Unnoticed Gifts
Sermon
Since I have a birthday this month, I'm thinking about presents! If I go into the local school and ask the children what they think about if I say the word "birthday" or the word "Christmas", the first thing they always come up with is presents.
I was with an elderly lady in a residential home recently. She was opening a box which had been sent to her by her daughter. Inside was a large fluffy owl, and the old lady was absolutely thrilled. It's especially to good to receive presents when they're unexpected.
Mostly I thoroughly enjoy my presents, but occasionally I'll put a present to one side because I can't really see the need for it. And it sometimes happens that months later when I'm desperate for some device to do a particular job, I've come across that discarded present and realised I've had what I needed all the time. I just haven't known that I've had it.
That happened recently with a hair dryer. Since I already had a hair dryer, I put this particular present to one side and more or less forgot it. Then when I'd been having problems for weeks trying to get my hair to go the way I wanted it to go, on impulse I picked up the new hair dryer. It had a kind of funnel thing on the end, and turned out to be exactly what I needed. I just hadn't realised it before.
Something similar happened with one of God's gifts. I'd been feeling rather unfit and quite stiff for some time, and after trawling the Internet for ideas on improving my health, I came across a website which suggested walking for fitness. I immediately knew it was exactly what I both wanted and needed, since I've always enjoyed walking.
I started to walk all round the lanes round here, and discovered not only a new dimension of enjoyment and increasing fitness, but also a new space and opportunity to be with God. And it occurred to me what a marvellous gift this was from God, one which had been there all the time but which I simply hadn't noticed.
When Jesus was on this earth, some people realised what a huge and wonderful gift from God they'd been given. But others were antagonistic and hostile, and in effect threw the gift back into God's face.
It started in Nazareth, Jesus' own village. There were all sorts of murmurings against Jesus. "Isn't this the guy we grew up with? How could he be anything special? Get him out of here!" And Jesus was unable to perform many miracles in his home village, because of the attitude of those who knew him well.
In today's gospel we see the discontent spreading. At this point Jesus is much further south than Nazareth, near Capernaum and the shores of the Sea of Galilee. He'd just taken and blessed and broken the five loaves and two fish, and distributed them to the people. And somehow or other, from that meagre gift, people had eaten their fill. Now Jesus was using that incident to give some theological teaching.
Manna was the bread sent down from heaven by God during the wanderings in the wilderness roughly 1500 years earlier. This was at the time of the Exodus right at the beginning of the Old Testament, when Moses led the Ancient Israelites to the Promised Land. That precious manna was thought to have been hidden by the prophet Jeremiah (2 Maccabees 2:5-8). And it was expected to reappear miraculously at Passover, in the last days.
Jesus began to tie this idea of that hidden manna in with himself. "I am the bread of life," he said. "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." In other words, I am the manna sent by God to nourish his people today.
Some people couldn't handle such a gift. Exactly the same complaints as Jesus had heard in Nazareth, began again. "Who is this guy?" they muttered to one another. "He's nothing but a carpenter. Why, we know his parents. How can he possibly claim to have come down from heaven?"
The gift was no use to them. They couldn't see its value, and they didn't want to know. And all this strange talk about eating flesh would be abhorrent to orthodox Jews.
To those of us who hear the words, "eat my flesh and drink my blood," week after week, there's nothing unusual at all. But to those who have not been brought up with a church background, those words can still be very repellent today. I've met a number of people over the years who can't cope with Christianity because they say it smacks of cannibalism.
They're unable to appreciate the gift and so they reject it, not realising they're rejecting the one thing which they need above all else.
It may also seem strange to hear the words, "whoever eats of my flesh will never die," especially when we're all very well aware that the one thing the entire human race has in common is that everybody dies eventually.
What difference does eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood make? When we eat the bread and drink the wine at Holy Communion what actually happens? What does it mean to say we never die when it's perfectly obvious that death and bereavement is just as painful to Christians as to everyone else?
The bread and the wine are, of course, symbolic. But they have been blessed by God, so whenever we take Holy Communion we receive Christ into the depths of our being.
And although we die in this life, when we meet with God after death he isn't standing there like a judge with a little black book totting up our sins on the one hand and our good deeds on the other, to see whether we're good enough to enter his kingdom.
All that has already been dealt with by Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross our sins, past, present and future, died with him, and so in effect when we meet with God after death we have no sin - if we've received and enjoyed his gift of Jesus. And so there's no entry permit. The pearly gates are wide open and we simply walk through to a new kind of life which goes on forever.
"Very truly, I tell you," says Jesus, "whoever believes has eternal life." Nothing about only those who are good enough. Nothing about only those who do hundreds of good deeds every day. Nothing about only those who have grovelled sufficiently to be properly forgiven. All that is necessary for eternal life is belief in Jesus and receiving him as the bread of life.
What a present, what a gift! What will you do with it? Put it on one side in case you should ever need it? Give it to the next jumble sale? Or receive it and absorb it and use it here and now?
