The Rt. Rev. Andrew Smith Sermon
Posted on
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
July 26, 2015
Trinity Church Hartford
2 The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
Today’s pericope is one of the Gospel Big Ones — the story appears in each of the four gospels. All accounts tell of Jesus’ ministry in the Galilee, especially in Capernaum, and of Jesus’ sudden decision to get out of that town.
John 6:1 After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias (also called Lake Kinneret, Genneserat, Ginosar, later under the Mamluks it was known as Minya, one hymn calls it the Syrian Sea): It is in a depression that is part of a great tectonic rift that runs all the way into Africa, a lake shaped like a harp, 13 miles long, 8 miles wide. It was and is today the most important body of fresh water in the whole of the western Middle East.
West side of the lake: what we know as the shore edge of the Galilee: warm year-round, actually below sea level, fertile, good rain, great for growing crops, densely populated. Lakeside Galilee is where the village of Capernaum (Town of the prophet Nahum) was located in Jesus’ day — Capernaum, a ruin today, contains a site where there is good evidence that Peter owned a house, the one where Jesus often stayed. In Jesus’ day Capernaum and all Galilee was ruled by the tetrarch Herod Antipas, the same Herod who had executed John the Baptist.
The other side of the lake: (all this is background) across the Jordan, there it’s very different from the western shore; rocky, dry with little rain, people in Jesus’ day living in scattered towns and settlements. And in his day it was a whole different tetrarchy: Iturea, not Galilee, ruled not by Herod Antipas, but by his half brother Philip.
“After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick.”
Some say because of the large crowds and the work of the ministry Jesus and the twelve were exhausted, and they sailed across to get away, to rest. From another reading one might infer that having heard of John’s execution, Jesus took his followers east, across the Jordan, into Philip’s tetrarchy for their safety, to get themselves beyond the reach of Herod.
Whatever he was thinking, they couldn’t get beyond the reach of those — believers? curious? wanting healing? seeking hope? — who really wanted him, to be there, with him, to listen to the words, to know the healing, perhaps even to join up full-time. So they went looking for him.
There’s the thing. They went looking for him. Some say it was a walk of only seven miles, and others think they had to go up around the north end of the lake over to the far eastern shore, perhaps twenty miles or more. The point is, they got up and left where they were, and searched for Jesus.
And the things they witnessed because they were there: the miracle of the mass feeding when they were hungry — not only the words (which are spirit and life) and healings, but food, actual real food in the middle of nowhere, which made them think of the other time their ancestors were fed in the wilderness, with Moses. And later that night for those who got into the boat to return through a storm to the western shore, to see Jesus in the storm — did Jesus say, “It is ‘I am’?” to know they were instantly safe.
The folks who didn’t go, well, they missed out.
Or even worse. Think of the story of King David we read from Second Samuel this morning.
1 In the spring of the year, the time when (real) kings go out to battle, instead of going himself, King David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. Not only was “all Israel” out, but the ark of the covenant — remember at this time the ark, God’s seat of presence, moved from place to place in a tent — the ark of the covenant, and therefore God, was out with the armies. But David remained in Jerusalem.
And look at the trouble he got himself into. Idleness. Voyeurism, Lust, Deception, Violation of Bathsheba’s ritual of purification, Adultery, Bathsheba’s pregnancy, Secrecy, Lies to Uriah her husband, Manipulation and the Plotting of the trusting general’s staged battlefield death.
David should have gone out to be in the presence and power and purpose of God.
That’s not to say that if a person doesn’t actively go looking for God that he or she will be depraved or will mess up as badly as did David, (David was a good king), but it is to say, that David should have been, we should be, out there, where God was at work. Nor does it mean that if we are out looking to be with God that we won’t also still be sinners; next week, as we shall see, Jesus impugns their motives and scolds the very people who were there with him in the Iturean wilderness.
No, it’s just the direct, stark contrast in these two lessons that struck me: juxtaposed, they say, don’t sit around; go, seek to be with God. Go, in your heart, your mind, as much as possible in your being, seek to be in the presence of Christ, go to him, be with him, to learn, to know healing, to see miracles, to work with hom, as the writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians put it,
to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, (to get the big picture) 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Maybe it’s as simple as opening a Bible instead of turning on the TV, and reading, reading, it. For me it means the discipline of going to meet once a month with a spiritual director, who helps me see where out there I am finding God in Christ. It also for me means actually doing stuff that Christ told us to do — feeding the hungry, caring for creation — for you it may mean visiting the sick, demonstrating in public, tutoring. Spiritual retreats. Discussion and book groups. Talk less to yourself and talk more with God.
Not staying put; moving out from the usual of what we know to be with God. Cross the river. Walk the Five miles, or Twenty miles; into new territory.
As the psalmist put it, Truly be wise — seek after God. Enough said.
Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.