Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:13-21
Trinity 7, 3 August 2014, Queen Camel w. West Camel
Have you ever stopped to wonder why, from the five thousand men and innumerable women and children Jesus fed on that Palestinian plain that day, the disciples were only able to extract a meagre five loaves and two fishes? Surely there was more food in the crowd than that. I suggest to you today that the reason why the crowd voluntereed so little to this mutual cause, was that this was a crowd in conflict, that Jesus’ audience were people at odds with each other, not inclined towards helping each other. The miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand was a miracle set in wartime.
I will return to this theme very soon. But now, let us reel forward to the balcony of Buckingham Palace, on the night of 4th August 1914, the night that Britain declared war on Germany. There, King George V and Queen Mary were cheered for three hours by enormous crowds, united in support of those setting off for France.
After the initial bewilderment and incredulity gave way to determination, individuals and organisations threw themselves into supporting the war effort from the outset. Churches joined in this upsurge of enthusiasm: in many parishes, special collections were held for organisations such as the Prince of Wales' National Relief Fund, the Order of St John of Jerusalem, the Red Cross, and other charities. Services of intercession for victory were held in cathedrals and churches, and from these evolved frequent services of intercession in many churches.
Some clergy became carried away by it all. The Revd Thomas Sadgrove, Vicar of Fairstead, [was said to have] "preached a horrifying sermon on the horrible scenes of the battlefield, and exhorted all the young men to join the Army. He had a big Union Jack hung in front of the pulpit, instead of the pulpit-hanging."
But patriotic sermons of this sort seem to have been the exception rather than the rule, and attitudes appear to have been more nuanced. The poet and First World War soldier Geoffrey Dearmer, once said of his father, the Revd Percy Dearmer, Vicar of St Mary's, Primrose Hill: "My father would have been very disappointed if [I and my brother Christopher] hadn't joined up, [though] he took the general view of the tragedy of it all."
Percy Dearmer's attitude replicated the attitude of a great many Anglicans. They were not blind to the destructive character of war, but they believed in the righteousness of their country's cause in the face of German aggression. [1]
What is the role of the church in wartime? How should Christians respond in situations of conflict? Questions faced in the raw by our forebears a century ago; but questions we face ourselves today in a world which doesn’t seem to have learned much from the lessons of the so-called Great War, despite the now general agreement that ‘the war of 1914-1918 was not fought for the lofty motives that each side claimed, and that we all would be better off if it had not been fought at all.’ [2] Or as Harry Patch, the last surviving British veteran of the first World War, once said: "It was not worth even one life.” Winston Churchill later described that war as
... a tale of the torture, mutilation or extinction of millions of men, and of the sacrifice of all that was best and noblest in an entire generation. The crippled world, in which we dwell today is the inheritor of these awful events. [3]
If we stop to reflect, many of us now feel ourselves to be inheritors of that crippled world, our mental environment shell-shocked by the world’s conflicts, from the Somme to the Gaza Strip. But will we people of faith look to Jesus for our response to the conflicts of today? Can we followers of Christ hold to the hope that he, the truth, will set us free? [4]
How do we think of ourselves in wartime? Are there questions we can ask of war beyond the usual one of, ‘Whose side are you on?’ Are there assumptions we make in war beyond the usual assumptions that we have to take a position on one side or another?
Perhaps the key question of all is: how do we think of God in wartime? Do we really need to claim that our position is God’s position too, that God is on our side against the others? And why does God get the blame for the effects of conflicts caused by human rivalry and empire-building? [5]
How do we think of God in wartime? I think our answers to this question impact firmly on how we address all the others.
Here’s a suggestion. That when we remember God in wartime we go back to that image of Jesus, feeding a massive, hungry crowd, on a Palestinian plain. We go back to a miracle.
