JOHN
6: 1-21
8th S. after Pentecost '06
Including
the brief reference at the start to Jesus healing the sick, we have
three examples of Jesus' Lordship over creation here. None of them sits
easily with 21st C ways of looking at things, & it might be helpful
to acknowledge that without setting out to be a non-believer or
'modernist' (whatever that really means) martyr.
As I see it, that central issue of sovereignty won't go away. If we
take it away we may well find God moving away too! Tell it as it is is
our job. Not at all apologetically except in that old technical sense
of that word. Is God God or not is a useful principle to explore from
what we have before us here. We may approach that literally, more
broadly, or a mixture of both perhaps. However we tackle the issue, our
congregation needs to recognize us as honest, not just preaching duty
bound to pedal old truths that don't hold up any more. (If that's the
way we or they see it.)
In all three 'pictures', healing, feeding, calming, Jesus demonstrates
that God is still in control bringing order out of chaos - sickness,
hunger, danger - and does it not only because it is God's nature to be
powerful, but also because it is God's nature to care. So we're into
very incarnational stuff here. How we preach that will be a matter of
choice, but preach it we must if we and our people are to worship and
follow the True God not just some spiritualised, gutted version of God
that appeals to us / them.
I see God healing people in a whole lot of ways, including our
equipping medicos & ancillaries to bring hope to those who don't
have medicare or medicaid or whatever we call it. More, God can heal
people when we pressure governments to care. Sometimes, some of us will
be given the grace to die with dignity and find our healing that way.
I see God feeding vast numbers of the hungry as we give what we can to
aid-agencies to go where we can't & give hope, & also pressure
governments into caring.
I see God stilling storms in all kinds of situations personal,
societal, national, & international, as we become not peace talkers
but peace makers, including by pressuring governments to care.
Whatever the basic literal truth of this passage, none of it will
become or remain true till we enter into the story of the world's needy
and care for them. I believe more and more strongly that God won't do
what we should and could be doing. I was going to say, nor will God go
where we could & should be going except that God is there already,
isn't God?