Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity – evening
Sunday 15th September 2019
Trininty 13 – Proper 19 – evening
Isa. 60
John 6. 51-69
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
There is something quite beautiful about the image of peoples and nations being gathered together.
One of the most distressing outcomes of all the political uncertainty that we are living through is that many individuals who have been settled in and contributing to this country for many years, have suddenly begun to question their place among us. Those born in another land, who nevertheless have made their home here with us – often because they saw Britain as a land of freedom and acceptance, have begun to feel that they are ‘other’; they are no longer welcome. Old certainties are being questioned and it is an upsetting feeling.
And it doesn’t help when we try to make it better – well of course, we didn’t mean you! But that is not what it feels like for them – especially when the wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly and without a shred of compassion – or even, sometimes, common sense.
So the whole idea of ‘gathering’ that we hear in the passage from Isaiah this evening is one that can bring comfort in a world where people are more and more dispersed and atomized. More of us are living alone – probably than at any time in history. Families are scattered across the globe in many cases, community is fractured, nations fragment. Is it possible then to build a new kind of community, a new peaceable kingdom in which people are bound together and gathered together? Does the Church have anything to contribute to this idea?
These days significant places of human gathering might include football stadium, concert venues or protest marches, but the church is still a place where communities gather – particularly in times of joy and of sorrow, day by day and week by week to worship almighty God. The universal Church – at it’s best – is still a place that gathers together people of all nations, people of all backgrounds, high and low, rich and poor, one with another.
The prophet Isaiah gives us a vision of the ingathering of the dispersed. People and nations shall come from far away; they will be drawn together by the light of the people of Israel (a light ‘to illumine the gentiles’ as we have just sung), and they will find their home in a new and generous city. We can hear echoes of Advent and Epiphany as sons and daughters come from afar, and kings bear gifts of gold and frankincense to lay at the feet of the Holy One of Israel.
We are presented with a vision – post Brexit if you will! – of human flourishing in a gathered community.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus reminds us that the most natural way for people to come together is over a shared meal. To eat together with others is a fundamental way of gathering, of becoming one body. We share food together to celebrate, to commiserate, to build community, to show affection and share love. It is no surprise therefore that the Church’s life is centred on a shared meal, in which bread is taken, blessed, broken and shared. Christ himself enters into this meal. He says, ‘I am the living bread’. Christ becomes the food that gathers all people together from the ends of the earth. And he commands his disciples to share a meal in remembrance of him and in anticipation of a new kind of kingdom, a new community, a new common – wealth. Through the simple act of eating and drinking, this meal has the power to draw all things together – to reconcile those of opposing views, to find a way to move forward as one.
There is an ancient prayer that puts this rather nicely – one I sometimes use on a Sunday morning,
As the grain once scattered in the fields
and the grapes once dispersed on the hillside
are now reunited on this table in bread and wine,
so, Lord, may your whole Church soon be gathered together
from the corners of the earth,
into your kingdom.
That is the vision we are all hoping and longing for – Leavers and Remainers and those thoroughly sick and tired of the whole unending chaos! The ingathering of the dispersed into a generous and loving community where all are welcome, all are valued, all are loved.
Amen.