Why would we do that? Because this miracle took place in wartime. The situation in which these events took place was a situation of military and political conflict. This was in Israel, the place of the chosen people of God, ‘the Israelites’, as Paul wrote, ‘[to whom] belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; [of God] ...’ [6]
Jesus was one of these Israelites, who despite their claims to be the chosen people of God, were at that time a traumatized and determined people, fighting for their identity and their land, a people suffering under the occupation of Rome, a people whose ruler Herod Antipas was focussed only on building his own empire and protecting his own interests, in the process exploiting the poor of the land; this was a people longing for a society where they would be free forever from the rule of tyrants and alien powers. [7]
So the Feeding of the Five Thousand took place, we might say, in Israel in wartime. Jesus had just heard that Herod, protecting his own interests as ever, had beheaded John the Baptist, the prophet who had challenged the king on his personal life, the zealot who had become another in a long line of victims of war. And now Jesus was followed by the crowds, each faction within them no doubt asking, of each other and of Jesus and his followers, ‘Whose side are you on?’,
We can be sure that the crowds wanted Jesus on their side - but they were not united. Some would be the zealot followers of John taking the moral high ground against Herod whilst wanting to bring him down out of revenge, others were the religious leaders and Temple-goers wanting Jesus to cease his kingdom-of-God talk and accept their compromises with Rome, others still were the mothers and children who simply wanted respite from all the fighting, some peace amidst the trauma of their civil war. Within each group would be sub-groups, each with its own agenda to fix society, each unprepared to countenance the views of the others. This would be a crowd squabbling with each other as it came to Jesus to see how he would respond to John the Baptist’s death.
So what did Jesus do in the clamour of this conflict? Matthew tells us that, hearing of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself. Later, when he went ashore, seeing the great crowd waiting for him, he had compassion for them and cured their sick.
And that evening, when his disciples came to him to ask him to send the crowds away so that they could find food to eat, Jesus told the disciples to feed the people. Despite their unwillingness to contribute much, he took the meagre five loaves and two fish which they offered, looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.
What is the role of the church in wartime? How should Christians respond in situations of conflict?
What did Jesus do? Our answers are plentiful and powerful.
Jesus did not take sides. This would have been a quarrelsome crowd but he did not enter into their arguments. He saw them all as one, and had compassion on them all.
And Jesus did not send the crowds away to their respective camps, to turn their backs on the others and find food for themselves. Despite their unwillingness to feed each other, Jesus held them together, this conflicted body of people, he healed their sick and found a way to help them feed each other indiscriminately. That was a miracle in itself.
What Jesus did in wartime was practical - he healed those who were sick; and seeing that the people needed feeding, he helped them feed each other.
And what Jesus did in wartime was symbolic - the bread and the fish precursors of that meal which he inaugurated and which all Christians still celebrate today - that eucharist which unites us with a God who does not take sides but is indiscriminately compassionate, that communion which unites us with each other, whatever side we are on.
This miracle in wartime demonstrated to the crowds that in the kingdom of God all are fed. They may not have volunteered the food to serve each other, but Jesus ensured that each received more than enough that day. And they stayed and ate together.
Today, on the very ground where Jesus stood to perform this miracle, people are taking sides, people are firing rockets and dropping shells, women and children are, as always, in the firing line. As we wonder what to pray for the people of Israel and Palestine, let us hold that picture of the Feeding of the Five Thousand in our hearts. We needn’t ask, whose side are we on; rather we should prayerfully ask for a compassionate heart:
- for the people of Israel, a traumatized and determined people who have suffered so much oppression through the centuries, at the hands of anti-Semitic Christians and others, culminating in the Holocaust, that they are determined to create a lasting homeland where the Jewish people will be safe forever.
- and for the people of Palestine, a desperate and determined people who have lived under varying degrees of occupation, oppression, and invasion, for decades, utterly out-gunned by Israel, sensing the international community is likely to tacitly allow their situation to continue to deteriorate, launching rocket attacks out of protest and desperation. [8]
If we imagine ourselves to be standing where Jesus once stood, before both these sides as a factious and warring crowd,we may begin to see them as one. Each with valid needs; each with much for which we ought to have compassion. Then our prayer might be that God will raise up compassionate ones there, who will respond practically, as Jesus did - go out among the people, healing their wounded, intent on feeding them.
We might pray that God will raise up compassionate ones there, who will respond symbolically, as Jesus did - by finding ways to overcome divisions, to help the people feed each other; by working towards a communion which unites us firmly with each other, despite our differences.
With the aid agencies, the relief workers, the negotiators, the peacemakers, in what we even now call the Holy Land, we might still believe a miracle, and live and work towards it.
Notes
[1] Robert Beaken, Conflict on the home front, Church Times, 25 Jul 2014
[2] Adam Hochschild, First world war – a century on, time to hail the peacemakers, Guardian, 28 July 2014
[3] Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1918, p.293
[4] ‘So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”’ John 8.31-32
[5] Brian D. McLaren, Israel, Gaza, Insanity and Sanity (Part 1)
[6] Romans 9:4-5
[7] See my sermon Mark 6 - Herod the haunted for more on Antipas.
[8] Brian D. McLaren, Israel, Gaza, Sanity, and Insanity (Part 2)
Comments