I wonder, what is it that gives you life?
What makes you come alive, be filled with joy and thanksgiving, your soul to sing? When was the last time you felt like that? When you looked about you with new eyes, seeing the world as if for the first time? Like everything is new born, fresh, clean and beautiful!
The poet Shelley famously wrote ‘Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ And it’s true – we don’t often feel this kind of unfettered joy – perhaps we did more as a child, but the wearisome world weighs us down and our many responsibilities and cares can overwhelm us. Its one of the reasons why of course that Jesus says unless you become a little child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Seeing the world through the eyes of a child, as another poet Thomas Traherne describes so wonderfully brings us back to that amazement, wonder and joy that comes so easily to children but which we have forgotten.
Traherne writes…
‘You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars.’
In these August Sundays, we hear several passages of John’s Gospel where Jesus talks of himself as the bread of life, the living bread, the bread that comes down from heaven and gives us eternal life. Our minds are constantly taken back to the feeding of the 5000 – a demonstration of Jesus’s power, God’s overwhelming abundance of provision and the incredible generosity of a child with which this feeding miracle was made possible.
And the point of all this is to set us free from our own self-centered anxiety. Will we get all we need?
Yes we will when God’s around!
Yesterday we had the joy of a wedding with Elysha & Chris surrounded by their family and friends and celebrating their marriage, and God’s love which has brought them together and brought them to that day.
It is God’s love that is at the heart of all human relationships and there is no limit then to the quantity of love. Will we get all we need? Yes, always, with God! And freed from that anxiety we can live in love with our dearest ones and with everyone else too.
In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul is explaining how as Christians we should be living in love with one another. He is very clear that those among the community at Ephesus who are not being truthful and are slandering one another are destabilizing the church family. They must not let evil talk come out of their mouths – rather they should speak to one another in ways that build one another up, not pull them down! Just imagine if we could all speak to one another like this!
I remember when struggling to deal with wayward children at times as they were growing up, being given advice about how important it is to focus on the good behaviour and praise those to the skies, rather than always picking them up on what they did wrong. If we constantly focus on what is bad, then we begin to give the idea that when we behave badly, we get lots of attention, whereas, if we behave well, it is not noticed!
Hard-wired as we are to respond to threat and danger, we can so often make the mistake of focusing only on the negative and missing the glorious things that God is doing among us! These last two weeks have been really concerning ones in our cities and communities, including here in Peterborough. Terrible things have been said and evil and mayhem abounds in confusion and misinformation – loose talk, as they used to say costs lives.
In our global internet, AI age – its impossible to keep a lid on all this, and we can lose ourselves in all this appalling negativity and viciousness. But we can reframe the narrative, we can choose to think and speak differently. There’s wrong done on all sides of course – but it serves no purpose to focus on that and weaponize it. What we are called to do is deliberately choose the loving response, the open mind and the forgiving heart. We are to be ‘imitators of God’ who does not take sides – is for everyone and loves everyone.
This is the new community to which we are called when we become followers of Jesus. The way we behave with each other demonstrates how we are children of God, one family under heaven. Living this way is not about always agreeing with each other – Jesus gives up his life for everyone, not just those who were his
closest friends and followers. He was surrounded by people who didn’t get him, willfully misunderstood or resisted him, and yet again and again he tries to explain, to demonstrate that he is showing them the love of God the Father, the one who made us all in his image, that surely we should want to know and respond to? Why would we choose to turn our backs on joy?
Over these last two weeks, we have seen the worst and best of humanity. The destruction caused by lies, prejudice, violence and division. And the glorious achievements of our Olympians – people of all races and nations, all ages and backgrounds, competing as equals and celebrating one another’s achievements. We might well ask, why can’t we live together in this way more? Why do we, unique as a species, seek to destroy one another and cause so much pain.
There is no easy answer to this. But that is precisely why Jesus comes to take on our humanity, to give his own body, so that even as we choose again and again the wrong way to go – he meets us there – even in our death that we bring on ourselves – so that he can save us from ourselves and bring us the life that is his gift. Jesus – the bread of life, the living bread – the bread of heaven that gives us eternal life.
I wonder, what it is that gives you life – what makes you come alive, what causes your soul to sing and to soar?
Service: Reverend Michelle Dalliston 11th August 2024. (St John The Baptist Church Peterborough UK)
Readings: 1 Kings 19.4-8; Psalm 34.1-8; Ephesians 4.25-5.2; John 6.35, 41-51