Reflection for 28th July 2024The Ninth Sunday After Trinity2 Kings 4.42-44, Ephesians 3.14-21, John 6.1-21God will provide! I wonder if you have heard this phrase recently, or as rarely as I do. I remember many years ago visiting elderly sisters in Birmingham. One was bedridden and over 100, while the other one was a little younger. As I sat near her bed, sipping tea, I took a leisurely look around the sitting room. I gazed at all the old black-and-white photos from a bygone era, as well as all the displayed China. Everything was neat and tidy, as you would expect. The only exception was the peeling wallpaper on the walls. Of course, I didn’t say anything about it at the time. However, one of their family members later said the sisters didn’t have much money and firmly believed in God’s providence for everything. Although I admired the sister’s faith, I couldn’t help feeling their idea of God was a little, well, off. We know our God is generous, but He does not thoughtlessly provide everything without us working in partnership with Him.We see God's generosity in the readings from 2 Kings and John, where the needs of the people are more than met. Both passages describe abundant feeding of the crowds from meagre resources. Elisha’s ministry, spoken of in 2 Kings, foreshadows the compassionate ministry of Jesus as he takes the initiative to feed the hungry in the face of impossibility. Gehazi, his worried servant, sees the needs of the 100 people as too great to meet with their limited resources of twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain. In feeding the crowd, we see more evidence of God's character, who is in the business of taking what seems inadequate and multiplying it with excess.After reading this in 2 Kings, we can see the similarities with the story of Jesus’ feeding the 5000 in John’s Gospel. Once more, we witness the unfathomable multiplication of God's generosity through the boy's meagre food. Similar to Elisha's servant, the disciples find themselves at a loss for action when confronted with an improbable situation. They want to send people away without doing anything. Andrew, who has forged friendships with some of the people, escorts the hungry boy to Jesus. This is something we can relate to, as there are often times in our lives when we have no idea what to do, but the starting point is always to bring what is there to the attention of Jesus. Although we can't predict what he'll do with it, we expect something new and creative.The little details John includes in his book invite deeper reading of the text than just the surface level. One such detail is the statement of Jesus' sermon on the mount, which occurs during Passover. This draws our attention to the time when God liberated the children of Israel from Egypt, and during their wilderness wanderings, God fed them with manna from heaven. With this understanding, we can now see why the crowd started to cry out, ‘This is indeed the prophet’! They think Jesus is ‘the prophet akin to Moses’ predicted in Deuteronomy 18, which spoke of the coming of a great leader who would do for the people what Moses did, leading them from slavery to freedom. Jesus flees from the crowd upon realising they had quickly jumped from prophet to Messiah, or, in other words, to king, because of their inadequate understanding of who Jesus is. What Jesus does next is an attempt to move them (and us) towards a deeper, truer understanding that He is more than just an ordinary King.Jesus’ walking on water is a supernatural event. The disciples stare in fear and disbelief as they witness the seemingly impossible. How could a man who left praying on the mountain some time ago suddenly be so close to a lake measuring 12 miles long and 7 miles wide? We also need to remember that the Jews were not seafaring people, and that the sea was associated with chaos, evil, and untameable forces within the natural or spiritual world. The disciples are puzzled and afraid, for they see Jesus walking easily and calmly over the much-feared water. Jesus isn't just creating a supernatural event for the sake of it, but to reveal the strange glory of the Word-made flesh shining through the natural world. His walking on water connects with the key moment in Israel's history, when God parted the waves of the Red Sea during the Exodus. Moses led the Jews into political liberation, marking the beginning of their freedom. Jesus, on the other hand, would give them something far greater and deeper. He would go on to offer his life for them on the cross, bringing them freedom from sin and a true relationship with God. These readings contain much to take away. Once again, we see that God’s providence deals with the fulfilment of His plan from the Old Testament through the Gospels. God’s generosity is abundant for His children. Jesus is more than just any ordinary prophet or even a feel-good self-help guru; he is our King, who offers freedom beyond imagination. Also, we have explored how God invites us to work with Him. He invites us to actively offer the little we have, for He will give us the resources we need because God chooses to work through and with us. Knowing this deepens our faith and underscores the need for us, as God’s people, to always respond compassionately to the needs of others, relying on God’s sovereignty to provide the necessary resources in His own way. Like Paul said in Ephesians, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”. Blessings and prayers, Emma
THE FLYFORDS COFFEE MORNINGIs on the Second Thursday of each month for all members of the community. We look forward to seeing you Anytime between 10am - 12.30pm at the FLYFORDS HALL, GRAFTON FLYFORD. An opportunity for a chat, a cuppa and cake with friends, in a safe environment. Plenty of room for parking and easy access to the hall. Simply come along on the day.Bring a friend - we look forward to seeing you!