At first glance our readings today seem to be all about marriage and divorce but they are about so much more than that.  Genesis 2:18-24 gives us part of the second creation story.  I tend to prefer the first (Genesis 1) in which all humanity (and all genders) are created at the same time, whereas here the woman seems to be created only after the man to help him out.  But perhaps we are creating gender distinctions were there are none: as men and women appear at the same time in today’s reading too, both being formed out of one ha-adam or earth creature.  The creation of gender divisions is something that Jesus comments on too in Mark 10:2-16.  Divorce, as the Pharisees make clear, was something only a man could avail himself of whereas Jesus refers to both men and women divorcing their spouses as if they had equal rights.  It is the inequality that Jesus wants to draw our attention to. Once divorced, a woman risked destitution and death, as did her children.  The law is less important than the people affected by it.  Both our readings centre on dependency: our need for one another, for God and for the whole of creation.  Jesus does not condemn us for breaking any laws but for our hardness of heart; our refusal to take care of each other and our world.  When we do so, we forget that we too are dependant, created as part of one flesh and one earth.  As Jesus takes the child into his arms to honour and bless it, he invites us to do likewise: when every creature of earth, together with the earth from which we were formed, is honoured and cherished, we enter again the kingdom of God.

Today is the feast of St Michael and All Angels.  Angels are heavenly beings not earthly one but they carry messages from one place to the other.  Both of our readings this morning show angels moving between heaven and earth. In Genesis 28:10-19, Jacob stops to rest for the night after running away.  As he sleeps, he dreams of a ladder used by the angels.  Although God promises Jacob that God will be with him wherever he goes, Jacob thinks that God’s presence is linked to this particular place.  He consecrates it, naming it the gate of heaven and then goes on his way.  When Jesus meets Nathaniel in John 1:47-51, he describes himself as the ladder that joins heaven and earth.  The place where heaven and earth meet is not a holy place as envisaged by Jacob but is a living, breathing human being.  We, who follow Christ, are also called to be like Jacob’s ladder: connecting things earthly and heavenly; showing that there need be no division between the divine and the human, we are the place where God chooses to dwell on earth as in heaven. 

In our readings today both Jeremiah (Jeremiah 11:18-21) and Jesus (Mark 9:30-37) speak about the violence they are facing.  A violence provoked by them speaking about power from the perspective of those who are powerless.  They question the way we live now and offer a way of living in which no one is prioritised at another’s expense. The disciples lack of understanding is demonstrated in their fights over who among them is the greatest.  In response, Jesus places a child (who had no legal status being the property of its father) in the centre, in the place of status, the place of importance.  Jesus asks us to do more than care for the needy and powerless, he asks us to learn from them; the centre is also the place of teaching.  The disciples were ignorant because they were afraid to ask.  It is only when we ask that we discover what those who experience life at the bottom of the heap have to teach us.  Inequality and poverty damage all of us, not just the ones at the sharp end.   When farmers get poorer, the food they produce costs us more, when war ravages nations, the displaced end up on our borders.  Jesus is inviting us to work for a world in which power is not used for our own benefit but to serve others.  In such a world no one would be the greatest and no one would be the least. 

I can, Isaiah 50:4-9 tells us, sustain the weary with a word.  Words are powerful things: they can move us to compassion, inspire us to struggle for justice and bring hope.  Words can also stir up conflict, generate division and feed hatred. 

When Jesus asks his disciples to find words for who he is in Mark 8:27-38, they come up with some great ones: Prophet, Elijah, John the Baptist, Messiah.   But these are not the right words, they express what others want Jesus to be, someone who will champion their people, who will restore Israel. 

For Isaiah speaking begins with listening: “morning by morning God wakens my ears to listen as one who is taught”.  Listen, Jesus tells us, this is who I really am, someone who will suffer and die; someone who will not fight your enemies but will reconcile you to them; someone who will live out his belief that God’s kingdom will come and, when it does, it will be for everyone.  Words, Jesus tells us, are not enough.  We can talk about the kingdom of God till the cows come home (and we do!) but the kingdom will only come when we put our money where our mouth is: when we show, not just by our words, but by our actions, what we truly believe in. 

