The superabundance of God

 Preached for Corpus Christi 2019 at St. Paul's, Deptford

‘When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.’

In the name of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Today is a great Feast. It is a day when the church gathers around the altar once again, and offers particular thanks for this great sacrament of the Eucharist which we are partaking in today. Coming, as it does, as the strains of the Easter season can still be heard, gently fading into the distance, it brings our hearts and our minds back to that upper room where Jesus gathered his disciples around him and broke the bread, gave the cup, telling them to do this in ‘re-membrance of me’.

And as we recall the events of that solemn and holy night of Maundy Thursday today, we look at it, perhaps, from a different angle. In the great emotion and journey to the cross, tomb and resurrection of Holy Week, our celebrations of Maundy Thursday naturally looked forward to Christ’s betrayal. We heard God’s word, we celebrated the sacrament, and then we stripped the altar – preparing for the raising up of Jesus on the cross, where his body would be broken and his blood poured out for the sins of the world. Indeed, right at the heart of the Christian story, where Christ himself was being sacrificed for us, he broke the bread, and instituted the Eucharist. Intimately bound up in his own suffering and death, he gave us the great gift that sustains us to this day.

We heard those words today in the epistle of St Paul – Jesus, taking the loaf of bread, giving thanks and giving us the command to re-member him in this way; to quite literally make him present in our midst, and to do so whilst proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes.  Jesus, the great high priest, who in his act of self-oblation stands in the holy tradition of Melchizedek, taking the bread and wine, yet giving us far more than Abram gives Melchizedek in return, the ten percent – instead, Jesus gives us his all.

And it is this superabundance that this Feast speaks to so clearly.

It is interesting that the lectionary chooses the feeding of the five thousand as our gospel for today, yet how fitting it is. This story of Jesus’s superabundant love and hospitality – his arms spread wide for all – speaks from the very heart of God, and gives us a glimpse into the true meaning of the feast that we celebrate today. Jesus not only provides food, but he provides food for sharing from the five loaves and two fishes – food not bought but freely given, and food that overflows.

Pope Francis tells it like this:

‘This is the miracle: rather than a multiplication it is a sharing, inspired by faith and prayer. Everyone eats and some is left over: it is the sign of Jesus, the Bread of God for humanity.’

‘And all ate and were filled’, we are told in the Gospel. This is not a symbolic meal or a work of magic – this is God Himself, Christ incarnate, flesh of our flesh, feeding those who come to him for sustenance. And this food is for sharing only once it has been blessed by God – by the God who blesses the food we have before us in our own homes and around our own tables, yet also the God who blesses the food of the altar, our divine manna, with his very presence. And that blessing leads to broken bread – like the broken body of Jesus on the cross – yet also speaks to us in our own brokenness. Yet broken bread is bread shared – and it is through recognizing our own brokenness that we can be gathered up into the arms of God, and form the community of the Kingdom. Here, then, is true re-membrance - our being brought back together in this great act of thanksgiving for all that is broken but made whole. We do this to re-member Him who makes us whole.

After the communion today, we will take the Blessed Sacrament and parade it through the streets of our own community here in Deptford. Processions like the one we will do today have taken place in Christian communities since as long ago as the fourteenth century. Many of these processions were similar to a royal procession – the host carried ahead of the people, on a great throne, worshipped and adored by those who saw it pass. In today’s day and age, it will perhaps seem bizarre – a throwback to olden times, something unnecessary and indulgent. Yet could those same words not be used about God’s superabundance in all things – his superabundant grace, love, mercy, hope? Surely we must be mistaken in believing God would truly be so wasteful as to produce twelve extra baskets of these things?

Not that long ago, I was privileged to spend a day at Lourdes, in southern France. This well-known shrine has a very particular bent to it – it is a place of healing. Thousands upon thousands of people come, year by year, to experience the healing touch of God – from those right at the point of death to those suffering from chronic and debilitating illnesses, physical and mental. Lourdes, I suppose, really aims to sum up the first line of today’s Gospel – ‘he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured’. Beyond all the tat shops and extortionate parking prices, the heart of this place is radically countercultural – the sick, those who rely on the help of others and fear becoming a burden, are placed centre stage. And it was the procession at Lourdes that perhaps gives us a pointer towards our own procession today.

For at Lourdes, the procession is not led by the wealthy, or the powerful, or even by the priests – instead, it is led by the sick. The sick, at Lourdes, are not afterthoughts, or people to be tolerated. They are the head of that body of believers – the most honoured. And through learning from them, from the way they rely on the other, we learn more about our own humanity and our reliance on God through our brothers and sisters. In my own line of work in the hospital, I spend time with the sick and those looking after them, who themselves are often in need of healing. And today’s thanksgiving for the Eucharist reminds us of the material reality of God and His presence – of his nearness to us today in the sacrament, and his nearness to those who touched his robe for healing and were made whole. Here, then, is our God – incarnate for us, human for us and amongst us – and still working through the sacraments and through those who bear Him to those who need his healing touch – indeed, to us all.

Today’s procession will be led by the children of the parish, spreading rose petals before the host. It will almost certainly be seen as weird or unusual by those who we pass in the street, especially for that special place given to the children, still too often either ignored by society, expected to grow up too fast with innocence and childish joy obliterated by circumstance. Yet the weirdness of today’s procession springs forth from the world-shattering and countercultural reality which lies at the heart of our Christian faith and at the heart of the Eucharist itself – that God Himself was incarnate, that He is still present in the Eucharist, that his face can still be seen in those thought of as the least amongst people, and his arms are wide open for us all. The first shall be last and the last first – the radical message of the Kingdom of God.

                                                                                                                    

As we take out the host today, we make that incarnation known, and we proclaim the reality of the kingship of the Messiah in our midst. A kingship that chooses donkeys over chariots, and a kingship that chooses you and me over the rich and powerful. For really, it is God who leads us out into the streets, not only today but every day – today, we simply show whose commands we are following and whose life we seek to live. Our role is just that – to follow the one who goes before us, and to make his incarnate reality known in the midst of His own created world. God Himself is our host – in the broken bread and in our midst. Others may not see him as that host – indeed, some may look on what we do with derision. Yet still, as on that hill two thousand years ago, Jesus is still consecrated, still open to us, still open to all – arms wide. Those ordinary elements of bread and wine – transformed and given as the free gift of his body and blood, in our very midst.

‘You give them something to eat’, Jesus tells those disciples in the deserted place, and still he calls us to do the same. Yet will we be like those first disciples, who worry about money and can only see their own shortcomings – ‘Lord, we only have so much, surely this is not enough’. Or will we take our lead from him, and follow him into the midst of the world to encounter the Kingdom. Will we choose to lay down our worries and self-centredness, our safety and our security, and trust in Him? Will we ‘look up to heaven’, seek to bless and give of all we have, superabundantly? Will we trust, once again, that God will send his manna in the wilderness?

There is a theology to today’s celebration, certainly – a theology of the Mass, of the importance of the Holy Sacrament. But there is also a simplicity to this feast – a simplicity that declares the love of God for His world, and the irrepressible outflowing of that divine love to all creation. This is a celebration that speaks in multi-colour – that speaks in poetry. This is a celebration that doesn’t look for easy answers, but draws us into the reality of God’s consecration of His world. For our Lord is here – he dwells in our midst. And we have the great privilege of revealing him as our incarnate Lord, not only today, but in our lives.

May God grant us the grace to follow him all our days.