Title: ‘People don’t need another Sermon!‘

Preacher: The Reverend Canon Maggie McLean, Missioner 

Date: Sunday 28 July 2024, The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

Sometimes people who come to Church regard this as a dangerous time of the year.  There’s every possibility that the Canon has been on holiday, and sermons become wistful recollections of something interesting that happened to them on vacation! Many years ago, relatives and friends had a habit of inflicting their holiday snaps on those closest to them and, in a similar way, clergy often bring their holiday musings home to share with a captive congregation. Perhap ssermons are the equivalent of our theological postcards.

Anyway, I’d hate to disappoint.

So….On our recent holiday in Spain, staying in the city of Salamanca, we visited the Dominican monastery of San Esteban.

Given our responsibilities in York, it’s always interesting to visit other locations that combine the role of a living place of faith with the understandable interest of tourists to see somewhere of historic significance.  The Monastery of San Esteban does this very well. While an ordination service was taking place in the Church of the Monastery, we were able to wander through the cloisters of this amazing place of faith and stunning architecture which began to be built in the 16^th century. It has connections with one of the most significant spiritual guides of Christianity – St Theresa of Avila. It was at the monastery that Theresa made her confessions to Dominican Friars and discussed theology.

Today, visitors to the monastery have the opportunity to hear St Theresa make her confession. In a tiny cell off one of the cloisters, I entered a small space only to find a video of St Theresa awaiting me – and she then shared her thoughts, spirituality and theology.

It was a wonderfully creative and moving experience. In her day, Theresa saw a lot that was wrong with the church and worked to reform it. There is always a risk, in every age, that the Christian church becomes inward looking and disconnected from the needs of humanity.

I am fond of saying, in this pulpit, that York Minster does not contain God. Of course, I don’t mean that God isn’t here, but rather that the Church isn’t some kind of holy container for everything that’s sacred. We need the church, and we also need a God who is active far beyond the walls of any institution, however sacred.

In our Gospel reading this morning we are reminded that we often find Jesus attending to the basic nature of human need. The people are hungry. It’s as simple as that.

They don’t need another sermon;

or extra prayers;

or even a miracle of healing.

They need bread.

And it is into this basic necessity of life that Jesus intervenes.

People have followed Jesus because they are fascinated by what he’s doing, but they haven’t thought very much about the implications of walking a long way from home. It is close to Passover and Jesus wants to feed all these people who are beginning to have faith in him. What happens next is a lesson for all of us. Jesus doesn’t magic bread out of thin air, he begins by asking what food there is – however little. And little it is; five loaves and two fishes. A ridiculous amount of food to feed so many. But what is put into the hands of Jesus is given with love;

it is then blessed and broken; it is shared and, by the end, there is far more leftover than there was at the start. Whatever has taken place it was, without doubt, miraculous.

We believe that God is alive and active in the world.

That’s why we come to church – not to find a God who is contained here, but to offer our thanks and worship for the God who is everywhere and especially with those in need. Through the witness of the Church we find that we are the means by which the hungry are fed, and the wounded of the world find that they are not alone. It is into these situations of basic human need that God calls us to be present – even as Christ was with the multitude that was hungry.

St Theresa of Avila described with simplicity, clarity and passion what that means for each of us. She put it like this:

“Christ has no body now but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours.

Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.

Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

Your hands and my hands. The eyes and the feet of Christians everywhere. We never have too little not to offer something. It might seem small to us – but let us offer it into the hands of God, and see what happens when Christ breaks it and blesses it for the healing and salvation of the world.