4th Sunday of Lent 30 March 2014 Sermon

4th Sunday of Lent 30.3.14 Higher things

Our Lord feeds the crowd with ordinary bread by way of preparation for the much greater gift of Heavenly bread, His own flesh.

God seeks to bless us beyond what we expect or even want.

We might be quite happy just to have bread to eat, good health, security, entertainment etc.

We don't expect much happiness insofar as we are used to life being a series of disappointments. Our happiness is fragile and fleeting. There are many happy moments but it is a bumpy ride.

We are promised that eventually we will have unlimited joy. Joy with no snags. Nothing goes wrong in heaven. You don't so much as stub your toe. No pain, no fear, no embarrassment, no nervousness, etc No anxiety that it is all going to end.

It is very hard to imagine a place where everything goes well all the time. But there is such a place and we expect to go there.

But the delight of Heaven is not just earthly delights multiplied and extended forever. The delight of Heaven is being immersed in union with Almighty God, the source of all blessing.

It is a completely different kind of delight, higher and better than we know. We may not be able to imagine it, or even want it, yet it is what we yearn for. This is what all the saints tell us, and it makes sense that the One who made all the things we delight in on earth would be greater than the things He has made. The Creator must be greater than the Created.

Yet with all this we may still be hankering just for earthly bread. I am happy to think of heaven but all I want for now is my lunch! And to be able to cope from one day to the next.

Not much vision here, nor much faith, hope, gratitude, zeal to evangelise. Just a survival mentality. Whereas Our Lord is challenging us to something much deeper and bigger.

He wants us to think less about our earthly needs and take a more spiritual view of things. Less worried about what we eat and wear and how we look; and more worried about getting our souls right. And as far as we can help, the souls of our neighbours. To seek higher things, like praising God, and helping His plans to come into effect.

If we give Him our full trust He will sort out the practical details. If we seek first His kingdom all other things we need will be given to us besides.

We sell God short if we reduce His influence on our lives to simply a provider of our needs, a solver of our problems.

It must not be that we set the agenda and ask Him to make it happen. No, it has to be His agenda, and we ask to help make that happen.

Our vocation in life is set by Him. Whatever decisions we make we refer to Him. Whatever He gives us or withholds from us; whatever He does or does not do – we will accept, and gratefully.

All this and more the miracle of the Loaves is saying to us, as is the epistle which speaks of the freedom that comes to us through the new covenant. We are set free from looking too low for our happiness; from the limits of this life only, instead soaring aloft towards the limitless joy of Heaven.

Do we dare to hope for more than a good lunch? Yes, some would say: we want a good lunch every day for the next fifty years. No, still not enough. We are looking for a happiness that is so great we cannot describe it. We don't have to be able to describe it to want it. We just let the Lord take us there.