Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent
“For he himself knew what he would do.”
This powerful Gospel story speaks profoundly to the nature of the Christian pilgrimage of faith. We are, to be sure, in the wilderness of modernity, but wilderness itself is such a significant image about sin and alienation. It is in the wilderness of our lives and experiences that we may learn the greater goodness of God. In the wilderness of our own insufficiency and incompleteness, we learn about God’s Providence and his provision for us.
God, and God alone, makes something out of nothing. God, and God alone, makes something great and wonderful out of such meagre provisions as “five barley-loaves, and two small fishes.” As Andrew says to Jesus, “what are they among so many?” We confront the radical insufficiency of our humanity considered in itself. On the one hand, this challenges the hubris and presumption of our technocratic culture in the idea that we can endlessly manipulate and dominate nature for ourselves without consequences for either ourselves or nature; on the other hand, this confirms our deepest uncertainties and fears precisely about our humanity and our domination of the world and ourselves which leads to a kind of paralyzing pessimism, to our dread and despair. This powerful story counters both our presumption and our despair.
In a way, this is the point of the story in John’s account of the miraculous feeding of the multitude in the wilderness, a Gospel story which along with the Epistle gives rise to the wonderful ways in which this Sunday is known as Mothering Sunday, Refreshment Sunday, and Laetare Sunday, the latter indicating the idea of rejoicing drawn from the introit anthem marking the mid-point of Lent which was Thursday past. None of these designations make much sense apart from these readings. It is also underscores the important point about rejoicing even in the midst of suffering which has been an emphasis in our Lenten Programme on The Comfortable Words and the Literature of Consolation.
Jesus asks Philip about the great company “whence shall we buy bread that these may eat? (And this he said to prove him”, John suggests, adding “for he himself knew what he would do.)” John’s parenthetical remark opens us out to the radical meaning of God in Christ and Christ in us. It is about what he wants for us.