Isaiah 35:1-10 describes the journey towards God, a journey in which people are be changed: the blind see, the lame will leap.  As they are transformed so is the path before them: difficulties turn into provisions: the burning sand springs with water and the barren wilderness blossoms.  All that is needed for the journey is be provided on the journey. In Mark 7:24-37 Jesus is also travelling, heading into gentile territory.  Here he gets into an argument with a Syrian woman whose daughter he refuses to heal because she is not the intended recipient of his gifts, these are meant for the children of God.  But this remarkable outsider insists that at least there must be crumbs that fall from the children’s table.  The Syrian woman wants something from Jesus but he also needs something from her: a belief in the wideness of God’s mercy and grace.  On the journey Jesus’ mission is expanded and he travels on to heal other outsiders using the word: Ephphatha, be opened.  In our own lives the obstacles to following where God leads often seem insurmountable and we feel ill-equipped to undertake the journey.  We struggle to see God’s vision for the world, we resist letting go of our own plans.  Jesus both shows us and tells us, to be open, to be prepared to change, to risk the journey trusting that we, and the world around us, will be transformed on the way. 

Let me catch you up on what you might have missed if you’ve been away over the summer: six solid weeks of John chapter six, six solid weeks of Jesus talking about bread.  We began with Jesus miraculously providing food for 5,000 and ended with him offering to feed us with the bread of heaven.  Just as we need material food to keep our bodies alive, we need spiritual food to feed our souls.  The spiritual food Jesus offers involves sharing in the life of God.  This is the background to today’s argument, in Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23, about eating.  The disciples are eating without washing their hands.  This was more than poor food hygiene, it was a rejection of a religious tradition which divided the world into clean and unclean, worthy and unworthy, insiders and outsiders.  We too have many rules about what constitutes acceptable behaviour and, consciously or unconsciously, we use these rules to judge which people are acceptable and which are not.  Jesus does not reject these rules instead he asks us to consider their meaning and their impact: who do they serve?  Were those who strictly observed these traditions doing so to show obedience to God or to indicate that they were better than others?  The original purpose of these purity codes was to show other people that God’s people were different, not because they were better, but because they were close to God.  This was intended to invite others to draw close to God, not to shut them out.  The blessings we receive from God are not for ourselves they are for sharing.  Jesus is asking us to question our own rules and traditions: do they serve us or do they serve others; are they healing, nurturing and life giving?  Any behaviour that results in excluding others from God’s grace may be acceptable to us but will never be acceptable to God.

Choose. In our readings this morning both Joshua (Joshua 24:1-2, 14-18) and Jesus (John 6:56-69) offer us a choice: to accept or to refuse our identity as God’s people. The choice is not easy. In our translation Joshua states that we may be “unwilling” to serve God. The literal translation is nearer “it may seem evil to you”, unattractive, difficult, just as those following Jesus find his teaching difficult, hard to accept. There are alternative options: Joshua’s people could follow “the gods of your ancestors” or “the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living”. Their lives, like our own, were shaped both by family and history and by the culture and society in which they lived. But Joshua insists that are conscious of the choice they are making. He does not claim that the path of faith is easy or obvious but that in serving God he finds the freedom to become more than just a product of his history or culture. For Jesus, just keeping on keeping on, unconsciously accepting life as it is, is to feed the body but not the soul. We need more than bread alone to be truly alive. Like Joshua, he wants us to perceive that we are more than our history and circumstances, we are made by God to carry God’s spirit into the world and, when we choose to embrace this identity, we become fully alive.

Over the last few weeks Jesus has been describing himself as bread from heaven, like the mana with which God fed his people in the wilderness. Today, in John 6:51-58, he describes himself as flesh just as God gave flesh in the form of quails, as well as bread, in the desert. His listeners were aware that Jesus was not speaking literally: they were familiar with the many scriptures which used eating as a metaphor for spiritual sustenance like the one in Proverbs 9:1-6. Here, the food offered is wisdom, nourishing the simple and the senseless so that they have the strength to live wisely and well. They may have been upset by his graphic language: the word he uses is not the usual word for eating but something more like munching, crunching, chewing, a word used to describe animals feeding. More likely, they, like us, find it hard to comprehend the idea of God who is fully known in the physical reality of our lives. God, who is not ethereal and distant, but present in the sweat and tears and pain and struggle of our ordinary lives. A God whose presence is experienced incarnationally. A God who desires to be completely incorporated into our lives. This God knows that we are hungry for more than bread and meat; knows that we hunger for God’s very self, without which we will still be empty and unsatisfied, without which we will not know the true meaning and purpose of our lives, without which we cannot become who we were made to be.

In last week’s reading the Israelites were “complaining among themselves” in the wilderness, this morning, Elijah, in 1 Kings 19:4-8, is also complaining bitterly and, in John 6:35-51, the crowd following Jesus are doing the same. The Israelites wanted to return to Egypt, Elijah wanted to wage jihad, the crowd around Jesus wanted miracles. In each case they are disappointed. God knows what they need. But before they can accept this they have to come to the end of their tether. It is only when they can no longer rely on their own strength and skills, when their own resources have been exhausted, when they give up, that they allow God the opportunity to act. In the mountains of Horeb, in the wilderness and in our own lives God’s power is made known in our weakness. God meets us in our own wilderness when we have nothing left to give and gives us the rest and resources we need; re-viving and re-forming us to continue, not on our own path but on the journey that God has planned for us.

