Sermon on 16th Sunday after Trinity - Fr Sam Rossiter

May be given to me to speak in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please do be seated.

When Esther turned six months, Jen and I took her to a baby sign class. From that age and younger she taught us that the ability to understand and express desires and the ability to speak were not the same thing. Esther has just turned one.

In fact, we had her party yesterday and she said her first word just this week. It was dada. But she's known her own mind and increasingly communicated that mind from, I would say, four months or even earlier.

Those of you who know or who have met Esther know that she isn't shy about letting you know her truth and Jen and I are really very proud of her for that. Of course, a baby's interests, at least to begin with, can be quite limited. So we began by learning the sign for her most frequent concern, milk.

Soon, rather than just crying, Esther would use the milk sign to tell us that she was hungry. But as she's grown and her interests have grown with her, the meaning of that sign has widened. It doesn't now just mean milk.

Now it means I want something. Sometimes she is thirsty or hungry but sometimes she needs a change or she wants a cuddle or she wants to play. The same sign is used for all.

Esther has learned that the sign for milk is an expression of a need and that when she uses a sign, we respond. Sometimes she needs to be offered a few different choices before she knows what exactly it is that she wants. Esther actually isn't alone in this.

Adults as well as children can be very good at recognising that we're in need but not actually knowing what that need is or how to remedy it. Like the youngest children, we all feel hunger and thirst, loneliness and pain. But equally like children, we can go about fixing ourselves in the wrong way.

We might feel stressed but we work harder rather than resting. We might feel sad but isolate ourselves rather than seeking out community. This misdiagnosis of need and remedy is what has happened in today's gospel account.

John 6 25 to 35 tells us that the crowds of people surrounded Jesus asking for a miracle but instead of receiving that miracle, they got teaching. They were starving but Jesus knew that they were hungering for more than bread. We can't actually make sense of what we've just heard of this passage without understanding its immediate context before and after.

The immediate preceding context is the feeding of the 5,000. These crowds in our gospel reading are the same who the day before received a miraculous feeding with a couple of bread rolls and some fish. That context informs the request of the crowds in the reading.

Imagine being in that crowd of people who came to hear Jesus speak, probably for the first time, probably out of curiosity rather than anything else, and received a miraculous dinner. Most of the people in that crowd listening to Jesus would have been peasants scratching a subsistence living. For most of them, empty bellies would have been a daily truth, the provision of bread their daily need.

Then that crowd saw bread created in the wilderness from almost nothing with food left over after 5,000 people had eaten. No wonder the next day they chased Jesus down and accosted him. They wanted another meal.

Jesus saw it in their hearts and their faces. You were looking for me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. They weren't seeking Jesus, they were seeking bread.

Jesus spoke those words as a gentle challenge, but the crowds weren't put off. What must we do to perform the works of God? In other words, how do we get that miracle again? It was great. But Jesus wanted them to move deeper.

Jesus never did a miracle for its own sake. It was always to lead the people who saw and received the miracle into a deeper truth, that of who he was, who he is, and the life that he calls us to. And so Jesus responded to this crowd, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

And yet still they pressed him. What sign are you going to give us? Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness. Hint, hint, hint.

They weren't subtle, they wanted more bread. But again, Jesus redirected. It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven, for the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Jesus wasn't there to give them full stomachs, but eternal life.

And eternal life would be found in him, the bread of life. Again, this is where our gospel reading has to be understood in its context, now in the proceeding context. The rest of John 6 contains Jesus's teaching on the Eucharist.

To those same crowds who received the feeding of the 5,000 and then came asking for bread, he said, I am the living bread that comes down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

The bread of life, he was teaching, is the gift and miracle of the Eucharist. Like the feeding of the 5,000, it's a meal, but not one that just nourishes the body, it nourishes the whole person, body, mind, and soul. At the Eucharist, we are invited to encounter Jesus physically, sacramentally.

He puts himself into our hands, his flesh and his blood sacrificed for us. We receive the bread of life so that we will never hunger. Notice how deliberate Jesus was in the manner of his teaching.

