But food preparation and meals can also be highly political. When you are the vicar of a new parish and you want to know where power lies in a parish, the first place to look is nearly always the parish kitchen (sorry vestry and wardens!). We don’t have powerpoint in our church, but someone has done a brilliant cartoon of the church lady who runs the kitchen. She (and it is a she) is dressed as a fully armed Viking warrior, helmet and all, and straight away anyone entering the kitchen knows this lady means business.

It was no different in the early Church. In the gospels, who you ate with was a very important matter, because the act of eating a meal had a sacramental quality to it. If you and I sat down to a meal, the act of eating would bind us into a community, or combine our families. It was such a powerful act that it was almost as good as signing a covenant. Indeed, many covenants in the bible are sealed and renewed by eating meals together, including covenants with God. Many a time from Abraham onwards the faithful have eaten meals with God and have found a new understanding of themselves in God and formed new bonds of relationship. The tradition of wedding breakfasts in our culture is the same: the two families are united together to become one when a couple is married.

No wonder that Jesus chose a simple meal of bread and wine to be the arena where he would be present to his disciples, where he would share his life with them again, where he would be present as a forgiving presence. From the beginning, this meal has been the sacrament that binds us together into one body with Christ himself being both the host, and the food, all at the same time.

The second reading today is from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthian church was a particularly stroppy church (although not as bad, it seems, as the Galatians). There were too many chiefs trying to run the Corinthian church, all of whom claimed divine authority (defaming Paul as they went along). These people were using all the tricks in the book to make sure they had pride of place: social superiority (who had the best house, position, and could provide the most food), competition over who had the most spectacular spiritual gifts and who was the wisest; who had the most converts, to name but a few of the strategies employed to gain the upper hand. Poor old Paul was exasperated with this church. The place where all the conflict boiled into the open was when they sat down to eat together to make Eucharist.

Paul’s words in the 1 Corinthians are fascinating as they are instructive. One of the reasons why they are fascinating is that this is the earliest description of the Eucharist in the early church that we have. It was written about 25 years after the resurrection, so this is earlier than what we have in the gospels. One of the crucial words Paul use is also a most infuriatingly difficult word to translate. It is the word anamnesis, which is translated into English as “remember”. If you were asked to remember, say, your graduation from secondary school, you would very likely have to ask for some peace and quiet to think about it for a few minutes. Then you might picture the building, see where it was held, visualise the school principal, your friends, your family, and so on. If you are like me you would have no idea what the graduation speaker said. You might remember the family celebration afterwards. That is what we think of as “remembering”. It is something we do in our minds. But St Paul was a Jew first. What he thought he was being told to do when asked to “remember” was to re-enact the whole graduation. Out would come the school uniform. You would walk across the room while a recording of the Pomp and Circumstance music would be played again. Having acted out the ceremony again, you would throw the party for your friends.

So the words, “do this” rather than “remember” are the crucial words here. Do what exactly? Christians all over the world and down through the ages have done four things. They have: taken bread, given thanks, broken the bread, shared the bread. They have done the same things with the cup: taken wine, given thanks, shared the wine. Four actions: taking, thanking, breaking, sharing. Paul meant, “Do it!” rather than “think about it”, because when we do this together, we find ourselves once again in the presence of the living and risen Christ.

There is another phrase here which gives pause for thought, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” We can break that down and look first at the phrase, “Until he comes” first. That is a hopeful phrase that looks forward to the consummation of creation. That means that this meal that we celebrate is not a holding operation that we engage in just to keep us occupied until the second coming. What Paul is suggesting here is that this is a meal that not only brings all the love that Christ showed on the cross into our presence (remembering the past). Paul’s language implies a remembering of the future in the same way. The theological term is prolepsis, which comes from the Greek word for anticipation. So just as the past experience of Christ and his disciples becomes ours, so does Christ’s future. If the Spirit of God is God’s future coming toward us, then in this meal the Spirit bring the future toward us, making heaven present here and now, so that we sit down with those in heaven every time we celebrate this meal. So this meal is a rehearsal for the future, or if you like, it is a foretaste of heaven. We experience a glimpse of heaven how.

But what about proclaiming the death of Jesus? What is that about? Remember the conflict in Corinth? Paul’s main argument all through this letter is that the Christians there had forgotten to love one another. That is why they were fighting so much. They wanted power, or to be important, or to be noticed, or to be at the centre. They had forgotten that the essence of God is self-giving love, a love that is patient and kind, that is not arrogant or rude and does not insist on its own way. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. What Paul expected was that the way the community gathered to pray and to worship and to share bread and wine together would be a living parable of the gospel. It would be a community of self-giving love in action. The way we eat together, celebrate together and work together is to be done in such a way that people see the gospel in action, being lived out in our lives. This means Paul is saying that loving means laying aside our egos and our agendas so that we can focus our love on others in the community. It is entering into the paschal mystery and allowing parts of us to die so that we might receive our life back again from Christ. He wants us to learn the way of self-giving love. He wants us to learn to forgive each other for our mistakes. For by doing these things we proclaim the death of our Lord until he comes.

