This sermon was preached on the 21th of July 2024, the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, in the Anglican Parish of Kalamunda-Lesmurdie
Texts:
Imagine yourself as a villager, living in Galilee in the first century, the time of the earthly ministry of Jesus. You and your family get by… but only just. You have just enough food, just enough money … just enough to manage, as long as nothing goes wrong.
Things were never easy, but there was a time when they weren’t so hard. The demands of the tax collectors keep growing and growing. You’ve heard tell of colossal buildings in the Roman style, built in the new city of Caesarea, and in the old city of Jerusalem. Buildings that you will never see, paid for by the your toil, and the toil of your neighbours.
A couple of years ago, the rain didn’t come, and the crops failed. The tax collectors still took, and took, and took, even as some in the village, people you knew and loved, died.
You can find no way out of this. You are trapped.
And then… something changes. You hear a new name, the name of a person you have never met. And as you hear that name, something shifts: the light of the sun seems to take on a golden hue, the world seems brighter, kinder, more vibrant.
You feel a gentle breeze on your cheek, and smell the fragrance of rose blossoms.
You tell your neighbours, you tell your friends. The name spreads. And suddenly you find yourself walking off into the wilderness, walking out to find the person who bears this name, the person who bears the name… Jesus.
You have taken no cloak, no bread, no money… you simply walk out into the wilderness, just as you are. And then you realise you are not alone. On your left, your neighbour walks with you. They are your friend, and you are glad to see them.
Then you look to your right, and you see the tax collector. A man who has taken, and taken, and taken without relent… a man of whom thought you could never say anything kind. This man, too, walks with you out into the wilderness. And you wonder… because you find that you are glad, truly glad, deep within your heart, to see him walking with you.
In today’s Gospel we hear of a miracle: a miracle that is often overlooked, overshadowed by others. The miracle of the exodus of hope. All around Galilee, ordinary people who suffered, exploited and oppressed by Herod and the Roman Empire, walked out into the wilderness, hoping to meet Jesus.
God called those people out into the wild, out into the desert, out away from oppression and violence. It was another Exodus, another escape from Egypt, another escape from bondage. Those people followed the name of Jesus to a deserted place, beside the sea, and a boat came ashore.
And Jesus saw them, saw that they had come like sheep without a shepherd, and loved them for that. And so, even though he had sought a time of rest, a time of solace, he instead got out of the boat, went among them, and taught many things.
Ours is an embodied faith. And faith is just what those people embodied when they walked out of their villages, taking no provision, no money, no food. They dared to follow the call of the Holy Name of Jesus, wherever it led them.
And by their daring, they embraced hope: the hope of a new way to be, the hope for an escape from bondage, the hope that the world could and would be transformed. Meeting Jesus, those people around him, and came to know him… they came into relationship with him. And so they came into a new relationship with God, and with one another.
Even those who had been great sinners, even those who had exploited their neighbours, even that tax collector… even these people were transformed. And even the deepest enmities between the people of that crowd, feuds which had been played out in cycle after cycle of violence and retribution, came to an end. People were reconciled, people were healed.
God came into the world and brought us hope: and on that day, people in their thousands dared to embrace that hope.
We need hope too. And we have hope. We are the inheritors of the hope of the Gospel. We are the inheritors of the very hope that we feel in our own hearts, when we hear the Holy Name of Jesus.
And we too, this very day, have embodied this story. With our own bodies, we have told this story once more. Why else have we come here, but because of hope?
Why else have we come here but for the hope of a world transformed? The hope that we might embrace the love that God offers to us… that we might embrace that love, and return it, blessing God, and blessing our neighbours.
Those people in their thousands went out into the wilderness without provision, without thought… and without fear. And they were met with the hospitality of God, the hospitality of God who had entered into the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
If we read on a little in our Bibles, we hear that the teaching of Jesus was followed by a great meal, the feeding of thousands of people from five loaves, and two fish. Jesus took those fish, and those loaves, looked to heaven, blessed and broke them, and then all ate and were satisfied.
We, too, are about to eat at the Lord’s table. We, too, are about to be satisfied through the hospitality of God, gathered alongside our kin in Christ. This is our own response to God, our own act of hope, our own exodus. With our own bodies, we accept the hospitality of God, and are renewed and transformed.
We do all of this in the hope and the trust that, in the words of Julian of Norwich, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Later today, when we leave this place, we will bear the hope we have met in this place, through Word and Sacrament, out with us.
Carry that hope with you.
Share that hope, a hope that the world most profoundly needs.
Share the hope that finds its source in Jesus Christ, our saviour.
Share that Holy Name.