Year B
John 6:1-21
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Boundless Power of God’s Love
The late Church Father and theologian, Teihard de Chardin wrote: “If we do not believe, the waves engulf us, the winds blow, nourishment fails, sickness lays us low or kills us. If, on the other hand, we believe, the waters are welcoming and sweet, the bread is multiplied, our eyes are open, the dead rise again, the power of God is as it were drawn from him by force and spreads throughout all nature.” The truth of what Teihard de Chardin is saying is expressed so well in this Medieval proverb: Christ lets us sink, but does not let us drown, and that pretty much sums up our lessons for today. There is nothing that the power of God cannot do for us. If we ask according to God’s will to help us, not only will God help us, but God will give us more help than we need.
If we ask God for strength when we are weak, not only will God pick us up from our beds of affliction and pain but also God will pick us up and turn us around. If we ask God to give us more faith so that we might believe in God’s word, not only will God do that but God will also give us grace. God’s grace or love is what has sustained us over the generations and God’s grace will lead us home because God’s love is boundless. God is able to do not only what we ask, according to God’s will, but by the power at work within us, God is able to do more than all that we ask or think.
And God’s challenge to us today in our text’s, where we see this boundless love demonstrated by God’s faithfulness to us, is to be the hands that hold God’s hand as we take this power and love out into the world. How else will others know that God is good if it weren’t for God’s people? In a few minutes, we will promise again when we renew our baptismal vows to proclaim by word and example the Good News and to seek and serve Christ in all persons? Paul, in this section of his letter to the Ephesians today, prays for his Christian converts to live up to their created intent-that is, to display the love of Christ in their actions toward their fellow persons. Paul challenges them, and us today to live the gospel message out because we are loved by God to love.
The issue is here really is letting Christ in to change us. Therefore Paul, in these first three chapters of his letter to the Ephesians, puts forth some of the most helpful, prayerful, and spiritual statements of understanding about God in the New Testament. He notes that God has given us “a spirit of wisdom and of revelation” because without God we would indeed be lost. Yet, this wisdom at work within us, the Spirit of God, is the power of God. There is something mystical and extraordinary about that power. It is the force that will propel us forward: it is able to strengthen us as we go about our daily life. This power at work in us is greater than we are and asking us to do more than all that we ask or think. Through the grace of God, the love and support of God, we are able to accomplish more than we could accomplish alone.
Yet, no matter how much we think we can or cannot do, our thoughts and actions will never measure up, as the psalm tells us today, we will fall short to what God asks or can do. People have done all types of things, but God out of love has put away our sin through Christ. God’s boundless love is forgiving and that is a really good thing for King David today. We might wonder how this story of David’s misuse of power fits into the message of God’s boundless love but it does because we see what can happen to a man as great as David who assumes he is in control and can manage any circumstance and predetermine its outcome. For David this was a tragic failure of his faith in God’s ways, and his reign was never without strife after this.
He models social and political power gone astray which reminds us of what we see played out in our own lives and in the world around us. It is the story of the Fall, much like what happened to Adam and Eve, yet this is also a story about the boundless forgiving nature of God when we fail to live up to what God asks of us. God never abandoned David nor does God abandon us when we fail. And often times, it is when we fail that we turn in faith to Jesus and we come to know God’s hard to understand unfailing love. This hard to understand love has always challenged disciples of Jesus to live up to God’s ways and believe in God’s help in the midst of need and trouble. And God is always present in the midst of demanding difficulties and always provides, of which we see in the miracles of Jesus today.
Author, Philip Yancey, in his book Jesus and Miracles wrote, “Though they did not solve all problems on earth, Jesus’ miracles were a sign of how the world should be, and someday will be.” We might consider this quote upon hearing the two very familiar miracle stories of Jesus today: his feeding of the five thousand and his walking on water. The miracle of the feeding of the multitude marks a turning point in all four gospels. From here on the shape of Jesus’ ministry changes as he becomes less and less the One who heals and feeds and more and more the one who will suffer and die.
Last Sunday we saw how Jesus showed us that human care and compassion makes God’s home in our midst. Now today the theme of God’s boundless love comes through Jesus who is able to supply the needs of a large crowd with minimal resources. This story, as we know, reflects problems that can and do happen today. There are too many people and not enough food. This miracle of Jesus was not done to win the crowds over or give him power. When they wanted to make him king, he fled them. It wasn’t done to curry favor with anyone in authority. His deeds of power eventually caused the authorities to kill him on a cross. These miracles were performed because people were hungry and needed food and to show his saving power to calm the wind-tossed sea in our lives when we trust. This is what we see Jesus do though out the gospels as an example for us.
Given the fact that John wrote his gospel long after the death and resurrection of Jesus when the church was established, it is not surprising that many see these verses as referring to the experience of Holy Communion. The message here for the church that continues to gather at the Lord’s Table is that here has always been and will always be food enough and more to satisfy every hungry heart. “When we eat this bread and drink this cup,” Jesus abides in us and we in him. Christ enters our minds and hearts spiritually just as surely as the physical elements of bread and wine enter our bodies and we become one with Christ and with all who love him which gives us the power of God.
So, Paul is right that God gives us mighty power through Christ. It is a power that brings us closer to God and creates a new relationship of love. David had to learn that the might he had as king was not the essence of his royal role but his faithfulness to the God who had called him. The power of God to make us new through our baptism changes our identity and fills us with love for God and for our neighbor. That’s the promise of the gospel and our hope amide a world that values other kinds of power. We have a power in Christ that can turn the world upside down and we show this power by lovingly ministering to the needs of our fellow human beings and one day everyone will dwell together in harmony! That’s the day when everyone is satisfied in Christ to the glory of God’s boundless love.