This meal is God’s. Christ is our host. We are his people and his guests. God knows that we need forgiveness; that we need to be restored and made whole. That’s why he gives us this meal. He wants this to be the place where we share his divine life, and he comes to us in this meal to satisfy our every need. We in turn need to trust him to mould our lives and shape them around Christ, which is why the pattern of this meal is so important. Those four actions: as we take bread and offer it to God, we offer God our lives. Giving thanks is to be the tone of our living. Bread is broken, and we allow our wills to be broken to the purposes of God. We share our lives with others and we share what we have. As these four actions become the pattern of our living, our lives are moulded and shaped around Christ himself.

God says: “Come to the table. Enjoy my food, enjoy my company, and above all, enjoy the gifts that I showers upon you. Share them, share your lives, be forgiving of one another, and be thankful.”

I don’t mind believing in something illogical. Our culture is full of quirky things that make perfect sense even if others think they are illogical. Driving on the left side of the road might be one example, along with the spelling of many words in the English language to think of other things. We believe totally in the oneness of God. We also believe, totally, that there are three persons within God. They are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Some people find the names “Father” and “Son” unhelpfully male words, suggesting that God is generally male and relates to us as a male and in male ways. It is important to remember that these words are metaphors, word pictures that are an attempt to put the mystery of God into words. We need to do that if we are to get anywhere at all in our understanding of God. But we also need to remember that all human language is inadequate for expressing the mystery of God. God is beyond our human words and bigger than our collective imaginings. As soon as use any word at all for God, we begin to place limits around our understanding of God. In the Jewish tradition, the name of God is simply not allowed to be pronounced. An early name for God is given to Moses at the burning bush. In that story, God discloses himself as “I am who I am”. The name for God derived from that is Yahweh, but whenever that name appeared in the text, the reader would not say that name aloud. The reader would instead say, “the name” in Hebrew, and now after thousands of years no one is sure how the Hebrew name for God should be pronounced. God is ground of our being and the source of our existence. God’s name is so hallowed that some traditions do not even say that name out loud.

The first reading today describes Lady Wisdom who has existed with God from eternity. She is at God’s side as a master worker (although the Hebrew can also mean “little child”). New Testament writers saw a strong link between Lady Wisdom and Jesus, especially John’s gospel and Matthew’s gospel. They picture Jesus as God’s wisdom that existed with God from eternity. God the Father is like the artist who decides what to craft. Jesus is God’s Word that when spoken brings all things into being. Eventually Jesus took on the human nature that he had crafted and became one of us. His resurrection from the dead is the “first fruits” of the New Creation, which means that his rising from the dead puts the finishing touches to God’s creative work, bringing it to completion.

It has to be remembered that the biblical writers did not have a systematised understanding of the Trinity. That came later when brave Christians began to articulate their beliefs in the context of imperial philosophy and in the middle of political power struggles. So we note that the New Testament also mentions the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is the third person in the Trinity. The role of the Spirit is to show us where Christ is present in creation, to help all creation pray to God through Christ so that as we come to know Jesus more and more, all of life is shaped around who Jesus is. The Spirit speaks the Word of Christ to us. The Spirit is a friend to stand by us. The Spirit enlarges our hearts to welcome Jesus, who is the Father’s Word spoken to us and to all the world.

The language around the Trinity can easily sound prosaic, or conceptual. It would be a mistake if we left things there as if God were a concept, especially if the concept looks difficult to understand. The most important thing to remember is that at the heart of God is “relationship”. All of us understand relationships. We know what relationships are like, and we know that we all need them. So when you think of the Trinity, think “relationship”. The Trinity is, in fact, self-giving love in action. Each member of the Trinity is self-giving love. The Father is self-giving love who sends the Son and the Spirit and who wills that we are created. The Son is self-giving love who came as a human being to show us what self-giving love looks like when it is lived in a human life. It is a love that stays connected, that does not run away when things get tough. It is a love that lays down its life for its friends. The Spirit is self-giving love poured out through all creation so that we can know God. The Spirit is living water that refreshes. The Spirit is fire that makes us radiant. The Spirit is a Dove that brings peace. The Spirit is wind that unsettles and pushes us. The Spirit is truth who confronts us with what is real and helps us grow up.

God is self-giving love. Each member of the Trinity eternally gives love to the other, and also eternally receives love from the other. It is in their nature for their love to be focused beyond themselves. That is why creation exists at all. Creation is the result of the free outpouring of God’s love and creative energy. Today, God reminds us that are all made for loving for we are made to give and receive love from God. Our primary task is to behold God and to allow ourselves to be drawn into God’s circle of self-giving love, so that God’s love is received and passed on in our lives, and given back to God as thanksgiving and praise. That is why so much of our psalmody and singing today has a strong focus on creation. We join with all creation in giving thanks and praise to God this day.

