I read a very powerful sermon about this reading, in was a powerful warning to preachers everywhere. This preacher was preparing his sermon to preach to a congregation where he knew there were a couple of parents who were mourning the death of their infant son. He knew he could not preach any sort of sermon that made shallow promises about God’s provision in the face of despair. So he preached what I have heard many times from my Father. He preached about a God who knows brokenness and despair and travels with us into the face of death, and can yet bring life. This is a warning that we should not be tempted here or elsewhere to thing that this story is about a magic trick, it is about the presence of the divine and that is an entirely different kettle of fish.

More than mere miracle stories

"...If we remain at the level of the sheer miracle, we can become preoccupied with questions like: why is this useful ability not more widely available? how might it have happened? did it really happen? is it a legendary story designed to echo the feats of Elijah and Elisha? All questions have their place. But the sacredness of this text lies less in what history it might purport to tell and more in what it celebrates. It celebrates that the human yearning for new life, set out in dreams and visions for the climax of history, can find its fulfilment in being connected to Jesus. It celebrates that the reality of women in community, the suffering and deprivation, the promise of emerging womanhood and all which that entails, belongs firmly within the embrace of the gospel. It does not need male mediation. Sometimes that is its greatest threat. It is still probably a male story and still reflects dominant cultural assumptions about appropriate behaviour (5:33). But it is a moment of light and hope and, like the celebration of Gentile and Jew which it completes with 5:1-20, it celebrates inclusion of women and men and has something healing to say to both."
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost5.html

A Season of miracle and hopefulness

Many of us live in towns we would define as friendly towns, but in any place there is the possibility of defining people as either ‘in’ or ‘out’. Those from outside can sometimes come to be seen as of less value than our selves and this can lead to mistrust and even hatred. Community is a great thing, but when it is used as a tool to separate one from another, rather than to bring greater understanding it can be a tool of bigotry. It is a drive that sees us moving away from each other, rather than closer together.

We are in the Christian season of Pentecost and in this Season, Christians are reminded that the Spirit of God seeks to draw us closer to each other and to God. At the first Pentecost, there was a strange sort of event, where people from all corners of the then known world found themselves speaking in the same language. Though they were different, they understood each other.

This is the sort of community that God wants and this is the activity of the Spirit of God; to draw us closer to each other; to make the stranger a friend and to love the neighbour, who may well be different to us. But this sort of Spirit love does not always come easy or cheap. When those around you are telling you to hate it takes a divine power to move towards love. As John Williamson said “Anyone can hate. It costs to love.”

The work of Pentecost is one of profound miracle and hopefulness. It is a dream of a Spirit that can draw us closer, can assist us to truly know each other’s pain and dreams, and can draw us closer to a vision of a compassionate world. Let us pray for the gift of such a Spirit and know her presence in our midst.

Is God with us or not???????

We are all in the desert of Sin with that question on our lips: is YHWH near us or not?

We Christians simply cannot stop asking this question, nor should we. Yet, our demands for some sort of sign of God's presence—a tortilla chip with the face of Jesus, an ancient cloth with a blood-stained portrait magically projected on it, a whirling sun in the former Yugoslavia, a crutched-filled grotto in rural France, a huge cathedral in Mexico on the site of an appearance of the Virgin Mary to a lucky peasant, and on and on—seem somehow pathetic. In our scientific age, where only conclusive proof will do, such experiences give in to the times. Books about proofs of heaven hit bestseller lists, but are little better than modern Lourdes, places that offer certainties that finally cannot be obtained. The answer to the question, "Is YHWH near us or not" is not yes or no. The answer is the question itself that I must continue to ask because I want to conform my living to the ancient truth that God is there, and that God still calls people to follow the narrow way. Any proof finally is in the pudding; when I see people offering themselves for others, when I witness acts of courage beyond anything I could ever perform, when I am able on those rare occasions to transcend what I would rather do for myself, then the question arises again: "Is YHWH near us or not?" Others may say, well, those acts of courage arise from a deep well of human longing, a rich humanity and need no divine explanation. I choose otherwise. For me, YHWH indeed is still near us, but I do not need some external signs of that presence to convince me.

http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Continual-Need-John-Holbert-03-14-2014?offset=1&max=1

not sure whether this is colouring or cartoon? :)

http://www.sermons4kids.com/water_into_wine_gk_colorpg.gif

a cruel fantasy

These are two of the most significant stories of our Christian heritage and deserve to be handled with integrity and sensitivity. For many who are sensitive to world poverty and disaster the images of multiplying food or walking on water are painfully unreal, almost a cruel fantasy. It does not happen. Whether people believe it nevertheless happened once will depend on their philosophical and christological presuppositions. Nothing indicates that the gospel writers thought the events did not occur. A slavish commitment to taking everything the writers say as gospel and yet also acknowledging the problems has led some to imagine that the gospel writers were not really reporting a miracle, but, for eyes that can see, really only a large shared lunch. Our integrity suffers when we try to explain away the text like that, however profound our intentions.
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost9.html

Deeper than the miracle

If we remain at the level of the sheer miracle, we can become preoccupied with questions like: why is this useful ability not more widely available? how might it have happened? did it really happen? is it a legendary story designed to echo the feats of Elijah and Elisha? All questions have their place. But the sacredness of this text lies less in what history it might purport to tell and more in what it celebrates. It celebrates that the human yearning for new life, set out in dreams and visions for the climax of history, can find its fulfilment in being connected to Jesus. It celebrates that the reality of women in community, the suffering and deprivation, the promise of emerging womanhood and all which that entails, belongs firmly within the embrace of the gospel. It does not need male mediation. Sometimes that is its greatest threat. It is still probably a male story and still reflects dominant cultural assumptions about appropriate behaviour (5:33). But it is a moment of light and hope and, like the celebration of Gentile and Jew which it completes with 5:1-20, it celebrates inclusion of women and men and has something healing to say to both.
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MkPentecost5.html

bright with miracle

 

“All was as it had ever been -

the worn familiar book

 the oak behind the hawthorn seen,

 the misty woodlands look:

The starling perched up on the tree

 with his long tress of straw

when suddenly heaven blazed on me,

and suddenly I saw:

saw all as it would ever be,

 in bliss too great to tell;

 for ever safe, for ever free,

all bright with miracle.”

(Ruth Pitter)

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. --Dag Hammarskjold

The breaking

Jerome, 4th century bishop

"By the breaking of the bread, he makes it into a seedbed of food--for if the bread had been left intact and not pulled apart and broken into pieces, they would have been unable to feed the great crowds of men, women, and children....Mysteries are made manifest, so that what did not feed the multitude of people in its original whole and unbroken state now feeds them in its divided state."

Stop waiting for bread to fall from the sky (or fish)

God tells us, "Not me but you; not my bread but yours; not sometime or somewhere else but right here and now.... Stop waiting for food to fall from the sky and share what you have. Stop waiting for a miracle and participate in one instead." Bread, a simple and most necessary thing--both physically and spiritually--is indeed a powerful thing, and the sharing of it is at the heart of our life together in the church.

“ ‘Man, my friends,’ said General Loewenhielm, ‘ is frail and foolish.  We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe.  But in our human foolishness and shortsightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite.  For this reason we tremble…’ Never till now had the General stated that he trembled; he was genuinely surprised and even shocked at hearing his own voice proclaim the fact. ‘ We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong.  But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite.  Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude.  Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty.  See! That which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us.  Aye, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly.  For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another!’ “  

                                                        --Babette’s Feast -Isak Dinesen