The gift is already there. All we have to do is to notice it and to take hold of it.
I was with an elderly lady in a residential home recently. She was opening a box which had been sent to her by her daughter. Inside was a large fluffy owl, and the old lady was absolutely thrilled. It's especially to good to receive presents when they're unexpected.
Mostly I thoroughly enjoy my presents, but occasionally I'll put a present to one side because I can't really see the need for it. And it sometimes happens that months later when I'm desperate for some device to do a particular job, I've come across that discarded present and realised I've had what I needed all the time. I just haven't known that I've had it.
That happened recently with a hair dryer. Since I already had a hair dryer, I put this particular present to one side and more or less forgot it. Then when I'd been having problems for weeks trying to get my hair to go the way I wanted it to go, on impulse I picked up the new hair dryer. It had a kind of funnel thing on the end, and turned out to be exactly what I needed. I just hadn't realised it before.
Something similar happened with one of God's gifts. I'd been feeling rather unfit and quite stiff for some time, and after trawling the Internet for ideas on improving my health, I came across a website which suggested walking for fitness. I immediately knew it was exactly what I both wanted and needed, since I've always enjoyed walking.
I started to walk all round the lanes round here, and discovered not only a new dimension of enjoyment and increasing fitness, but also a new space and opportunity to be with God. And it occurred to me what a marvellous gift this was from God, one which had been there all the time but which I simply hadn't noticed.
When Jesus was on this earth, some people realised what a huge and wonderful gift from God they'd been given. But others were antagonistic and hostile, and in effect threw the gift back into God's face.
It started in Nazareth, Jesus' own village. There were all sorts of murmurings against Jesus. "Isn't this the guy we grew up with? How could he be anything special? Get him out of here!" And Jesus was unable to perform many miracles in his home village, because of the attitude of those who knew him well.
In today's gospel we see the discontent spreading. At this point Jesus is much further south than Nazareth, near Capernaum and the shores of the Sea of Galilee. He'd just taken and blessed and broken the five loaves and two fish, and distributed them to the people. And somehow or other, from that meagre gift, people had eaten their fill. Now Jesus was using that incident to give some theological teaching.
Manna was the bread sent down from heaven by God during the wanderings in the wilderness roughly 1500 years earlier. This was at the time of the Exodus right at the beginning of the Old Testament, when Moses led the Ancient Israelites to the Promised Land. That precious manna was thought to have been hidden by the prophet Jeremiah (2 Maccabees 2:5-8). And it was expected to reappear miraculously at Passover, in the last days.
Jesus began to tie this idea of that hidden manna in with himself. "I am the bread of life," he said. "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty." In other words, I am the manna sent by God to nourish his people today.
Some people couldn't handle such a gift. Exactly the same complaints as Jesus had heard in Nazareth, began again. "Who is this guy?" they muttered to one another. "He's nothing but a carpenter. Why, we know his parents. How can he possibly claim to have come down from heaven?"
The gift was no use to them. They couldn't see its value, and they didn't want to know. And all this strange talk about eating flesh would be abhorrent to orthodox Jews.
To those of us who hear the words, "eat my flesh and drink my blood," week after week, there's nothing unusual at all. But to those who have not been brought up with a church background, those words can still be very repellent today. I've met a number of people over the years who can't cope with Christianity because they say it smacks of cannibalism.
They're unable to appreciate the gift and so they reject it, not realising they're rejecting the one thing which they need above all else.
It may also seem strange to hear the words, "whoever eats of my flesh will never die," especially when we're all very well aware that the one thing the entire human race has in common is that everybody dies eventually.
What difference does eating Christ's flesh and drinking his blood make? When we eat the bread and drink the wine at Holy Communion what actually happens? What does it mean to say we never die when it's perfectly obvious that death and bereavement is just as painful to Christians as to everyone else?
The bread and the wine are, of course, symbolic. But they have been blessed by God, so whenever we take Holy Communion we receive Christ into the depths of our being.
And although we die in this life, when we meet with God after death he isn't standing there like a judge with a little black book totting up our sins on the one hand and our good deeds on the other, to see whether we're good enough to enter his kingdom.
All that has already been dealt with by Jesus. When Jesus died on the cross our sins, past, present and future, died with him, and so in effect when we meet with God after death we have no sin - if we've received and enjoyed his gift of Jesus. And so there's no entry permit. The pearly gates are wide open and we simply walk through to a new kind of life which goes on forever.
"Very truly, I tell you," says Jesus, "whoever believes has eternal life." Nothing about only those who are good enough. Nothing about only those who do hundreds of good deeds every day. Nothing about only those who have grovelled sufficiently to be properly forgiven. All that is necessary for eternal life is belief in Jesus and receiving him as the bread of life.
What a present, what a gift! What will you do with it? Put it on one side in case you should ever need it? Give it to the next jumble sale? Or receive it and absorb it and use it here and now?
The gift is already there. All we have to do is to notice it and to take hold of it.