God is the love that unites us. In our prayer, therefore, give God glory and honour, praise and thanksgiving through Jesus the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The fire and the wind echo another time when God communicated through wind and fire. In ages past, Moses had climbed to the top of a mountain to be close to God. He had just led the people out of Egypt, and Moses needed refreshment and encouragement in the difficult task to come of forming the people into a holy and royal priesthood who would give glory to God. Out of the wind and the fire, God spoke to Moses and he gave the gift of the Torah, the Law, summed up in the 10 commandments. Every year the people of God came to the temple in Jerusalem to give thanks for that gift, for that moment long ago when God spoke to Moses, and they would pray that God would speak to them afresh. That celebration took place on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, the very same feast that we are celebrating today. The Holy Spirit is being poured out afresh on the people of God, activating the presence of the Word-Made-Flesh, so that God is communicating once again in the languages of the known world.

Not only is God speaking once again as he did in days of old. This is the moment that transforms and restores the disciples. The pouring out of the Spirit is the Christian experience of the resurrection. The emphasis here is not so much on what happens to Jesus as he bursts out of the tomb. What we are reflecting on is what happens to the disciples in the light of the resurrection. They become a transformed group. Prior to this, they were a fearful, grieving group of people coping with the absence of the physical Jesus. Now that the gift of Spirit is given, they realise that God has given them the Spirit who activates the presence of Jesus in their lives and in their hearts, and indeed, in all creation. Now, in the power of the Spirit, Jesus is with them always, in every time and in every place. This is what fills them with hope and with the realisation that the promises and hopes of Israel that were summed up in Jesus can be carried to all the nations of the world.

The account of the gift of the Spirit in John’s gospel is much more low-key. John avoids Luke’s pyrotechnics. In fact there are two moments in John’s gospel when the Spirit is poured out. The first is when Jesus dies on the cross. In John’s gospel, no one takes Jesus’ life away from him. He freely lays it down. Just before he dies there is a moment when he speaks to his mother and to the beloved disciple. He says to his mother, “This is your son,” and to the beloved disciple, “This is your mother,” thereby creating a new family, a new community of faith. Shortly afterward he dies saying to God, “Into your hands I commend my spirit.” At the point when Jesus dies, Jesus entrusts his Spirit to that new fledgling community of Mary and the Beloved Disciple. At that point, his Spirit is poured out on the new community of faith. His Spirit is entrusted to us, the Church. That is the first moment of Pentecost. The second is on the first Easter Day when Jesus comes into the upper room unannounced, and breathes on the disciples, just as God had breathed the breath of life into the fist Adam and Eve at the dawn of creation.

John avoids Luke’s emphasis on fire and wind and speech. John is inviting to think about the kind of community that the Spirit will build, that God is calling us to be. John’s emphasis is on the relational aspects of the Spirit. Communities can be shaped by all kinds of things. We can allow enmity, violence and fear to shape us. The modern disease is excessive individualism that places each of us at the centre of our worlds. It looks like freedom from the shackles of the collective, but it leads to isolation from others, alienation, mistrust, and a deep loneliness that eats away at our souls.

The kind of community that the Spirit comes to offer is a community in which love and forgiveness is at the centre. The witness of John’s gospel is that where the Spirit is, there Jesus may be found. John is saying that Spirit makes Jesus even more powerfully present to us than he was to the disciples when Jesus lived among us as a human being. He wants us to know that we too are drawn by the Spirit into that intimate circle of love that exists between the Father and the Son, so that we are able to dwell in that circle of love. All we have to do is follow the teaching of Jesus, and to focus our love beyond ourselves on to others just as God’s love is always focused beyond self. It is in focusing our love beyond ourselves that we grow to be human, that we experience what true freedom is all about. A community that loves and forgives; that is what we are called to be. We are to be the Body of Christ, a place where love is shared so well that when people come here they can sense something special, which is the presence of Jesus himself. A loving community: that is the sign of the presence of the Spirit. It is gift that we need to ask God for. It is not something that we can conjure up. It takes a bit of work, because to be such a community we all need to be willing to go on the journey of learning how to love and how to forgive; to learn patience and kindness.

Today we are baptising two young people: Tyler William Boot and Willow Elaine Boot. Today God will pour out his Spirit upon them, just as he poured out his Spirit on all of us when we were baptised. God will send the Spirit to them so that they can know the presence of Jesus in their hearts. Our task is to pray for them and for their families that the Spirit may bring them the joy and hope that comes with knowing Jesus. Perhaps the biggest gift we can give is the gift of knowing what it is like to be part of community that knows how to share love. Without love there is no hope, and there is no life. Without love, we die. But if we open ourselves to the Spirit and allow the Spirit to show us how to love and how to see Jesus present in every person and in every moment of our lives, then God will open up new possibilities, a hope and a life that will never die.

