Sermon: God's Merciful Ears

There’s an intriguing phrase in the Collect we prayed today, we described God’s ears as merciful (‘Let your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of your humble servants’). We are used to describing God as merciful, but I must admit I hadn’t thought about describing God’s ears as merciful until this week. I immediately realised how unmerciful my ears are as later that day I filter out things I don’t want to hear so that I am spared the trouble of responding. In fact, I did it later that day when I walked past the Big Issue seller without, on this occasion, even acknowledging her presence let alone stopping to buy a copy.

It is an apt phrase for today’s gospel when we heard about Jesus withdrawing on his own to a deserted place, rowing there by himself (do we think of Jesus rowing?) when he had heard about the execution of his cousin John. He needed time and space to grieve and probably to reassess the impact of this for his own emerging ministry. And yet the crowds wouldn’t leave him alone and we read that when he saw them he had compassion on them, put his own need for privacy to one side, and healed their sick. And that went on all day because it is not until evening that his disciples catch up with him. Jesus’ eyes and ears were merciful, and as a result we have the well known miracle of the feeding of the five thousand.

It is generally accepted that this story, a good miracle in itself, is intended by the gospel writers to carry Eucharistic meaning: that is most explicit in John’s version of it where he attaches a long discourse about Jesus being the bread of heaven and uses it instead of a Last Supper story. The other gospels have both this and the Last Supper story. The link is what Jesus does with the bread – we are told that he takes it, blesses God for it, breaks it and gives it to the disciples and through them to the crowd. These are the four actions that we repeat week by week with the bread in the Eucharist. And so this morning I want to think with you about what this miracle adds to our understanding of Holy Communion, Eucharist, the Lord’s supper – call it what you will – because it does open new windows on our weekly celebration which, guided by the Last Supper story and by Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians, we tend to think of something we do in remembrance of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples, but do not readily associate with this miracle.

What intrigues me is the way that this story has about six different endings, any one of which would bring it to a neat conclusion. It could end at verse 19 when the disciples gave the food to the crowds, but it goes on ‘and all ate and were filled’. Then ‘and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces’. Then ‘twelve baskets full’. Then ‘and those who ate were about five thousand men’; and finally, ‘besides women and children’. Now I could have you here all morning, expounding each point by point, but you’ll be relieved to know that I, too, want this service to end at a reasonable time and in any case I’m not given to six point sermons. But I do suggest that the extra details that Matthew piles on are significant in moving this from being just a story about meeting an immediate need of a large crowd for food, to one where there is not just enough, but more than enough, since those present were filled and there were twelve baskets left for others. There is overflow for others not present and it is tantalising that we are never told who eats the 12 baskets of leftovers. But I suggest that has implications for us in our celebration of the Eucharist.

Michael Ramsey once wrote, ‘In the Eucharist … the risen Jesus who is the heart of the heavenly worship is also a Jesus who was crucified, and we share in heaven’s worship only as sharing also in the Jesus who suffers in the world around us, reminding us to meet him there and to serve him in those who suffer. Indeed in the Eucharist we are summoned by two voices, which are really one voice: ‘Come, the heavenly banquet is here. Join with me and my mother and my friends in the heavenly supper.’ ‘Come, I am here in this world in those who suffer. Come to me, come with me, and serve me in them.’ That is the perspective that today’s gospel adds to our understanding  of Eucharist, since Jesus’ actions of taking, blessing, breaking and giving the bread are not in the context of a fellowship meal with his friends but the overwhelming needs of a very large crowd of people. And he clearly expected the disciples to find the resources to meet that need, which they did – to their own surprise – by bringing the five loaves and two fish that they could muster. And he ensured that there would be not just adequate food but an overflowing supply from their meal for the needs of others.

So, how does this affect our understanding of the Eucharist? The Eucharist is about God’s love for this world and there can be no celebration of Holy Eucharist without prayers for God’s world: they are required to be part of every celebration for the crucial theological reason that our sharing in the heavenly banquet can never be divorced from our sharing in the life of the world, with its needs and confusions. In the well worn phrase, we can never be so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good. Why? Because the Eucharist is the foretaste, the anticipation, of the reign of God. There is, in the jargon, an eschatological dynamic to our liturgy: we have our eyes fixed on the coming of God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And that in turn brings the challenge Archbishop Ramsey articulated, to come to the heavenly banquet and to come with Christ to those who suffer. We will keep this perspective as we pray in a few minutes: if you look at Eucharistic Prayer E which we will use it contains the petition –

Lord of all life

Help us to work together for that day

When your kingdom comes

And justice and mercy will be seen in all the earth.

Have you ever noticed what we are committing ourselves to in our Eucharistic celebration? It is there right at the heart of it, and you’ll find a similar anticipation of the coming kingdom and commitment in all the Eucharistic prayers. The Eucharist is about justice and mercy, not just about making our communion and going home: why? because we make our communion with Christ who makes his communion with people in need, whose merciful ears are always open to their cry. That is a theological perspective which is much more clearly articulated in the revised liturgies of all denominations than in the older texts.

And so at the end of every Eucharist we pray one of two prayers in which we give thanks for being fed, for being met and brought home when we were far off, and then commit ourselves to serve Christ in this world. ‘Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to your praise and glory’, ‘may we who share Christ’s body live his risen life, we who drink his cup bring life to others, we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world.’

We had over 400 deacons from around the world and numerous denominations in Durham last week. Deacons in the Anglican church and some other churches give the dismissal at the end of Eucharist. There is no Eucharist without a dismissal and we need to take it seriously as there is no Eucharistic worship that is not to be lived out in service in the world. So take the deacon’s charge seriously at the end, ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’ because that, too, is a vital and integral part of the Eucharist, and is part of the living of our baptismal vocation.

To go back to the idea of merciful ears. We describe God as having merciful ears, and we see that exemplified in Jesus who, in his time of need, saw the needs of the crowd, took bread, blessed, broke and gave it to them. Strengthened by the Eucharist, may our ears, and our lives, be merciful as we leave here today to love and serve the Lord. Amen.