A Homily for Refreshment Sunday
Come unto me, all ye who travail and are heavy-laden,
and I will refresh you. --S. Matt. 11:28
We have come to the mid-point of our Lenten exercises.
And the Church has always thought that we need a bit of cheering up just
about now. So we have flowers in the sanctuary; and the purple vestments
have given way, for just this one Sunday, to these “rose”-coloured vestments.
Today is Mothering Sunday—English Mothers’ Day—a day of
family visits and simnel cakes, suggested a bit by the Epistle lesson about
those two Old Testament mothers, Sarah and Hagar, who represent our two mothers,
the Jerusalem that is and the heavenly Jerusalem that is to come.
Another name for today is Refreshment Sunday, and the
reference is not to the simnel cakes, but to the Gospel story of the feeding
of the five thousand. It was a miracle, there is no doubt about that,
to feed five thousand men plus all the women and children with five barley
loaves and two small fishes; and it is all the more a miracle because we
do not know exactly how it was done.
As you know, the Scripture readings at Morning Prayer
were chosen (way back in 1943) to complement the Scriptures read at the Eucharist.
For those of you who missed Morning Prayer today, you should know that the
Scriptures read were from the Old Testament book called “Exodus” and from
the Gospel according to Saint John. Each of these lessons has something
in common with the Gospel lesson of the feeding of the multitude, and each
provides a kind of commentary on the Gospel lesson.
In the Old Testament lesson, the children of Israel, having
been spared from the last plague visited by God on the Egyptians, and having
fled through the Red Sea into the wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula, began
to get hungry. They murmerred against God and against Moses.
Then said the LORD unto Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for
you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that
I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. . . .” [A]nd
in the morning, when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face
of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost
on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one
to another, “It is manna: for they wist not what it was.” And Moses
said unto them, “This is the bread which the LORD hath given you to eat.”
The Lord God had compassion on the children of Israel.
He knew what they needed and wanted, and he provided for them—although not
perhaps just as they desired or expected. He told Moses that he would
rain bread from heaven; but what the people actually found was white and
round and very small, and when they saw it they said, “What is it?”
(Or, in Hebrew, manna?)
But the manna, the bread from heaven, was a lesson to
and a test for the Hebrews, and it was a foreshadowing of things to come.
It was a lesson, because (except on the Sabbath) the manna lasted only one
day; no matter how much was gathered, it provided nourishment for that day
only. And so the Hebrews were taught to trust in God each day for their
daily bread. It was a test, because God commanded that they collect
only enough each day to fill their need for that day, and so God would see
whether the people would obey his commandment or not.
It was a foreshadowing, because the Hebrews did all eat
the same spiritual meat and drink the same spiritual drink; for they ate
and drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.
These things were our examples. Jesus himself showed how the miraculous
feeding of the children of Israel in the wilderness was the type for himself.
In the New Testament lesson at Morning Prayer, some of
the disciples, who had been following Jesus as he traveled on his earthly
ministry, became impatient. They wanted to see a sign to let them know
that they had chosen the right way.
They said therefore unto him, “What sign showest thou then, that we may see,
and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in
the desert; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Then Jesus said unto them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you
not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from
heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and
giveth life unto the world.” Then said they unto him, “Lord, evermore
give us this bread.” And Jesus said unto them, “I am the bread of life:
he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst.”
The disciples asked Jesus to give them a sign equivalent
to God’s provision of manna to their ancestors in the wilderness. Could
Jesus have given them such a sign? Of course he could. Look what
he did for the multitude in today’s Gospel lesson. What the disciples
ask is not very different from what Satan asked at Jesus’s temptation in
the wilderness. “If you are the son of God, command these stones to
become bread.” The point is, that the miracle Jesus wrought in today’s
Gospel lesson was done not as some kind of magic trick to prove a point;
it was a response to the need of the people.
Jesus gave thanks, and broke the bread and the disciples
distributed it to the multitude, and when they were satisfied, there was
more bread left over than there had been when they began. At this,
Jesus told his disciples to “gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing
be lost.” In the passage from later in Saint John’s Gospel, today’s
Morning Prayer lesson, Jesus tells his disciples: “this is the Father's
will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”
Jesus could and did feed the multitude with bread, but
he did so not as a sign from heaven, but out of his compassion for their
need. But not only was their need satisfied, it was satisfied with
abundance. And of that abundance, nothing—and no one—will be lost.
But Jesus offered his disciples, and the multitude, and
us, something better than a sign and something better than bread to satisfy
our bodily hunger. “I am the bread of life,” he says, “and whoever
comes to me will never be hungry.” The feeding of the five thousand
was just a foreshadowing of the refreshment that was to come.
The Holy Eucharist, the Holy Communion, is the real miracle:
it is the real feeding of the multitude. Jesus offers to refresh us
here, at this table, with the bread of life: his very body, given for
us; his very blood, shed for us. Because he said: “my body is
food indeed; my blood is drink indeed.”
At his last supper, with the twelve, Jesus again took
bread, and gave thanks, and broke it; then he gave it to them and said, “this
is my body, which is given for you.” And after supper, he took the
cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them and said: “this cup is the
New Testament in my blood, poured out for you.” And so, anticipating
his death and resurrection, he provided for his disciples and for us.
When we eat that bread and drink of that cup, we proclaim
the Lord’s death until he comes. But this is no memorial meal.
This is the miraculous feeding of the multitude, in which our bodies are
made clean by his body, and our souls are washed with his blood. The
bread that we break is a communion in the body of Christ; the cup that we
drink is a communion in the blood of Christ.
We have only to accept his invitation: “Come unto
me, all ye who travail and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you.”
Church of Saint Mary Magdalene
Orange, California
March 30, 2003
Return to the homilies index.
Return to the deacon's page.