Imagination is an important part of our humanity. When we imagine a future world, that world shapes the way we live our lives today. This is very much the case in Christianity. In fact, you could think of the Kingdom of Heaven and the book of Revelation as God’s science fiction movie, with archangels flying around like space ships laying the enemy to waste, and the multiracial company of heaven lifting their hearts and voices to God in thanksgiving and praise. The point of these visions and stories is that God is inviting us into a future we call the kingdom of heaven. It involves working with Christ in the power of the Spirit to make heaven a reality we can know on this side of the grave.

The theological term for this is eschatology, and in Christianity this has been the engine room that has fired our missionary instincts. Down through the ages Christian prophets and visionaries have been captured by God’s vision of heaven. Their imaginations have been fired by God’s commitment to give us a taste heaven now. The saints of old saw that God’s future was coming toward us and they laboured with God to build that kingdom and make it present on earth. The Feast of the Ascension is a celebration of Christ going ahead of us into that future world, to be with God where God’s future is fully realised, so that we will be filled with the hope that one day God will take us to join him there. We call that place where the kingdom is fully realised: heaven, and heaven is not only our future destination, it is a reality that God has promised to activate in our lives and in all creation through the power of the Spirit, if we will listen to him and follow his word.

Nevertheless, when Jesus tells his disciples just before his death that he will be leaving them (John 16: 16-20), it causes much anxiety. “What does he mean? A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while and you will see me?” The same puzzlement is evident in the book of Acts. When Jesus is having his final farewell moment with them, the disciples are still stuck on the question of when the Roman occupation will be ended and Israel restored. Jesus’ reply is equally puzzling, “it is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set… but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” The confusion of the disciples is understandable. With Jesus’ departure there is bereavement. The reality of his physical presence will be gone. It will be replaced by the equally real situation of his physical absence. Somehow the disciples have to be able to transition from knowing Jesus as physically present, to a new way of knowing Jesus in his physical absence. That was a transition that took some time to complete.

It is not surprising that there are signs of deep shock and grief all through the resurrection stories. That is to be expected. We all know what it is like when we are separated from those we love, whether that separation is caused by death, or some other form of emotional or physical separation. It leaves a huge void, much grief, and perhaps, difficult circumstances to cope with. So it was with the disciples.

But slowly and very gradually, the disciples came to realise that Jesus was with them. In fact, they began to see this physical absence as a gift. Because now, Jesus could be more powerfully present to them than ever before, and he could be present at any time and place. The realisation that God would send the Holy Spirit to activate the presence of Christ in all creation and in his followers gradually began to dawn. When they realised Christ was present in the power of the Spirit and they could taste heaven; when they saw and that God was continuing with the kingdom building; that was when the disciples found themselves transformed into fearless apostles who would take the gospel into all the world. What this is telling us, is that in order for us to become more like Christ, in order for us to be kingdom builders, in order to be witnesses to the Good News, we need the gift of the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, we will be celebrating God’s gift of the Spirit next Sunday.

Star Trek imagines a new world where there is intergalactic peace. The many peoples of the universe have learned to work together as one. They have collaborated together to build a civilisation made up of diverse peoples and cultures who have shared their gifts with each other. Hostile peoples have become friends and have overcome their warring and violent tendencies.

I am not suggesting that Star Trek equals the Kingdom of God. I am suggesting that we need to allow God to fire our imagination with a vision of heaven on earth. The Ascension requires that we, too, exercise our imagination. The message of the Ascension is the Christ has gone before us into heaven where he prays and intercedes for us before the throne of God. Furthermore, Christ will come again in glory to bring to completion the work that has been begun. In the meantime, God will send us the Holy Spirit who fill us with sevenfold gifts of the Spirit and fire our imaginations with visions of what the Kingdom will be like. For this Good News, we give thanks. We pray that God will do for us what he did for those first disciples: that he will empower us and send us to be Apostles who will make present the kingdom of heaven on earth.

Not everyone’s homes are like that though. For some people, homes are places to forget or to leave, because they been a place of suffering, either their own or someone else’s. Whatever our actual experience of home, most people know that a good home is something we need, and to which most of us aspire. Little wonder that John’s gospel makes subtle but telling use of this metaphor of being “at home with God”. In the text before us today, Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

In the language of John’s gospel, our true home is be entwined in an intimate relationship with God. All through the gospel, Jesus describes his relationship with God as an intimate communion, in which he and the Father and the Spirit abide together so closely that they speak and act as if they are one. Their very being is tied up in each other, not in a way where a weak partner is dominated by the other, but in a partnership of freedom that allows each person the freedom to be utterly themselves. It follows that the spiritual life that Jesus is inviting us into is to be part of this intimate communion, this mutual indwelling. Another way of putting it is that Jesus is promising to send the Spirit to enable us to dwell in the company of God, and to be at home with God and to allow our hearts to be a home for God.

This sounds simple enough, but if you have ever been involved in the process of home making, as most of us have, it can be quite a journey. The TV programme I mentioned illustrate how hard it can be. Take the couple who think they know what they need in a home, but in the process of searching for a house the husband and wife discover they have completely different ideas about what a good home is, which is why they can never agree on what to buy, and so the search goes on for years at a time. We actually need to be able to see the potential in a home, and we need advice and support and often a great deal of skill to bring a good home into being.

