A sermon preached by The Reverend Canon Dr. David Anderson at St. Jude’s Anglican Church, Oakville, on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Sunday, July 28, 2024.
Until quite recently people believed that knowledge is power. It was largely assumed that if people had the correct information, they could use that information —that knowledge—to make the world a better place. The modern ‘myth of progress’ was undergirded by the assumption that education would bring salvation. Because of these assumptions many of us were raised to believe that education ensured better days ahead. Education meant awareness. It meant having the knowledge necessary for every practical matter as well at the attainment of a richer experience of life. In modernity we believed that if only we could banish ignorance all of the prevalent issues that so trouble humanity would be erased. The power of knowledge seemed limitless.
That dream is largely gone. Knowledge has led instead to a new powerlessness. It is the great irony of our times which we call the ‘information age,’ a time when knowledge is available everywhere and at our fingertips, and in the devices most of us carry in our pockets, we have become a society of passivity. If we have a question, we can Google it or find it on Wikipedia. If you want to learn a new skill, no problem; someone will teach you all you need to know on YouTube with all the step-by-step instructions you need to know. You need to do nothing more than tune into electronic media on the device of your choice and you can access knowledge about the weather, wars, economics, politics, personalities, famines, food, and literally anything. You can go from watching a documentary of the Second World War, to watching a game show, to the news, to a sporting event, or any number of dramas, comedies, and series, and all the while watching one thing having scrolling words across the bottom of the screen telling you about something completely different.
But what is the result of the increase of our access to all this knowledge? I think that it would be completely fair to say that we see far more paralysis than we see empowerment. When we are faced with the reality of the world’s great need, these is a temptation to ask, “In the face of all this what can we do?” Rather than our knowledge moving us toward action, we are tempted by inertia. We seem to be satisfied with only the surface of knowledge; we shun complexities. We are interested to know about the problems, but only enough to know who to blame; we are less interested in the answers to problems, or solutions to crisis. Ironically, knowledge becomes a kind of escape from reality, and it no longer informs and empowers; it merely entertains.
The Gospel according to St. John is all about knowledge. John certainly believes and wants us to know that knowledge is power. But he is not pointing to just any sort of knowledge, however. He is talking about the way, the truth, and the life. This is not knowledge that entertains, or which provides a satisfying experience. This is a knowledge that is personal and deeply passionate. This is knowledge that is grounded in the life of the triune God as revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Parker Palmer is an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He has said this about truth: “In Christian tradition, truth is not a concept that ‘works,’ but an incarnation that lives” (To Know as We Are Known: A Spirituality of Education, 1983). Let me repeat that, “Truth is not a concept that ‘works,’ but an incarnation that lives.” I think that among other things Palmer is saying that truth is not just a good idea, but something that is lived out in the lives of real people who know the deep truth.
The feeding of the crowd in the passage from John’s Gospel we read this morning addresses our temptation to shrug our shoulders in the face of human need. To be sure, the account does expose the limits of human knowledge and invites us to attend instead to the sort of knowledge that Palmer describes as the “incarnation that lives.”
The disciples find themselves in the midst of a paralysing situation. There is an overwhelming need and very few resources to meet the need. Jesus looks at the great crowd and asks the question that tests the limits of the disciple’s knowledge. Jesus asks, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” (v. 5b).
When the disciples are asked this question, they can only speak about what they already know: “Six months wages would not buy enough bread for each to them to get a little” (v. 7). Andrew has been busy and has managed to collect a few resources, but he delivers what seems to be the final determination of the situation: “What are they among so many people?” (v. 9b). That is as far as the disciple’s knowledge can take them. But at the end of their knowledge stands Jesus. John wants us to see in this incident, at the very end of human knowledge, begins love’s knowledge, and that is enough to feed thousands with much left over.
I think that you might agree with me that we have become quite accustomed to being faced with overwhelming human need. We routinely learn of devastations from around the world: cyclones, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, famine, the devastations of war, rampant disease, the terrible plight of refugees. We become numb to these images of need that we see on our televisions daily. It is easy, when we have seen the sheer magnitude of need in light of our own small resources, to ask the same question that the disciples ask: “What are they among so many?” It is easy for us to come up against the limits of our knowledge and in that place throw up our hands in despair.