He set his teaching about the Eucharist in the context of bread multiplied in the wilderness. These crowds had spent their lives living by bread alone, thinking every day about bread alone. But Jesus came to show them that bread would become the gift by which they would live through God alone.

Harvest Festival, which we're celebrating today, is meant to take us on that same journey. We begin by thanking God for food, the harvest of fields and orchards, the labour of farmers, the fruit of creation, the stuff that's on our plates every day. But we're called then to go further, to see not the provision but the provider.

In Matthew 4, verse 4, when Jesus was tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread after 40 days of fasting, again in the wilderness, he answered with the words of scripture, one does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus was saying that life is not about meeting the body's needs but about honouring the Father with your whole being. So too it is for us.

Matthew 4:4

Harvest Thanksgiving begins with daily bread. You began by bringing your gifts, your daily bread, as a gift to be shared. And next you will come to the altar and receive the bread of life, the Eucharist.

We began with food, we end at the altar, receiving the meal that leads to life. But the message doesn't stop there. The Eucharist, like harvest, isn't just about being filled, it's about being filled in order to be sent.

Every Eucharistic service ends with go in peace, to love and serve the Lord. You're not here just to have a nice time, you're here to get energy, to go out there to do the work of God. The people of God have always understood that being provided for is inextricably linked to being sent out.

So when Israel brought in the harvest, they did so as their religious duty. Harvest wasn't just a practical act, it was obedience to God's law. The Lord had given and his people were commanded to bring in what he had given and give thanks and then use his gifts rightly.

The use of those gifts, they understood, was an act of worship, an act of stewardship. So they were taught in Leviticus, all tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the Lord's. They are holy to the Lord.

That's Leviticus 27 verse 30. The word tithe that begins that reading comes from the Hebrew ma'astah, which literally means tenth part. And our own English word tithe has the same meaning.

Leviticus 27:30

When the Bible was first translated into Old English, tithe, ma'astah, was translated into tegopah, tenth. God's people in Leviticus, in the first century, and in the centuries that followed, translating Hebrew into Old English, understood that when we receive from God, the first tenth of that abundance is to be given back to God in worship. We recognize that all things come from him and of his own do we give him.

And that same pattern holds for us as God's people. At harvest, we recognize that we have been given our daily bread. It's down there.

Though more likely, our daily bread comes from our paycheck or our savings or our pensions more than it does from our fields. Yet we are still called to bring in what we have been given and give it back to God in thanks. We come to the altar and meet and worship the bread of life.

We meet and receive Jesus in his sacramental presence. And then he asks us to return our first fruits as an act of worship. All things come from him, of his own do we give him.

No less now than in ancient of days are God's people expected to materially facilitate worship, outreach, acts of generosity and care for the poor. The same pattern remains. We are fed.

We give thanks. We give back. And what is particularly fair about this is that people are asked to give only what they have.

A tenth of a very small amount is an even smaller amount. A tenth of a very large amount is quite large. If you don't have much, then you're invited to give only what you have.

The same is true in the church. If you don't have something to give, particularly if you don't have finances to give, you do always have something. Can you offer prayer? Can you offer time? Can you offer your gifts? Can you offer your kindness? Can you offer your generosity to strangers? Every time someone stands up and says, we need help keeping the church open, or we need help running a messy church, or we need someone to help and run the bar for one of our events.

And you put your hand up and say, yes, I can. Yes, I can bake a cake. Yes, I can turn up and help.

That is tithe too. Just as much as your stewardship and your giving. What we want you to understand is, all of it is worship.

You do not give in order to get. You get in order to give. And so, this harvest, may we go out with this message.

Acknowledge your daily bread. Give thanks to God. Come to the altar.

Receive the bread of life. And then, prayerfully consider, what are the first fruits you can honestly give? Is it time? Is it kindness? Is it money? Because all of us have something to give. And as God's people, we can work together to use your gifts to the glory of God, and to the benefit of his people in Barnet.

Amen.