So what is involved in making a home with God, or to put it more closely into the language of John’s gospel: how can we go about allowing God to be our home and our hearts to be a place for God to dwell? John’s gospel has many examples of people doing this. Perhaps the most stunning example is in the story of the raising of Lazarus. When we come across Lazarus, he is laid in the tomb and he wrapped in burial cloth. As we go through life, it is human nature to wrap ourselves in metaphorical cloth. The cloth is like a protective shield hiding the parts of us that are vulnerable that we don’t want others to know about. The cloth is also the identities we wrap around us, the masks we wear to make ourselves acceptable or to hide things we don’t want others to see. Over time, the layers of cloth hide the person God has created us to be, and that person ends up lying in the tomb. Our spiritual task is to walk out of the tomb in response to the call of Jesus, to allow the cloth to unwrapped so that we can come face to face with Jesus.

That journey of allowing the gaze of Jesus to fall on us, is a journey of facing the truth of who we are and who we are becoming. If we want to be at home with God and to allow our hearts to be a place where God is at home with us, we need to be at home with who we are. That is an important journey. In your prayer you might like to imagine Jesus looking directly at you, coming face to face with you. What do you think Jesus would see? What do think he would think of you? How would you be feeling? These are the questions that we need to take to a spiritual director or into confession, or to speak about with someone you trust. This is the journey of seeking out the advice and support you need to make a home in God.

Some people have no problem with this. They describe their relationship with God as being like two trees entwined together so that you can’t see which tree is which. Or they think of themselves being enveloped in God like a child in God’s womb. Some people have a different journey. They think God is frowning on them with disapproval, or that God sees only the messes they have got themselves into, or they think they need to strive harder to please a demanding God. Some people don’t want to face the truth about themselves. It is far easier to carry on blaming someone else for whatever dissatisfaction they have in their lives, rather than face issues in their own lives that they need to face up to.

The Good News, though, is that the search for home is over when we accept that when God looks at us he sees only someone created in his image, someone who is loved utterly. If we allow, God will take the initiative and will come and make a home in us no matter what state we think our hearts are in. And then God will gently nurture, renovate and restore our hearts. What it means, as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit make their home in us, is that in time we will join with God in their home in heaven, where there are more than enough rooms for everyone.

All we have to do to enable all this to happen is keep Jesus’ word. Pretty simple really. That means we doing the things that Jesus told us to do and living the way Jesus wanted us to live. And that is spelt out all through the gospels, so that by reading them carefully we see our Christian life being lived out in practice in the life of Jesus. God will give us the grace to do this. He will nurture us and feed us with his life as we eat and drink the bread and wine of the Eucharist. And we when we do this, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit make their home in us, and we will obtain all the benefits that entails.

The gospel reading before us today is from the last chapter of John’s gospel. The evangelist takes us back to see how the disciples are getting on following the death of Jesus. We find them still coping with the shock of Jesus’ death. In spite of the previous appearances of Jesus, the disciples have gone back to their old lives and what they know best. They have taken up their old careers of being fishermen. It took them some time work through the grief of Good Friday and to make sense of their lives in the light of the resurrection. So it is not surprising that we see them going back to what they know best.

As we know from the story, they had spent the whole night fishing fruitlessly, catching nothing. You can imagine what it must have felt like when some ignorant stranger appeared on the shore and told them to cast the net on the other side of the boat! “Everyone knows you don’t catch fish in the morning daylight! Don’t tell us how to do our job!” might have been the phrase that went through their minds. So imagine the disciples, tired from fishing all night, having this ignorant stranger telling them to cast the net on the other side!

But look at imagery of this story! When Jesus tells the disciples to cast the net on the other side, he is saying, cast down into the depths of your self; look into places where you don’t often look; discover what amazing treasures lie deep within you. That’s what the disciples did; and to their amazement they brought up a huge haul of treasure, a full net of fish, a catch so great they were not able to haul it in. And so it is with us. God has made us wonderful people, full of treasures and gifts; often they are buried within us in places where we do not expect, and we need the help of the risen Christ to draw them out.

This is also a story about the future mission of the Church. We know that the disciples had already encountered the risen Lord as a reality to be trusted and believed. However, this had not yet been translated into life and mission in the world. The risen Jesus comes to stir them to faith again; to remind them of their calling right back at the beginning to be fishers of people. With the risen Christ directing us, our mission to fish for people will be abundant indeed. The nets will not tear and none will be lost.

Immediately the disciples recognise who this stranger is on the sea shore. In response, Peter brings the fruit of their labour to the Lord. He comes in an attitude of humility, offering to Jesus the catch which represents the offering of their lives to God. They bring their work, their play, their gifts and treasures; and in the act of cooking breakfast on the fire, the risen Jesus makes these gifts holy and offers them back to them as spiritual food, blessed by God.

