A sermon/reflection for The Ninth Sunday after Trinity
The readings for this Sunday are those of Ninth Sunday after Trinity Sunday:
1 Kings 19. 9-18
Psalm 85.8-13
Romans 10. 5-15
Matthew 14. 22-33
You might like to use the link below to find the above readings for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity Sunday, Year A, and click on any of the reading above that you wish to use:
http://www.katapi.org.uk/CommonWorship/CWLectionarySelV.php
Collect of the day
Let us just spend a few moments in silence,
to centre ourselves,
to gather ourselves in our souls,
to come before the Lord just as we are with our joys and sorrows,
our hopes and our fears,
our loves and our pains.
Let us just focus our minds and hearts on Jesus
who is the answer for every problem.
Let us pray that the Spirit will work through our lives
to bring Christ to the world. (Silence is kept)
Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
open our hearts to the riches of your grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
And Gracious Father,
revive your Church in our day,
and make her holy, strong and faithful,
for your glory’s sake
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Prayer before the Sermon
Loving Heavenly Father,
we thank you for the words you have given us today.
We know they are words of life and salvation.
Open our hearts Father,
touch our souls,
forgive us our sins especially our lack of faith,
help us to respond to your word.
May we know that you are our Lord and Saviour
who promises us the power from on high,
your Holy Spirit.
May we experience in our hearts
your love and your presence always.
Amen.
Homily
“Look at Jesus”
The gospel that we have just heard is one of the most important for our Christian lives. It tells us exactly what a Christian should do to be a real disciple of Christ. The gospel reading narrates an event in the life of Jesus’ public ministry. Jesus had multiplied the five loaves and two fish and fed the five thousand. It is quite significant to see what he does after that momentous deed of divine might and compassion.
In this sermon, I want to focus only on two aspects of this story. First: Jesus goes up into the hills by himself to pray. Second: We need have our eyes fixed on Jesus.
1. Jesus goes up in to the hills to pray by himself
Verse 22: After he had dismissed the crowds, he went up into the hills by himself to pray.
That’s interesting. Jesus the Son God feels the need to pray. He goes in to the hills, all by himself. According to the gospels, Jesus used to do this often. This habit and example of Jesus gives us an important teaching about prayer and what it should be for our Christian life.
There are two things that we can note in how Jesus prays.
First: Jesus chooses a special spot where he can be alone with his Father and commune with him, listen to him to be united to him and speak to him alone. Jesus feels the need for privacy for deep prayer.
It is good to have a favourite spot for prayer where you have the privacy and solitude that you need to be alone with God. That special spot may be anything, a chair, a sofa, a certain room, may be an angle in the garden where you love to go and be ‘alone’ with your soul and with your God, creator and saviour in silence, in quiet, in love.
Second: Jesus uses the silence and privacy to open his heart and soul to his Father in loving communion of prayer. He teaches us what prayer really is.
Prayer is relationship. It is a communion of love. It is being with God who is our creator and saviour. We all like to be with someone we love. Jesus loves the Father. He finds strength in being with the Father in prayer. He finds his source of solace, strength and solidarity in his Father. Prayer for him is communion with the Father. It is a relationship!
For example, after a busy day, you can pick the bits and pieces of your day, you can put back things in their proper places and gather together the fragments of your day and centre yourself again on the spiritual and the eternal aspects of your life in a prayer of silence, listening and communion.
We learn from the first reading that (1 Kings 19.9-16; verse 12 ‘a still small whisper’) Yahweh, God, is heard when you are still, concentrated, listening, in prayer. Elijah searched for him in the strong wind, in the earthquake, in the fire: but he heard him in the ‘sheer silence’, the still small voice’. Many of us are scared of silence but silence, quietness, stillness hides golden secrets for those who can do it.
The world is so erratic, frenetic, noisy. It vexes our hearts and minds. Jesus’ example is ideal for us who live in this culture of noise, confusion and dissipation. In quiet, silent prayer we can re-discover our real selves, our souls, our inner health, our meaning, our truth. The second message – is:
2. We need to have our eyes fixed on Jesus
verse 30: when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink …
We have just listened to the gospel event. All around him was the water, the storm, the winds, the cold air, but for as long as Peter kept his gaze fixed on Jesus, everything was fine.
But then, in his human ears, in his mind, and then with his eyes he saw the storm. The moment he turned his eyes away from Jesus, he began to sink. He loses his focus on Jesus. He looks elsewhere other than Jesus. Naturally he sees the winds and storm and water and is afraid and sinks!
We are like Peter. Our life of faith is like walking on water. For as long as our gazes are fixed on Jesus, we survive, we don’t succumb or sink, but when we turn away our gazes from God, we lose direction, we see only the waves, problems of life, the pressures, we lose heart, and become fearful!
Verse 31: ‘Why did you doubt’? Jesus rebukes Peter as if to ask him, ‘Why don’t you look at me and believe that I’m there with you, that you are not alone?’
Christianity is not just a religion or a belief. It is all about Jesus Christ. It is all about a Person. It is all about knowing him, loving him and following him. Christianity is much more than a Sunday service or mere rituals.
The Christian faith is all about a Person. With this person we have the faith, the Christian faith; without him we have absolutely nothing. Everything you have as a Christian, everything the Christian church has as a movement and an organism, it consists in Jesus Christ and Him alone. ‘As many as touched him were made whole’. (Mk especially 6. 56). He saves us. He makes us whole.
Conclusion : Look at Jesus!
How are you this morning? Are you in doubt, worry, fearful? Is there some distraction that has come into your life? What is it? Is it a distraction that’s pushing everything else out, and it’s pushing your eyes off the Lord – Jesus Christ? Have you taken your eyes off the Lord?
I think all of us seen Leonardo da Vinci painted the ‘Last Supper’. But not many of us know that there was one painting that was painted before the one that we are used to see today. When he had finished, he brought a friend along, an art critic, to tell him what he thought. His friend said: ‘Marvellous! I have never seen a depiction of the Last Supper like this and the figure of Christ’. And looking at Christ with the goblet in His hand, he said: ‘Such a reality you have captured in that goblet’. When Da Vinci heard that remark, he took his paintbrush, put it in the palette, and crossed out the goblet. He said: ‘Nothing will detract from the figure of Christ’.
Nothing must detract us from Christ. Nothing must be more important than Christ in our lives! Christ must be the centre of our life and work. He must be lord of our thoughts and actions.
To conclude, let me repeat the two messages that I spoke to you eelier:
- Do you take time to pray ‘alone’ with the Lord?
- Are your eyes fixed on Jesus all the time, everywhere?
[ST Mattapally, Rector, Springline Parish]
(cf. STM/2005 // see also:www.preachtheword.co.uk/transcripts/misc0009-lookatjesus.html)
A Prayer you can say now:
Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God.
Thank you for becoming one of us.
Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.
Thank you for rising from the dead to give me hope
and the gift of eternal life.
I repent of my sins and invite you into heart and life
as my Lord and Saviour.
Please grant me your Holy Spirit
so that I may know you, love you
and follow you every day of my life.
Amen.
