never before seen a white person treat a black person with respect. The boy’s name was Desmond Tutu and, under the influence of Trevor Huddleston, he grew up to become a priest and Archbishop of Cape Town, and an influential campaigner against Apartheid. 

When Apartheid came to an end, Tutu understood that there was a strong desire among many black people for justice in the form of revenge against those who had excluded and mistreated them. Part of his response to those feelings was to write a book with the challenging title No Future Without Forgiveness. The central theme of that book was that God’s justice is not about retribution, but about restoration – about putting things right. That’s not a sentimental or a wishy-washy belief. Restoration is costly, and may involve giving up privilege, acknowledging wrong-doing and  compensating those whom we have wronged. 

For Desmond Tutu, as for the Prophet Jeremiah, righteousness and justice were inseparable. Jeremiah believed in a God who wants to put things right and who has the power to make right what has gone wrong. He also believed in the possibility that human beings, including rulers, can be part of that divine project. His hope was that God would provide a righteous king, a descendant of David who would be the good shepherd and would execute justice and righteousness. 

What he didn’t foresee was how many centuries would pass before that divine initiative bore fruit and what form it would take. Not a king in the earthly sense, nor a politician but rather the Jesus of whom we read in today’s Gospel, the man of compassion, the teacher and the healer, the Good Shepherd. Those who aspire to political power need to follow that example and those in democracies whose duty and privilege it is choose them should, when politicians claim to be defenders of Christian values, consider carefully whether their lives and their actions demonstrate a genuine commitment to justice and righteousness.

There are two things going on in this morning’s Gospel reading. Firstly, we have the leaders of the synagogue hardly believing their ears and eyes at the teaching given by the ‘carpenter’. You can almost hear their indignation that someone (supposedly uneducated) could actually be teaching them something about their faith. Secondly, we have Jesus sending his disciples out into the towns and cities to carry his message of love and repentance into the world. Did Jesus, think that his disciples would have more luck in being listened to and accepted than he did? I doubt it, but what he is doing is furthering his message by using his followers to say the same thing. For the more people hear the same thing the more likely they are to eventually hear it and respond. 

That’s the thing about Jesus’ teaching. He does not force it upon anyone be it the members of the synagogue hierarchy or ordinary people. What he does is offer salvation by calling his listeners to repent and to trust in God’s unconditional love, that when they do repent they will be forgiven once and for all time. He offers those who hear his Word a choice, to accept or reject it but what they are unable to do is ignore it. They have to respond to God’s love in someway but the choice is that of the individual. It applies to us and the world today as much as it did some 2000 odd years ago. Accept Jesus’ or reject him but don’t simply ignore him and what he has to say.  Let’s pray that more people will do just that; listen to what he says and to make their choice; hopefully choice that enables them to come closer to God in doing so.