And of course, that is what we do every time we celebrate the Eucharist as well. We come in humility before God, which is why the first thing we do when we come into the presence of the Risen One is to offer our prayers of penitence in which we recognise our finiteness and our need of God’s grace. We offer bread and wine to the risen Lord which represents our lives: our work and our play, and our gifts. We pray God’s blessing on the bread and wine, and it is given back to us as holy food, food for eternal life, food to sustain us on our journey. Jesus says to us, “Come and have breakfast.” That’s an invitation; we are invited to fellowship with God, and in this meal we are loved and accepted and treasured as we are; we are made God’s holy people; loved forever.

And finally, at this scene, Jesus restored Peter. Remember that Peter had denied Jesus three times. The charcoal fire might well be reminding him of that occasion, for Peter had warmed himself next to a charcoal fire during Jesus’ trial, while he was denying Jesus. Jesus takes the initiative, as he always does. He calls Peter by name, just as the Good Shepherd said he would. He calls Peter by his old name “Simon, son of John.” This is the earlier name Peter had, before he met Jesus. So now Peter is given a second chance; his life with Jesus begins over again. The miserable episodes of hasty vows and quick denials are now set aside. And Jesus’ question is simple. “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Three times he asks this; each time undoing the past, lifting the burden of guilt. Three times as if each time he answers the three denials are overcome. Each time Peter’s “Yes, Lord,” marks the restoration of relationship. Peter now makes no bold claims, no rash promises. His faith is no longer in himself and his over inflated ego, but in Jesus. “Lord, you know everything: you know I love you.” And so, “a chastened Peter rests his case on Jesus’ knowledge of what was in his heart.”

There is of course much more to tell; more to tell as Peter follows Jesus with love, and faith, and courage. But for now, it is enough that in a curious way, this is the story of our own lives. For us too, these days now, just after Easter Day, these are the times for our own new beginnings with God. It is time for us to say, “Yes, Lord, you know I love you…” and to hear the Saviour say to us, “Then go! Engage in mission and feed my sheep”.

The liturgy we have followed tonight dramatises and proclaims what the resurrection is all about. It is a synthesis of all the “I am” statements of Jesus through John’s gospel. I homily like this only begins to scratch the surface. If we were in the third century, there would be a sermon after each reading, some of them an hour long!

Jesus said, “I am the life of the world.” We started in darkness and we went right back to our primal beginnings. Think of C S Lewis’ story of The Magician’s Nephew, when the children jump into one of the pools and find themselves taken back to the dawn of creation. There is darkness, and all they hear is Aslan the lion singing. As the song develops everything comes into being. We have done the same tonight. We started in darkness, we have heard an ancient song, the Exsultet, first sung in the earliest centuries of the Christian era proclaiming the dawn of a new beginning in Christ. As the sung was sung, light spread through the church. On Good Friday we are told that Jesus’ tomb is in a garden, and it is in this new Garden of Eden that the risen Jesus is first encountered by Mary (hence an Easter Garden in the church – come and admire later). Jesus is the second Adam, the first fruits of the new creation. The first reading is the account of God creating the world. Jesus comes to make all things new, to provide a new beginning. Because of this night we know that in Christ we are a new creation.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” In the icons of the orthodox churches, the risen Jesus is depicted coming out of a black mandorla shape at the rear of the scene. That mandorla represents the eternity of God. Jesus is coming back to us as light. He is coming as light out of the immense eternity of God. God has held on to him through death. Death could not exhaust God or drain God’s energy. So God is able to give Jesus back to us. He comes to us as an immense light. Tonight tells us that Christ our light has come into the world to overcome the darkness. If we had loads of money and endless resource, we would put on massive flood lights just before the Gloria that would temporarily shock us and blind us all at once. Because of tonight, we know that the darkness could not overcome the light; that which is cast down is being raised up, and the things that were old are being made new.

Jesus said, “I am the living water.” This is the night when, along with our Jewish brothers and sisters, we celebrate the liberation of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and their journey to the Promised Land. They travelled through the Red Sea on foot into freedom. Because of tonight we know that Christ becomes our Promised Land. He is the goal of our journey. But Christ is also the new Moses; the one who leads us from the slavery of sin and death to new life in the Kingdom. We will go down to the font to celebrate that later. At the font we give thanks that we have been buried with Christ in the waters of baptism, that all that enslaves us and keeps us from God is drowned just as the Egyptian army was, and that we are raised in Christ through the waters of new birth to eternal life.

Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Because of this night, we know that Jesus is as close to us as our family is when we sit down at table together. Tonight we eat the bread and wine of heaven that money cannot buy. In ancient times when the Hebrew people ate the Passover Lamb, they knew themselves to be sitting down with God and that as they shared the meal together God couldn’t be closer. Tonight we eat the meal of the kingdom, and Christ is as present to us as you and I are to each other. Because of this night, we know Christ is close. He comes to strengthen and renew, to nourish, to give us strength to face the times of trial.

So then, let us continue our celebrating; rest in the rich imagery of this night. Allow the Spirit of God to renew you and uplift you, that any dry bones in your life may have new life breathed into them, that we may be given renewed strength to face all that is to come. Because Christ has risen; He is truly risen and for that we give thanks and praise to God.

