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Greed, Need, Abundance
Read : 2 Samuel 11: 1-15; Ephesians 3: 14-21; John 6: 1-21 (NIV)
If you were asked to sum up, in just one word, each of the Bible passages above, then 'Greed, Need, Abundance' might just fit the bill.
Let us start with GREED
King David, a man who already has, is it six wives? Six wives! As well as any servant, slave or prostitute that he wishes spots Bathsheba and sets his sights on her and has her brought to him - no choice being given in the matter - today we would call it rape.
David has it all: wealth, status, women - he has no need of anything more in terms of his personal satisfaction. But he sees a woman that he wants and he decides to have her, his motivation is sexual desire. He has all that he needs but he wants more - his greed leads to a tragic train of events for Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. In the fullness of time Bathsheba's lot improves and her innocence is clearly indicated, no blame apportioned to her, David is the guilty party and that is not denied.
It is interesting that David's history has been written in full, a spot of judicious editing and we might never have known of this, frankly deplorable, episode in his life. The reader is made aware that there is a corrupt and dark side to David's nature and greed sums it up. There is maybe a reason for leaving this episode in the story and that has less to do with David's wicked action and more to do with God's grace - I will say more on this at the end of the sermon, so bear with me!
NEED - as the crowd gathers, following Jesus into the wilderness area, he sees and responds to their needs, and later to the needs of his disciples battling on a stormy sea. Going up a mountain Jesus sees the crowds coming towards him and he understands their physical and emotional needs.
They are many in number, they have been following him, we are not told for how long . . . hours? Maybe days? We don't know, but the people are responding with wonder and curiosity to what John refers to as 'the signs' that Jesus has been doing, namely his healing of the sick.
The crowd's needs are complex, it is not just their physical hunger that Jesus seeks to assuage but he knows that they also need someone who will help deliver them from the Roman occupation. Their needs are great and small, shared and individual, political and personal.
Jesus knew that their hunger could be satisfied, that their need for food could be met, and he knew how it might be done, he had a plan. And so it came to pass that one small boy's picnic and his generous act of sharing, was blessed by God and all were provided for, with plenty left over.
Need was met and fulfilled beyond hope or expectation and the crowd saw this sign and recognised that Jesus was like Moses, they understood that he had been sent from God.
No-one realised or understood that Jesus was different from Moses, that he was God's Son; not a prophet but the Messiah, albeit a different one from the one they had been looking for.
The people heard in Jesus' words and saw in his actions that he was someone who could save them from the Romans; here was someone who could be their King. They were longing for a leader, a King, a liberator, a Messiah who would deliver them from their enemies, but Jesus knew that this was not the need that he had come to fulfil and so he withdrew on his own so that he could not be forced into a role that was not his to fulfil.
Later on that same evening, his disciples found themselves in need of a different kind, three or four miles out on the sea of Galilee their small boat was being tossed on the waves of a rough and stormy sea.
Experienced sailors, they would probably have weathered the storm, struggling on at the oars until they reached their destination but Jesus had other ideas, he came to them across the waves, responding to their need to be safely ashore, back on dry land. He also responded to their need to be in his company; he would have known that they had been waiting for him.
We are told that the night had grown dark and Jesus had not yet come to them. And so now he did - no parting of the waves as Moses had done but walking to them across the waves, little wonder they are terrified but we are told that once they knew it was him their priority was to take Jesus into the boat with them and their journey was suddenly over, in the company of Jesus and at their intended destination.
What of ABUNDANCE? Well, we have that marvellous prayer from Paul's letter to the Ephesians - the passage we had read to us seems to start in the middle of something, doesn't it . . . "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father", "For what reason?" we might well ask, but if we look back we are reminded that Paul has been giving thanks that the Gentiles are now also heirs of God's kingdom. That's the reason he bows his knees in prayer, because we are all God's family.
Paul's prayer uses language of lavish, generous abundance; he prays that the young church might be made strong in the Spirit, that Christ might dwell in their hearts, so that they may know the super-abundance of his love for them.
In the hymn, 'O Love, how deep, how broad, how high', the hymn writer, like Paul, has chosen words that try to convey the magnitude of Christ's love. Love that surpasses any quantifiable amount - broader, longer, higher and deeper than we can conceive.
Paul says we cannot ever know how much Christ loves us and he prays that his people might be filled with all the fullness of God, generous, lavish, overflowing, inestimable - too much for us to begin to understand. Perhaps the Christians in Ephesus would have read this letter and started to have an inkling as to God's lavish, abundant grace, perhaps this might have opened their eyes to they the concept of the grace that was poured out upon them through Christ. It is a wonderful prayer one that we should take, use and remember all our days.
So, we have seen greed in action, corrupting and corrosive.
We have seen needs being fulfilled by Jesus with wisdom and understanding of what the real needs are (hunger and salvation) as opposed to the perceived needs as the people might have stated them (the need for an earthly king or political Messiah).
ABUNDANCE is our focus as we end with the assurance of the grace of Christ who dwells in the hearts of his people filling them with such love and fullness of God that it is beyond measure and understanding.
And in that prayer from Paul's epistle we also find a reminder of how God can and does fulfil his works through his people. Listen again to his closing words:
"Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be all glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen."
Perhaps that is why David's biographer left this unsavoury incident in the story, because David did go on to do God's work, in spite of his failure and his human frailty - failure and frailty epitomised by the selfish greed we saw in this episode but God forgave him and worked his purposes out through him, accomplishing far more that could have been imagined.
In spite of our greedy and selfish natures, and with his divine understanding of our TRUE needs God uses people like me and you in ways that we can only begin to imagine. If we let Christ dwell in our hearts, if we are open to the quickening of the Holy Spirit, if we are rooted in faith and grounded in love then God can, and will, accomplish far more than anything we can ask or imagine and for that we give him all glory, today, tomorrow and forever more. Amen.
Amen, indeed!
| Rev Suzie Stark, July 2015 |
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St Cuthbert's Parish Church. 5 Lothian Road. Edinburgh. UK. EH1 2EP |
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