One of my favourite parts of the Sunday liturgy is what we call “The Prayers of the People.” In these prayers we lift before God our prayers for the church, the world, and all those in need. In response to these prayers, I can imagine our Lord answering us back, “What do you have?” And we might answer back from our knowledge that whatever we have is not enough. Yet, what this wonderful passage from John’s Gospel teaches us is that ‘not enough’ is not the final answer. What we find is that when we place our meagre gifts in the hands of Jesus, our human weakness and limitations become more than enough.
In 1946, Agnes Bojaxhiu came face to face with mass suffering and death in the slums of Calcutta. Certainly, her knowledge, her wealth or wisdom, would not be enough to fulfill a calling to poorest of the poor. But there was a different sort of knowledge that fueled her answer to God’s call; it was the knowledge of love. The woman who became known to the world as Mother Theresa resolved that even if she could not help everyone, she could always help the person right in front of her. Love’s knowledge fueled her calling and with that passion that she was given, she founded the Sisters of Charity, a very small order of thirteen members which over the decades grew to thousands of members giving care in many orphanages and charity centres. Love’s knowledge multiplies our small resources and makes a way forward when our knowledge comes to an end.
In 1976, Millard and Linda Fuller began an organization that became known as Habitat for Humanity International. There were very few resources and a great need for affordable and decent housing for the working poor. With a few tools, and a small number of volunteers, it would have been easy to ask, “What are they among so many?” It would have been easy to throw up their hands and walk away. Yet they had a passion for justice that was grounded in the incarnation of Jesus that called them to go forward. Today, Habitat for Humanity serves as a clear testimony to the multiplying power of love’s knowledge.
In 2003, Mike Harris’ Conservative Government made cuts in healthcare funding that closed six psychiatric hospitals in the Province of Ontario. Suddenly we noticed people with severe mental illness living on our streets. Many people with mental illness are hard to house. Without support many stop taking medication. Without support many do not make good tenants. At that time, Siny Prinzen, a woman living with her family in a west downtown neighbourhood of Hamilton noticed a homeless woman sitting on her front porch and invited her into her home for lunch. Hearing her story, she invited her to spend the night. Before long the woman was living with the family in that home. Within a month, many of the woman’s friends were living there too. The family had to buy another house to live in, because Siny had taken in so many of the homeless who needed support. It would have been easy for the Siny and her husband John to look at their family’s resources and ask, “What are these among so many?” But they did not throw up her hands because the love of Jesus compelled them. Instead of throwing up their hands they found partners in their local church and beyond. What they started became a housing charity now known as Indwell where more than 1,200 tenants are supported in affordable housing, in Hamilton, Mississauga, London, and Norfolk County.
Last Sunday I spoke about St. Jude’s ministry in our community. We know that the needs are great and that there is much that God calls us to do. We can carry out our ministry because of the generosity of so many that support the life and work of St. Jude’s. We are grateful for the participation of so many people who volunteer their time and who give so generously. I am always impressed by what St. Jude’s is able to do. By many standards, St. Jude’s is not a large church, but we certainly are able to ‘punch far above our weight’ as they say. We can do so because love multiplies our gifts.
We know that many of the people who are part of this family of faith have limited resources. We know too that many with physical limitations find it difficult to volunteer as they might wish. We also know that even the most affluent among us, and those most able to volunteer—and every other person wherever they might be in terms of the availability resources—there are limits to what we can do. Yet what we learn from our experience here at St. Jude’s and what today’s Gospel reading vividly shows, is that in the hands of Jesus, our resources offered freely become much, the few become many, and the weak become strong.
Some of you may have already received a letter from me that was mailed this past week. In that letter I have asked each of us to prayerfully consider how we can do our part. We all know that the needs are great, and we might feel that our own resources are so few that we could make little difference. “What are these among so many.” It is certainly the case that we cannot meet every need, but the fact remains that together, each of us doing our part, we can do much. So please do consider how God is calling you to participate with all of us together in our mission in Jesus’ love. Let us each do what we can.
This week I will begin my summer vacation and I ask you to keep me in your prayers as I take a break to refresh and renew. You will certainly be in my prayers as we begin to look to September and a new season of ministry together and in our life in Christ.
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