The events of the night of the last supper in the upper room are located in the context of the Jewish festival of Passover. The Passover celebrated the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, and everyone would have gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate this feast. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) tell us that the meal Jesus celebrated on this last night was the Passover meal. This was when Jesus gave us the gift of the Eucharist. He took bread, broke it, and said, “This is my body.” He took the cup and said, “This is my blood.” It means that in this meal he is offering us his own body and blood, that he is continuing to give his life freely to us.

The Passover meal that everyone ate, was a meal that celebrated the covenant between God and his people. As they ate the Passover lamb, they would have been thinking that God was at table with them as he had been with Moses, and that no other people in the world could be as close to God as they were. It was a meal in which they would express their commitment to God afresh, and their commitment to each other. For us, the Eucharist has become that meal that celebrates the covenant relationship we have God. When we eat bread and drink wine, God draws close to us and we to him, and we renew our commitment to him.

In John’s gospel, which is the text before us today, Jesus expresses the depth of his love for us. John says, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (John 13:1). As we know from all that Jesus has been teaching, it is in his nature to lay down his life. This is not an accident that happened to a good person. Jesus freely gives his life for the world, because it is in his nature to do so. It is a love that stays connected, that does not run away when things get tough. It is a love that will lead to his suffering on the cross.

Jesus wants us to have the same kind of love, a love that is focused beyond ourselves, that leads us to loving service of others. So he takes up the towel and begins washing his disciples’ feet. This was a shocking act for someone who was a spiritual leader. Slaves were supposed to do the foot washing. But in this act of self-giving love, Jesus turns the normal way of being a leader on its head. The disciples’ feet would have been smelly, dusty, and hot from their journey and it is this menial task that Jesus carries out. To show us his love he takes on the form of a slave.

Peter protested. But washing the disciples’ feet was so important that Jesus insisted going as far as saying, “Unless I wash you, you have no share in me.” (John 13:8). What does Jesus mean by this? Some people think that the foot washing is a symbol of baptism and that there is a connection with Jesus telling Nicodemus that if we are to see the Kingdom of God we need to be born of water and the Spirit (see John 3:3). But there is more to this. What Jesus wants us to see is the pattern of self giving that Jesus is showing in his Passion and death. We are not to live for ourselves. Our lives belong to Christ. We enter into the Passion of Jesus and become players in the story, so that we can learn that self giving love and self emptying is central to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus washes feet to show that he becomes like a slave, a servant of God and God’s people, and that he would do what God wants even if it means death. So it is for us. We are called to serve God and each other. We are called to give our love generously to others, for that is what brings out the best in us. Instead of being selfish, we are to respond to people’s needs. Sometimes that is hard. Sometimes it means laying aside our agendas and it will involve sacrifice. God is calling us to live this way, not just as individuals, but as a whole Christian community as well. Being a servant community and looking out for the needs of others, being generous in our sharing: this is the message that Jesus wants to drive home as he enters his passion and death.

The washing of feet then, is one of the ways that helps us make sense of the death of Jesus. It is a pattern of self-giving, of laying down our lives for others, which we enter into when we are baptised. Be entering into that pattern we share in Christ’s death and resurrection, and we also share in God’s life.

A final point by way of conclusion: the disciples had to allow Jesus to serve them, and we must allow Jesus to serve us. We need to be able to accept his assistance. That can take some humility. Sometimes accepting help from others can be difficult because some find it hard to accept they need it, and worry that they feel inferior or that their view of themselves will be lowered in some way. It is the same with God. We need to able to accept help from Jesus, even as he suffers and prepares for his death. After all, we can’t get to heaven by ourselves or on our own efforts. This Maundy Thursday ask God to show you where you need healing and where you need Christ to help you, and ask for the grace to be able to receive it.

One of the ways that we signify that we desire to live into this vision is by the imposition of ash. When the sign of the cross is marked on our bodies with ash, the bible is quoted with the words: “Remember you are dust” (Gen 3:19). Usually when we think of the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, many of us will think of “the fall”, the serpent, the woman and the man who eat of the forbidden fruit. If these are the stories and themes that come into your mind it makes complete sense, because we are beginning a season that the church has said for generations is about penance, confronting our faults, perhaps even wallowing in our sense of sinfulness for a while as we begin a journey with Jesus that is linked to self denial, self abasement, or even self rejection.

But there is another way of hearing these words: “Remember you are dust.” It is quite possible that this not about “the fall” or about sinfulness, but instead it could well be a wisdom saying, from the tradition of Holy Wisdom. Dust occurs at the beginning and the end of the second Genesis creation story forming a kind of inclusio. “The Lord God formed the human person of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7).

