SERMON PREACHED BY FR NEVILLE CONNELL

LENT 4 SAN DIEGO 8.00 a.m., 10.00 a.m. 26^th MARCH 2006

Years ago, a report was presented to the Anglican Consultative Council, meeting in Dublin. The Chairman then was Abp Michael Ramsey, of Canterbury, of revered memory. He made one particular comment on the report, saying that the chief problem with the report was that nowhere did it say that the chief goal of the Christian was Heaven.

During the season of Lent, emphasis is laid upon what we might call spiritual exercises, fasting, almsgiving, additional worship, study, for instance. There is a purpose to this, of course – it is not simply a course in personal flagellation. In the first place, Lenten discipline is practiced that we might be better prepared spiritually for the celebration of Holy Week – Palm Sunday and what we call the Three Holy Days, Maundy Thursday,

Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, and their culmination in the joy of Easter Day itself.

Up until Easter, through the celebrations of the Liturgy, we rehearse the landmarks of the central days of our faith as Christians. Easter is the culmination, as I have said, but it much more than that, because it is the celebration of new life, not just here on earth, but also of our hope for the fullness of this new life in Heaven – our ultimate hope, as Abp Ramsey pointed out.

We need to keep our minds on this earth, and looking to Heaven during our Lenten exercises, and our Holy Week and Easter worship. These are annual celebrations, because being human, we need the revitalizing which they bring, so that gradually we grow in faith, and in our exploration of the life of Heaven.

The Hebrew people of the Old Testament are an example for us, in their long journey to a deeper understanding of God’s mission and call for them. He was calling them above all to be a holy people. This meant a very demanding transition for them, as they, very slowly,

moved from concern to be a political entity to be a religious community called to be a holy people.

This was not easy. Their political significance declined so much that they were invaded and a large proportion of the people were taken away into exile. This was the beginning of their transformation, like a major wake-up call. In Christian terms, we could say that it was moment of dying and rising for them. Their focus was now on the things of God. Even in our Gospel Reading, they were still learning, however, when we read, ”Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king”. They were still yearning for a political leader.

So are our lives a journey through the temptations and distractions of life to be a holy people, looking to the life of Heaven. But as Jesus promised in St John’s Gospel, we are not left without comfort. In our Second Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians,(2:4-10),St Paul reminds us, ”God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ(by grace you have been saved),and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

In one sense we are already with Jesus in Heaven, in that he has taken our humanity into Heaven; this is a foretaste of what is to come. But meanwhile we persevere here on our journey. The greatest comfort we have for this journey is the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist, our food for our journey.

Today’s Gospel Reading,(St John 6:4-15),has, of course, presented endless problems for common-sense Christians, who are all too well aware of the difficulties the miracles,

whether of feeding or healing, present to the man or woman on the San Diego trolley. But we will not get very far if we seek a rational interpretation.

The feeding of the five thousand is a sign of God’s unending love for his people. Jesus fed those people, and there was much left over. Just as the Lord fed the people in the wilderness with the manna from Heaven, so the Lord will feed us with the bread of ever-

lasting life in our true home, Heaven.

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The Readings:2 Chronicles 36:14-23;Ephesians 2:4-10;St John 6:4-15