Bible Text: 2 Samuel 11:1-15; Psalm 14; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21 | Preacher: Peter Haddad

A sermon for the tenth Sunday after Pentecost
Our readings this Sunday are powerful ones.  Hearing them, I am reminded of something the American author Annie Dillard once wrote:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions.  Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?  Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?  The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.

It is madness to wear ladies straw hats or velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.  Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.  For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God draw us out to where we can never return.

We have three very rich and potent passages; four, if we include that forthright and outspoken Psalm number 14 which begins: Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’  There are many, many lessons and themes to be found in these readings, but I will concentrate on just one, the issue of power.

We begin with the story of David and Bathsheba.  It is spring, the season when kings go out with their armies fortifying their defenses, or raiding neighbouring tribes.  But King David stays at home, abdicating his kingly responsibility and assigning it to his commander Joab.  Walking idly around on his rooftop, which we might assume was higher and commanded far better views than the other houses in Jerusalem, David sees a beautiful woman bathing.  He sends to enquire her name, and then, using his royal prerogative and power has her brought to the palace and takes his pleasure with her, despite the fact that she is married to another.  All seems to be going so beautifully, until Bathsheba tells David “I am pregnant”.

David’s reaction is all too familiar to us.  We see it again and again from those in power: first panic, then a desperate and often futile attempt to find a way to cover up the wrongdoing.  David has Bathsheba’s husband Uriah the Hittite brought back from the battle front in the hope that he will spend some time with his wife, and the child may then be supposed to be Uriah’s.  Although a Hittite and an alien residing in Israel, Uriah proves to be a man of far more integrity than Israel’s king, and he refuses to go down to his house out of loyalty to his king and companions.  David is then led further into the murky area of wrongdoing, and he contrives Uriah’s death.  In doing this he unleashes a series of disasters in his own life, and in the lives of others.  This is truly power misused.

The root of David’s fault is that in his abuse of power he had no thought for the Lord.  Psalm 14 is a stinging indictment of those who say in their hearts “there is no God”.  The fools who say this are not simpletons or feeble-minded in the way we use the word.  Fools in the wisdom literature are those who reject the way of godly wisdom and choose the way of folly.  Nor, when they say “there is no God” are they making a declaration of atheism.  Atheism was very rare in the ancient world, just as it is today in many non-western cultures.  Rather they are acting as though God does not see them, or care about what they are doing.  As Psalm 10 verse 11 puts it, they think in their heart, “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it.”

John chapter six, from which today’s gospel reading comes is such an important and instructive chapter that we are going to be spending five consecutive Sundays studying it.  Today’s reading begins with one of the most well-known miracles in the Bible, the feeding of the five thousand.  In fact, it is the only miracle story told in all four gospels, so we know it must have been considered of vital significance to the early Christians.

Jesus is on a mountain near the Sea of Galilee, the Passover festival is at hand, and a large crowd of people is making its way toward him.  Jesus’ first words are “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?”  Philip is at a loss to answer.  Andrew has spotted a boy with five barley loaves and two fish, but as he observes “what are they among so many people?”  And yet in this amazing sign, they are all fed.  Not only fed, but abundantly fed.  Now, bringing abundance into situations of desperate scarcity, bringing plenty where there is famine, bringing life where there is death, all these are the signs that God is at work.

The crowd of five thousand would have immediately recognized this sign.  In the second Book of Kings Chapter 4:42-44 there is a story about the Prophet Elisha feeding a hundred people with twenty loaves of barley and a few ears of grain.  With his feeding of five thousand, evoking the memory of the Prophet Elisha, Jesus is at the zenith of his power.  The crowd that made its way to him was desperately eager to know whether this man was the Messiah.  They knew he was a preacher and healer, but was he the Messiah who would follow in the footsteps of Elijah and Elisha, take power, and deliver them from the hated Roman oppressors?  When they witnessed this feeding of a multitude it was proof to them that he was indeed the long-awaited one, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.  We are told that the crowd wanted to make him king.

Indeed, if Jesus was going to take on that model of Messiah, this was undoubtedly the best moment to seize and exercise His power.  But note the unexpected response of Jesus: When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.  Jesus’ use of power is utterly different.  It leads away from personal power, gain or glory.  God is not found in these things.  Jesus taught us to find God incarnate in this world, in our neighbour, in the Eucharist—that is, in the ordinary elements of this earth.

Let’s be honest, our culture places the most value on fame, power, and money.  Even people who call themselves Christians are much more fascinated by celebrities and so-called success than they are by the downward path of Jesus.  But once you see that God is in the ordinary and that you don’t have to climb upward or strive to be more pure or perfect to find God, you start honouring God in what Jesus calls “the least of the brothers and sisters” (Matthew 25:40) and in the very common earth beneath our feet.

If I have one criticism of today’s Christianity, it is that all too often it has placed its values in domination and the pursuit of political power.  The goal is not supremacy, whether it be Christian supremacy, white supremacy, male supremacy, heterosexual supremacy, or the supremacy of humanity as the measure of all things.  All these things, regrettably, have become deeply embedded in Christian history and theology.  In contrast, we see in the life and teaching of Christ, and especially in the cross and resurrection of Christ, a radical rejection of dominating power in all its forms.

The theological term for this is kenosis, which means self-emptying.  Rather than seizing, hoarding, and exercising power in the domineering ways typical of kings, conquistadors, dictators and many religious leaders, Jesus consistently empowered others.  He descended the ladders and pyramids of influence instead of climbing upwards, released power instead of grasping at it, and served instead of dominating.  He ultimately overturned all our conventional understandings of power by purging them of violence — to the point where he himself chose to be killed rather than kill.

Jesus’ example is a challenge to us.  It is a challenge to the Church in the way that the Church so often pursues political power and influence.  It is equally a challenge to us in our personal lives where we can so easily slip into exercising subtle forms of power over others by our words and actions.  It is a challenge to our small faith community where, as someone once said, “we are blessed with each other, and stuck with each other.”

Ephesians 3:14-21 is a prayer in which Paul points us to the One to whom all power rightly belongs.  God is the One who alone uses power rightly.  Paul prays particularly that the Ephesian Christians may be able to take in the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.

He concludes: God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!  [God] does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, [God’s ] Spirit deeply and gently within us.

The real moral goals of the Gospel – loving enemies, caring for the powerless, overlooking personal offenses, living simply, and avoiding riches, can only be achieved through surrender and participation.  Remember, God doesn’t love you because you are good.  God loves you because God is good!

Lord, deliver us from an inordinate love of power and control, that we may follow your Son Jesus Christ our Lord in living simply and humbly in ways that encourage and empower others to find their fulfilment in knowing and loving you.  Amen.