For a month over the summer our readings are all about bread: Jesus, alongside, Elisha, Elijah and Moses, feeds the people of God and asks us to reflect on what we need to be fed and why. In this morning’s gospel, John 6:24-35, Jesus accuses the people following him of just wanting more bread just to fill their stomachs and not understanding the true sustenance he offers, the bread of life. The crowd wonder if he will provide mana for them as Moses did in Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15. This bread, Jesus points out, was not provided by Moses but given by God and now God is giving them Jesus, the bread of life. In the wilderness, God told the people: “in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.” The bread is not just to feed them, it is to teach them, it is to bring them into right relationship with God. The wilderness is not just the space between Egypt and the promised land, it is the place where God will re-form his people so that they once more understand who they are and what they are here for. The bread they need is bread for the journey: the resources they need to go where God is leading them. We are not fed by bread alone. We are not made just to survive, we are made to thrive and we do so by becoming who we truly are: a people made by God to journey outwards, carrying to others the life that we have been given, sharing that which will enable all God’s people to thrive.

The miraculous multiplication of loaves was a story as familiar to Jesus’ followers as it is to us. The disciples who worried that there would not be enough in John 6:1-21 would have known of Elisha’s disciples who also worried that there would not be enough in 2 Kings 4:42-44. In both stories the fear of scarcity is answered with abundance. There is not only enough, there is more than enough. In both, the food does not appear out of thin air, it is freely offered by someone who was usually overlooked: a child in the gospel and, in 2 Kings, a man of another faith (a follower of Baal). In both, there are left-overs. The fear of scarcity drives some of the worst of human behaviour from hoarding toilet rolls during the pandemic to wars over oil, land and water. Discovering abundance in the midst of scarcity is not about blind faith it is about changing the way we look at the world around us. The gifts offered by the overlooked not only fill the hungry they fill 12 baskets with left-overs. The magic number twelve should always make us stop and think, 12 symbolises the kingdom of God, completion, wholeness. For Jesus and for Elisha the marginalised are not a burden, a drain on resources, they are gifts that God longs to give us. When they too are gathered into the community we become whole.

The people are scattered like sheep and God promises, Jeremiah 23:1-6, to raise up “a righteous branch” to care for them. When Jesus sees that the people are like sheep without a shepherd, Mark 6:30-34 and 53-56, he gets on with the task of shepherding. But the passage doesn’t begin with Jesus, it starts with the disciples. When Jesus was unable to minister in his hometown, he sent them out in his place. Now they have returned, they want to hand everything over to Jesus again. In Mark’s gospel Jesus is less special than in the other gospels. There are no angels and stars announcing Jesus’s arrival, he just shows up with everyone else to be baptised at the Jordan. Mark’s Jesus is always trying to share his ministry with others, empowering them, teaching them that they too are chosen by God and inviting them to be the shepherds (plural) promised in Jeremiah. We, like the disciples, often fail in this task. We do not believe that we have what it takes. And we don’t. But God does. Time and time again the disciples try and fail to be like Jesus. Time and time again Jesus shows them, and shows us, that God made us to be ourselves, not special, but chosen. God’s world is still in need of healing and God chooses us to do it.

Who the hell does he think he is? This is the welcome Jesus receives from his hometown in Mark 6:1-13. Everyone is astounded by his wisdom and his actions but instead of being delighted they are suspicious and offended: He is just a poor carpenter from a poor family. Where, they ask, did this man get all this? Surely all this healing and miracles and wisdom does not come from him. In the second half of the passage Jesus sends out his disciples. He instructs them to take little with them but to rely on the hospitality of strangers. They, like Jesus before them, spread peace and healing. Not by their own skills or knowledge but because God has chosen to work through them. God has a preference for using those we least expect to bring in his kingdom: those with little power or authority in the eyes of the world. In case we mistake the work of God for something else; in case we place our trust in success and status and not in God. This morning we will be baptising Jack. Jack is too young to even know how to talk yet he too will be anointed with God’s spirit to do the work of leading, healing and serving God’s people. He too will be given the kingdom and sent out to bear Christ’s light in the world. In his infancy, he is a symbol that none of us have the gifts or talents necessary for the task God gives us, yet God will work through us if we are willing. God can and will use our strengths but how much more will God use our weaknesses, if only we would let Her.

