SERMON 125 - SUNDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2018

Sermon delivered at the Roman Catholic Family Chapel, Whaddon, Evening Prayer Service on Feast of Christ the King Service – Sunday 25^th November 2018

Psalm 72; Daniel 5; John 6:1-15

May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

“Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. He will judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice … he will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy: he will crush the oppressor”. [Psalm 72:1-4]

So begins Psalm 72 in the New International Version of the bible.  It is spoken of Solomon, King David’s successor, but is echoed to some extent in the words of our own Queen’s Coronation Oath in 1953 when she made such a promise in answer to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s question :

Will you to your power cause Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all your judgements?

Today we celebrate the Festival of Christ the King – hence the regal nature of many of our hymns this evening – “King of Glory, King of Peace” for example and so on and we are reminded that God sent us his only son to rule over us in a kingly capacity – his kingdom, though, not being of this world but through him and his disciples bringing something heavenly into this world: bringing the Kingdom of Heaven into this place – then and there - just as we as Christians are required to do each and every day of our earthly existence in the here and now.  Our heavenly king, Jesus Christ, is one of love and justice, a promulgator and defender of the faith in the truest sense of the word.

Our two readings today show two sides of the same kingly coin – justice and love.  In our first reading, which is a very long description of a lavish party at the Babylonian court we see the face of an angry God who has been humiliated by the actions of a very earthly king – Belshazzar – somebody who simply should have known better.

The story of Belshazzar’s Feast is a very long story, biblically, and one which became the sole subject of an entire opera by William Walton. It has to be read in the context of the whole Book of Daniel.  Belshazzar succeeded to the throne of Babylon vacated by his father Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler who finally invaded the southern kingdom of Judah and took Daniel and many leading and learned Hebrews into captivity for about 70 years, leaving only a few behind to till the soil and keep the conquered kingdom from total desolation.  Not only did he take the best and richest people he also took the valuable object from King Solomon’s Temple before it was destroyed.  

Nebuchadnezzar was warned many times by Daniel of the dangers of going against God – by doing all manner of thing including trying to make himself a god.  He was rebuked on many occasions and proved himself to the king as a prophet of God on many occasions by his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams.  Indeed, the king had also witnessed God’s power when three devoted followers survived the fiery furnace. 

So Belshazzar must have been aware from his father’s previous experiences that to disrespect God was likely to end badly for him – as indeed it did as we heard from our reading.

The message for us today is, I think, an underlining of those two great Commandments which Jesus told us underlies everything – “Love God and love your neighbour as God loves you”.  Love God, respect God.  Belshazzar’s kingdom, as we read, was taken away from him as was his life through his failure to do both.  Those material things which we often hold dear to us in this world are only transitory – as indeed is our tenure on this planet.  We are merely passing through and as we do so we must always recall that the true king over us is Jesus – who is also the omnipotent God, our creator and whose kingdom extends far beyond what we can see or understand.

Our second reading is, as I have said, the other side of the coin; the loving God – Jesus who cares for his people. The very beginning of our passage gives an example of God’s wonderful compassion for those who follow him.  Here we have a great crowd of people who have followed Jesus, probably a great distance on foot, to hear what he has to say. Jesus’s first thought is for their comfort – he is aware that they are now probably hungry and asks Philip where bread might be bought to feed them – knowing full well that he will perform a miracle.

It is a small boy who provides the answer with his picnic basket of fish and bread. Such was the miracle performed that there was abundant food for all present and plenty over.  A remarkable show of God’s powerful love.

We would all do well to remember that God has left us the Holy Spirit until the return of his son. The powers and love of God remain in this world today.  Miracles still do occur, God’s powerful love surrounds in the presence of the Holy Spirit.  God still does demand respect and the best way of respecting him is to imitate as far as we are able the ministry of Jesus; to remember that we are mere stewards of his creation and should preserve it for future generations.

There is a popular song written by Bryan Adams and which featured as the soundtrack theme for the Kevin Costner film “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves”. I think it sums up very clearly and simply the message from each of these reading and the last two lines provide a wonderful mantra which we can all use in our meditative prayer time;

Look into my eyes
You will see
What you mean to me
Search your heart
Search your soul
And when you find me there, you'll search no more

There's no love

Like your love
And no other
Could give more love
There's nowhere
Unless you're there
All the time
All the way, yeah

Don't tell me it's not worth tryin' for
You can't tell me it's not worth dyin' for
You know it's true
Everything I do
I do it for you

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/22112018