Sermon for the 12th Sunday after Trinity: ‘Holding what gives us life’; preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 18 August 2024 by The Reverend Rebecca McDonnell (1 Kings Ch 2: v 10 – 12; Ch 3: v 3 – 14; John Ch 6: v 51 – 58)
We’ve been thinking about bread a lot this month as we move through Jesus’ ‘bread of life’ discourse, which seems very appropriate as tractors and combine harvesters chug up and down the fields and on our roads bringing in crops to make the foods that feed us. Bread brings us comfort and nourishment, even with fads like Keto and other carbohydrate free diets, bread is one of the essentials of life. As a mum I spend day after day buttering slices of ‘best of both,’ a cheap and easy way to fill little tummies and keep growing bodies going.
It is also universal, with regional varieties from town to town, and around the world; leavened and unleavened, different ways of proving the dough, shaping it, flavouring it, a ‘bread’ product for almost every culture. Food is the story of our shared humanity, and within that bread is the simplest, the humblest, crossing borders of countries, race, religion, class and social position. These are often the food items with the strongest childhood memories- we live just miles from Shaftesbury’s gold hill, famous for the Hovis ads. Bread is comfort and nourishment, and a shared human experience.
In the book ‘Sleeping with bread; Holding what gives you life,’ we hear the story of how orphaned children in WW2 were given bread to hold to help them sleep at night.
With bread we are nourished, and comforted; through this universal and age-old association it is clear to see why Jesus described his body as bread for us to eat. If physical bread can sustain the earthly body, how much more can Jesus sustain our spiritual souls and offer us eternal life. He uses the word ‘flesh,’ making it clear the sacrifice he is about to make. Again, Jesus is breaking new ground and challenging what is written in the Torah, which forbids eating flesh with blood still in it. He says ‘I am the living bread that came down from heaven… unless you eat the flesh of the Song of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.’ We must dwell in Jesus, in the offering of his body, to have a share with our Lord and with the Father, in the Kingdom. In the Fourth Gospel, the verb “to remain” (menõ) designates the mutual indwelling between Jesus and God, an eternal relationship that Jesus invites his listeners to share.
We are invited to that feast week after week at the sacrifice of the Eucharist; as we stand before the altar and through the Eucharistic prayer, we are doing more that merely remembering how Jesus’ body was offered for us as spiritual food, we re-live it and make it fresh. We are invited to the table, over and over again, a new breaking of bread. Our faith is corporate, physical, more than mere words, our souls are healed and fed in the sacrament, ready to be sent out again. The invitation and promise of comfort and nourishment, a shared human experience.
We must never forget how lucky we are to be invited to this meal, and to do so openly and in the full expression of our Christian heritage and tradition. Just a few days ago I stood in one of the earliest churches, dating to the 4th century, and was witness to the body of Saint Ambrose. He was one of the early church fathers, a doctor of the church, who was part of framing our understanding of our faith in the words of the Nicene creed. This was his basilica, his expression of his love and indwelling with Jesus. And either side of him in his crypt lay the bodies of two early Christian martyrs Ambrose found on the site when building, Gervasius and Protarius. It was a deeply emotional and humbling experience, knowing what these men had offered for the treasures of our faith, for the expression of the Gospel to be known by all, and now here we are more than 1,600 years later, still affirming our faith, and still feeding on the flesh of our Lord in knowledge of the salvation promised for all.
It is easy to get complacent and to forget how lucky we are, and how much we are being offered by God., how he blesses us, walks with us, and feeds us. It is human nature to wonder what else there might be. “What would you wish for if you could wish for anything?” It’s a childhood game, inspired by the idea of a genie popping out of a bottle to grant three wishes. The answer normally being something to do with wealth, or sweets! Our reading from 1 Kings today describes the biblical counterpart to that childhood game. Solomon has just ascended to the throne of his father David, that beloved king of Israel. It is a succession marked by court intrigue and competition between rival factions. A few people lose their lives in Solomon’s consolidation of power, including David’s older son, who had designs on the throne himself.
Now Solomon is king, and he goes to Gibeon to offer sacrifices to the Lord. The Lord appears to Solomon in a dream there and says, “Ask what I should give you.” It is a remarkable offer for this young king; “Ask what you will,” says God. One can imagine what he might request: long life, riches, power, and victory in battle. Instead, he asks for a ‘listening heart’ or ‘an understanding might,’ so he can best understand what the people need, not himself. The ability to discern what is right and good–these are qualities essential to good governance, qualities we should pray to find in all our leaders. It speaks well of the young king that he recognizes the enormous responsibility he has and seeks not material gifts for himself, but gifts of character that will benefit his people. God is pleased with him, and as he asked for right thing, he is blessed also riches and honour.
How do we view our own lives, and how often do we step back to reflect on what we have been blessed with, or what we are finding difficult and need God’s help to get through. In the examen of Ignatian spirituality we are encouraged to make a habit of repeating one thing we are grateful for and one thing we are not grateful for. Framing our lives in God’s mercy and grace. Maybe you could make this a habit?
We have all been given the greatest gift, that of Jesus Christ our Lord. When we gather at his table, when we witness to his sacrifice and eat of his flesh and drink his blood, we dwell, we remain in Christ. As children dream, and wish, and latch onto what gives them life, brings them comfort and nourishment, so we turn to the Lord. ‘The one who eats this bread will live for ever.’ This is the bread that gives us life, that comforts and nourishes the soul not the body, and is a human experience we must share with all.