I wonder how many of us have ever used the phrase...if only....if only I had left half an hour earlier I would not have got stuck in this traffic. If only I had bought two of those we would have plenty for everyone – these are minor and more about convenience than anything else – there are some if onlys which are huge and heart rending – and St. Paul gives us an insight into one of his own if onlys – if only the Jewish people, his people, his people who have all these things which are signs of covenant, would take their place in the new relationship with God which Jesus Christ is offering.
We move then, from this great sweep of hope, in Chapter 8 of Romans, into the reality of life which Paul faces, a world of hostility where the people whom he loves most are turned against him in the most aggressive of ways. And not only that, but where he believes that that turning away is not only potentially injurious to him and to other Christians but much more damaging to the Jewish people themselves on a deep and intrinsic level – they are not who they are, they cannot, or will not, be who they are meant to be.
This being truly who we are is a theme throughout St. Paul's letters – there is, he expresses a fulness of humanity, of being, which we can only find in right relationship with God – there is in a very real sense for him nothing else which matters.
For someone who has given up everything on the basis of a personal encounter this makes a lot of sense. Everything for Paul himself hinges around the moment when he entered into relationship with Jesus Christ. Of all the characters which we encounter in the history of Christianity there can be few who have had a more sudden or violent change of direction in their lives – from persecution to proclamation.
In fact we do not know exactly how long it was between Paul's encounter on the road until he embarked upon his missionary journeys. It is easy to assume that he walked from Damascus got on a boat and started preaching around the Roman Empire immediately. We do know that this was not the case and that, indeed, he went to Africa for a while. But then Paul disappears for at least a few years – he may have made his first journey to Jerusalem as a Christian as soon as two years after his conversion but it seems likely that there was a gap between his conversion – quite soon after the earthly life of Jesus and his beginning to write the Epistles – perhaps in the mid forties AD . It is unlikely that Paul would not have taken some time after he was wrenched by conversion from the heart of Judaism both the adjust himself to his new beliefs and to begin to work through what this would mean and how he would now proceed.
And so this glimpse into Paul's heart is not surprising – he does not suddenly hate the Jews in the way in which he once hated Christians – he has embraced a much more radical sort of inclusion which reaches out, but does not just include, he actually hurts for those who are outside the feast – he is willing, he states, to give up his own place at the table, if only those who he mourns would sit down and eat.
The feeding of the five thousand points us to many things but one of them most certainly is this feeling of radical inclusion. The bread and fish which reaches to such crowd tells us that Jesus is here to feed all. The genesis of the miracle, whether literal, ie that Jesus multiplied the food, or figurative – ie. That Jesus opens peoples hearts to to each other in generosity as they share what they have is in many ways an argument which should, in itself, be seen as part of the inclusivity – Jesus both gives food – and this will become more apparent in the Eucharist – food which never runs out and opens people up to each other in community – Paul writes to both of these things in his letters and his plea is always to invite more people in.
It is always fascinating to me that Paul is often most quoted by parts of the Church universal which have let go of the Eucharist as primary in their community. Paul is most certainly a Eucharistic Christian – there is not sense in which he suggests that we should limit this all – welcoming feast. His assumption is that the church will be sharing in Communion – 1 Corinthians does not present an option – well if you like this bit – it is quite clear that Paul is presenting this as something which has been given to the Church to use and do and participate in. His further teaching on the matter simply underlies this – we are all one body and there should not be division along any lines – and especially social and financial lines at the table.
The Church over the centuries has struggled with the Eucharist. After all we like to appear rational and well thought out and yet at the heart of our proclamation and weekly action we have this thing which we cannot explain. It is hard to begin mission with the Eucharist because although it is a simple enough act, in many ways it does not make any sense to us. To add a spot of controversy – I always rail against the idea that anyone has to understand the Eucharist before they can participate – I would rather say that we have to be ready to accept a gift, to understand something of giving and receiving – because after all these years as a Christian and I suspect until my dying day, I have never and will never understand this great gift of God.
But I do believe it. I believe that just as Jesus fed all those hungry people, Jesus still feeds all these hungry people and opens the door to more.
I have been reading Bill Bryson's book At Home – which is billed as a history of domestication but in fact is more of a history of everything. There is a section on food and vitamins. We all know, I think, that there are things which our body needs from food but this was not immediately evident to our ancestors – as late as the 1920s there were doctors attributing scurvey to mental illness and not to lack of vitamin C. Looking back it seems impossible that no one made the link between how we are fed and how healthy we are – why was that so difficult we ask – but it was – assumptions are assumptions and can be difficult to break when they are engrained in the generations.
Looking at our mission field it is quite different to the one St. Paul faced in many ways. Whilst the ancient world was familiar and expected public expression of religion – our own society does not – communal feasts are now secular and excessive. A good time is often defined by the size of the hangover and generations are growing up into whom are engrained the idea that feeding who we are is done through financial gain and purchasing power.
But still there is an underlying hunger – and that is where we have so much in common with all those who have proclaimed the Gospel before us – humanity hungers for God – that is who we are, who we are meant to be.
It seems appropriate that at the end of two sermon series one on mission and one on Paul that the two come together in the Feeding of the Five Thousand. We are all missionaries who are fed at the mysterious and yet stunningly simple feast. We hold this communion with the living Christ at the heart of our mission and ministry. We follow in the footsteps of Paul in breaking bread and inviting to the feast.
Somehow we have to learn to trust what God has given us as being enough – as being both accessible enough to reach out and large enough to embrace. The Eucharist is all this and more. At the heart of our community and at the heart of our mission sits this gift of God, this place of meeting, greeting, blessing and sending out. But this is also a place of “if only.....” - a plaintiff cry of the people of God for those around us – if only they would feast too, if only all came in, if only we dared and trusted to offer.
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