This week is Pride week, we will join with others across the globe celebrating the diversity of God’s people and committing to fight injustice and pleading inclusion. We start our readings with Lamentations 3:22-33, and an assurance of the inclusive and universal love of God: God does not willingly afflict anyone; God’s compassion is neither deserved nor undeserved, it is given because God’s nature is steadfastly loving. The gospel, Mark 5:21-43, also gives us a powerful story of inclusion: Jesus is on his way to heal Jarius’ daughter when he interrupted by the bleeding woman. What is striking about this passage is not just the equality and impartiality of God’s gifts of healing and wholeness but the interdependency of the two healings. The little girl (child of the leader of Israel) can only be healed once the woman (an outcast) has also been healed. Our work to bring God’s gifts to the excluded is not just for their benefit it is for ours: injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere. If anyone is to be saved, we all must be saved, we need one another.

All of us have weathered storms at some time or another. Suffering is an inevitable part of life but how we respond to it is not. This morning both Job and the disciples are struggling with how to respond to chaos and difficulty in their lives. Job is looking for someone to blame for his misfortune. He is not to blame so God must be. In Job 38:1-11 God answers Job with a vision of God as midwife to ferocious storms and mighty waters. The storms of life are not beyond God or outside of God’s care. More than this, God right sizes Job who cannot look beyond his own problems. Jesus treats the disciples in the same way when they panic in the storm in Mark 4:35-41. No one wants to suffer yet it is part of the process by which the whole of creation is brought to birth. The task for Job, for the disciples and for us is to find meaning and purpose in our struggles. Does our suffering lead to self-pity or does it lead us to connect with and understand the suffering of others? does it paralyse us with fear or does it galvanise us to engage with the wider causes of suffering in the world? If the kingdom is to come, we need to do more than survive the storms of life, we need to be able to engage with God’s work of suffering and struggling to bring a better world to birth.

Both readings this morning use the image of something tiny and insignificant that, under God’s care, grows into something impressive: In Ezekiel 17:22-24, God plants a tender sprig that becomes a noble cedar, whilst in Mark 4:26-34, the mustard seed grows into a massive plant. In each case the resulting vegetation is remarkable not for its vitality and size but for the shelter and protection it provides for other creatures. In today’s service as we give thanks for and bless the creatures who share our lives and our homes, we reflect on our place in creation: we too are creatures, dependant on God to survive and thrive but we are also made in God’s image to share in God’s mission and ministry. We thrive, not just for our own well-being but in order to provide protection and care for the whole of creation. In the face of the royal mess that humanity have made of the earth, we may be tempted to despair at our ability to fulfil the task God has given us. Yet the seed in Mark’s gospel grows in secret without human effort, the sower does not know how it sprouts and grows. God’s kingdom, like our planet, is pure gift, it flourishes because God wills it not because we cajole it. Ezekiel’s Cedar is planted in the ruins of a conquered, ransacked land, a sign that, however ill equipped we feel ourselves to be, creation will be restored and life will flourish because God has promised it.

Our readings start this morning with division and disunity in the garden of Eden, Genesis 3:8-15. Adam and Eve have separated themselves from one another (as Adam blames Eve), from God (as Adam blames God for making Eve) and from creation (as Eve blames the serpent). At the heart of the division in Genesis is a sense of scarcity: Adam and Eve wanted what they didn’t have and now they perceive their nakedness, their lack.

Our lives also seem saturated with a sense of scarcity; we worry whether there is enough: food, housing, welfare support, NHS time, for all who seek it. This fear can create a desire to divide people into those who deserve limited resources and those who should be excluded. This is the mindset that Jesus encounters the gospel, Mark 3:20-35, when the scribes cannot admit that his power comes from God. They wish to be the ones who determines who can receive God’s blessings. But Jesus will not divide people, instead he welcomes all who seek God’s will into his family.

Today we will be inviting you to engage with an eco-church project. Our hope is that we can respond to fears of scarcity by recovering a sense of God’s abundant provision and a commitment to work together to make a difference in our small piece of God’s creation.

Today marks the beginning of Ordinary Time, that stretches over almost half a year between Trinity and All Saints, in which we get on with the ordinary business of being God’s people; in our gospel today, Mark 2:23-3:6, Jesus reminds us what this is. For Jesus it is clearly not about observing the Sabbath: a day of rest echoing God’s rest after completing creation. The world is no longer as it was in the beginning, when God saw that it was good. Jesus encounters brokenness, injustice, exclusion and oppression and he cannot rest because creation is not complete. For Christians the Sabbath is celebrated not on the seventh day, the last day of the week, but on the eight day, the first day of the week. Week after week we are called again to participate in God’s work of renewing the face of creation until, not just we, but all creation, can once more enjoy the Sabbath rest.