Trinity 9

Sermon preached by the Revd Anna Matthews

In the Jerusalem temple, the Holy of Holies is said to have contained three things: the tablets of the Law, Aaron’s rod, which had miraculously budded as a sign of his priesthood, and a pot holding the last of the manna that had sustained the Israelites in the wilderness. With the destruction of the temple in the sixth century BC, these treasures were lost but Israel’s hope endured, and there arose the belief that in the messianic age God would once again give his people bread from heaven.

We heard the story of the manna in the wilderness as our Old Testament reading. Six weeks since the waters had parted and the people had seen God act to fulfil his promise of deliverance, and memories are fading. Miriam’s song, sung in jubilant, incredulous praise from the far side of the sea, already seems to belong to a different time. Now is the time of doubt, of aching feet and rumbling bellies, of fear for the future that crowds out remembrance of the past. Caught up in the drama of the Passover night, their midnight escape with nothing but their kneading bowls on their backs had seemed a bold act of faith. In the harsh light of the desert, trust in God seems merely foolish.

Tired and hungry in this endless and inhospitable wilderness, the people turn to nostalgia and to grumbling. It was better in Egypt. If only we could set the clock back. Our leaders have led us astray, are taking us in the wrong direction, don’t know what they’re doing. This is not what we thought obeying God would mean. Where’s the promised land with its rivers of milk and honey? We’re better off turning back, returning to the familiar. We must save ourselves.

So God gives them manna. Enough for each person, enough for each day – but no more. Only on Fridays are they allowed to collect a double portion, to last them through the sabbath. It is daily bread: you can’t have more of it if you have bigger containers or are more mobile and active than others, or by working harder or saving it up. Through it the people learn that the God who led them out of slavery will not abandon them to die in the wilderness, but will sustain them, providing what they need so that they come to trust that he is their God, and they are his people.

All this would be fresh in the minds of the crowd that follows Jesus: it’s Passover time, the annual commemoration of God’s saving acts. So it’s natural that when Jesus starts talking about the miraculous feeding that they’ve just witnessed they think of Moses, and the manna from heaven. They clamour around Jesus both because he can feed them with physical bread, and because in him they wonder if the promised Messiah has finally come.

They’re used to working for their bread. So what, they want to know, do they have to do to get the bread Jesus is talking about? ‘Believe in him whom God has sent’, says Jesus. The crowd are hungry for bread, but Jesus is both Giver and Gift: the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And they can’t labour for that in the same way that they put in a hard day’s work for the bread for their tables. There isn’t a list of commandments to observe so you can point to your way of life and say ‘yes, I’ve kept them’. You can do all the good works in the world but the bread Jesus is talking about can’t be earned. It can only be given, and received as the gift it is. When Jesus says, ‘Believe in him whom God has sent’ what he means is ‘trust me’.

Like the Israelites in the wilderness, Jesus asks the crowd to trust that God will provide what they need for life. Not just for subsistence, but for the fullness of life for which they were made. It’s an invitation to trust not only that Jesus is who he says he is – the only Son of the Father, the Word made flesh – but that his purposes towards the people, towards the whole world, are trustworthy and good.

And it may be that like the crowd, you’re thinking ‘that’s all very well, but how do I do that?’ You can’t will yourself into a position of trusting Jesus: we don’t get there by striving, for trust itself is a gift. If we want it, we can ask for it: pray for the grace of trust, of recognising how and where God is present in your life and the world around you. And don’t worry that it doesn’t happen all at once. If you think about how you go about trusting people, I suspect you don’t go all in at the first encounter. I learn to trust gradually: I give a bit, and see how someone reacts, and if they seem trustworthy I might give a bit more, and a bit more. And I’m more inclined to trust people that other people I trust believe to be trustworthy, though I’ll still want to make up my own mind.

I’ve found learning to trust God quite like that. I’m helped by the testimony of others – from the scriptures, from the tradition of the church, from friends whom I trust who help me to believe in him whom God has sent. I did quite a lot of hiding from God when I first decided Christianity was something I wanted to take seriously. A bit like the crowd who want to know what they have to do, I got very busy learning about God, and trying to show God I was a good person and worthy of his love. But that didn’t seem to get me very far. God didn’t seem very moved by my efforts to make myself worthy or prove I was good. In fact, he seemed more interested in the stuff I was hiding – all the things I adduced as evidence that I was, in fact, not good, not worth it. And bit by bit, as I let God into the sin, the brokenness, the fears, the mess, I learnt to trust what God tells us in Jesus: that he came to bind up the broken, to proclaim release to the captives, to forgive sinners, and to restore us to life with him. I’m still learning, but trust begets trust, and now I have tasted the life that Jesus gives, I want more.

What might it mean for you to believe in him whom God has sent, to trust Jesus? Like the Israelites in the wilderness who had to trust God for their daily bread, trust is a daily habit. Where, or with what, in your life is God asking you to try to trust him? Where might he be asking you to open yourself up to the forgiveness, the healing, the freedom, the life he wants to give you? If you’re not sure, ask him to show you, and to help you trust. And keep yourself open to the places he has promised to be, not because he is only found there but because he is trustworthy and has promised to be there: in the scriptures, in the sacraments, in prayer. For as we learn to trust God for the daily bread that is Jesus, so we come to make the crowd’s plea our own: ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’