This
is the homily that was given at St. John’s, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania by Fr.
Gene Tucker on Sunday, July 22, 2018.
“CREATING, RE-CREATING AND SUSTAINING”
(Homily text: Mark 6: 30–34, 53–56)
God’s
ability to create, to re-create and to sustain what He has created is, perhaps,
the most common attribute of God that we can be aware of.
God’s
work in creating things, in re-creating them, and then in sustaining them,
gives us insight into God’s nature. From the world around us, we can see that
God created all that is…..the more we discover about this wonderful, created
world, the more marvelous it seems. Then, He provided ways for the created
order to renew and re-create itself, and finally, we see that God also provided
the means whereby the creation is sustained.
God’s
nature – seen in the created things around us – tells us that God created all
that we can see and experience in the world because He is generous and good.
So,
if we put this reality another way, we could say that the outward things we can see point to an unseen, innward truth about God.
When
we use words like “outward” and “inward”, we are using the language that is
used to explain what a Sacrament is. By way of review, a Sacrament is defined
as:
An outward and
visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.[1]
This
morning, our Gospel text recounts Jesus’ care for the people He was encountering
as He made His way around the northern side of the Sea of Galilee. Mark tells
us that He had compassion for those growing crowds of people who pressed in on
Him and on His disciples, for they were “sheep without a shepherd”.
Jesus’
compassion is the inward disposition of His heart toward these very
hard-pressed and needy people.
But
His inward disposition finds an outward expression in the feeding of the 5,000
(which is narrated in some of the missing verses from this morning’s text), and
then in the healing of those who came to Him.
To
create, to re-create and to sustain….these three things are present in the
Lord’s ministry as He feeds and then heals those who’d come to Him. He creates
hope where there was no hope, He provides food which re-creates and sustains,
and then He creates new life where the ravages of disease threatening to
destroy.
The
message we are urged to see in this account is that the power that God alone
possesses, the power to create, to re-create and to sustain, are also at work
in the ministry of Jesus.
If we
look at God’s power, seen in the world around us and seen in the works that
Jesus did and does, then we have to conclude that God creates, builds up and
connects. That’s another way to see God’s power at work. God does this building
and connecting by making us dependent upon the creation, even as the creation
is dependent upon us for its continued wellbeing.
God’s
ability to make things, to build them up, and to link them all together is also
seen in human relationships. We can see this most clearly in the account of the
Fall in the Garden of Eden, chapter three. There, evil, personified in the form
of a serpent, suggests to Eve that the forbidden fruit might be good to eat.
(You know the story.) She eats of the fruit, then gives some to Adam. At that
point, their eyes are opened, and they see that their close, enduring,
face-to-face relationship with God has been marred by their actions. From that
point on, separation from God and from one another will mark the history of the
human race.
We
may conclude, therefore, that evil is intent on destruction and separation.
Evil’s intent is to deprive us of the things we need to survive and to thrive
as God’s creation.
So it
was in Jesus’ day…..let’s return to Jesus’ observation that the people who were
pressing in on Him were like “sheep without a shepherd.”[2] Who, realistically speaking, should have been
the shepherd of God’s people? The Chief Priests, the Pharisees and the Scribes
should have been filling that role. But each of these three groups were intent
on making sure their interests, their places of honor and their privileges were
taken care of. They apparently cared little for the people in their charge.
Then,
of course, we could talk about the Romans, whose brutal occupation of the
people, showed that they cared not at all for those they governed.
Evil
seeks to destroy, to separate, and to threaten the welfare of God’s creation
and God’s people.
What
might today’s Gospel text tell us about our own conduct as people of God?
One
way to address that question might be to examine our conversation with others
and our conduct with others. By way of suggestion, here are some ideas which
might prompt our own reflection:
- Do the things we say and the things we do create, or re-create, or sustain our relationships with others, or do these things separate and destroy them?
- Does our relationship toward God’s creation assist God in creating, re-creating and sustaining the world that He created, a world that God said was “very good”?[3]
- To live sacramentally with God and with others means that we will care not only about others’ spiritual welfare, but also their physical welfare. To that end, that is why this parish church maintains the Little Free Pantry ministry, why we take part in offering a hot meal at the Community Soup Kitchen, and why we receive a designated offering which is devoted to outreach every Sunday.
- Are we living “sacramental lives”, lives that show by the things we do that we have an abiding, deep and intense relationship with God dwelling within. Living sacramentally involves a whole lot more than simply doing “good stuff”. It involves connecting the inward reality of our relationship with God to the outward reality of the things we do. As St. James puts it in his general letter, “Faith without works is dead.” (James 2: 17)
AMEN.
[1] Grace is defined as “God’s favor and
goodness towards us, unearned and unmerited”. See the Catechism at the back of
the Book of Common Prayer, 1979, page, 857.
[2] The lectionary texts for today could easily
lead us to think that this Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday. The text from
Jeremiah 23 addresses the bad shepherds of the sixth century, BC. And, we have
as our appointed Psalm, Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd.” But, in reality,
Good Shepherd Sunday is the Fourth Sunday of Easter.
[3] Genesis 1: 31