The Genesis creation story is a story that reminds us where we have come from. It tells us that we are “earth creatures”, that our lives are fragile and finite, that our lives are in fact quite vulnerable, that we are dependent on others for so much of our life time, and that our lives can be lost all too easily. Most fundamentally, the words “Remember you are dust” remind us that the only reason we live is because of the breath of God. Which means life is a gift that is given freely and graciously by God. Life is never something we can own or take possession of. Our life belongs to God, who is the source from which it comes, and to whom it will return when we die.

“Remember you are dust”. The fact that we are made from dust, and that we are vulnerable and fragile human beings is not a punishment or an aberration or the result of sin. It is simply the way God has made us. It is part of what it means to be human, part of our personhood. A healthy understanding of who we are recognises that we are dust, and that we live daily, moment by moment, by the grace and generosity of God. The story of Adam and Eve is about what happens when we try to escape our creatureliness, when we embark on the dangerous venture of “being like God” (Genesis 3:4). While Adam and Eve try to find another godlike status, the story begins and ends with the reminder that we are dust.

When we receive the imposition of ash, it will be to call us back to who we really are before God. We are created by God. We kept alive by God’s gift of life, that in response to God’s gift our task is to care for the creation and to share the goodness of creation with others. It is so important that we Christians provide a witness to this, because our culture is in the process of forgetting. Our culture says that each person is an autonomous, consuming individual at the centre of our own world. It is telling us that we are more powerful than we actually are, and that there should be no boundaries to what we consume or take from the earth, no boundaries to wealth that we should hoard for ourselves, and that technology will eventually solve even the problem of death so that we can put that off for as long as possible, or even perhaps never have to face it at all. Ash Wednesday reminds us who we are, that we are vulnerable human beings, that God has made us to care and to work for others, and that all we have is God’s, and that God’s gifts are given to be shared.

In the psalms there is mention again that we are formed from the dust of the earth. In Psalm 103 the psalmist says, “God knows our frame, God remembers that we are dust” (vs 14). It is interesting to note what this memory evokes in God. When God remembers that we are dust, that our days are like grass, that we are fragile and mortal human beings, this awareness evokes in God a deep, caring concern: “But your merciful goodness O Lord extends forever toward those who fear you; and your righteousness to children’s children” (vs 17).

In other words, as we are being reminded that we are dust, we are also being made freshly aware that God is remembering our frailty, and that God is a God who forgives, who heals, who redeems, who crowns us with compassion and love. So as we recall that we are dust, it is not to diminish us, to denigrate our humanity. It is to invite us to remember who we are in relation to God, and to remind us that God’s agenda is always for our good. As we face our true selves, we discover our place before God.

Even if we forget who we are, God always remembers. God is always forming us, creating us, giving us the breath of life, summoning us into being, guarding our lives, nourishing us with his goodness and surrounding us with his faithfulness. He sent his Son Jesus to one with us in our human condition, to experience what it is to be fragile, vulnerable, and to face death. In this season of Lent, Jesus needs Christians who remember that we are dust, who know as he did what it is to trust, to be in need of God’s faithful love, who can willingly embrace God’s call to care for others through our prayer and fasting, and who embrace the call to care for others and work for Christ and not ourselves. This is what the season of Lent is about.

So come to receive the imposition of ash, to be marked by the cross. Come to be at home with God and at home with who you really are. “Remember you are dust.” Embrace your fragility, but remember that you are surrounded by the loving faithfulness of God. Hear an invitation to trust the One who frees us to live for others. And when that smudge of dirty ash irritates your skin later today, remember that it is not just an annoying bit of ash. It is a sign of your humanness, a reminder of Christ who is your true home, and reminder of Christ’s teaching to love and live for others.

Over the last few Sundays we have reflected much on the holiness of Jesus encountered in places of worship; in the temple and in the synagogue. Isaiah tells us he encountered God there too; in the smoke and incense of the temple liturgy. Lots of people encounter God this way, in a sacred world cut off from real life. But when we come to Luke’s gospel today, Jesus has come out of the holy places of worship into the workplace. He is teaching from a fisherman’s boat. As we noticed in the synagogue, the people who heard Jesus were mesmerised by him. The people pressed in to hear Jesus because of his natural authority and deeds of power. One didn’t have to be a fool to see that there was something different about Jesus. He was a very attractive character. They were entertained by Jesus winning debates with religious leaders. Some would be waiting to see if he would perform a miracle. Some even hoped they would benefit directly from a miracle themselves. Some of them enjoyed the piercing and clever ways he put down the rich people or those who held power. Those with insight perceived a deeper reality in him; they knew he was of God and they were hungry to discover more of him themselves.

If the people who gathered around Jesus had mixed motives, a mixture of the motives I just described and perhaps some others; so it is with us. Most of us have mixed motives for following Jesus. Some follow Jesus because they like being with the people they meet at church, or so that their children can come to Sunday School or access a Christian education. Some come to church to get away from their normal environment of home or work to find a place of peace and rest and well being, to have their batteries re-charged. Some of this will have something to do with our own relationship with God. All of us have mixed motives for counting ourselves as Christians, and we shouldn’t worry about that; we should be aware of them and be honest with ourselves and God about them.

There were some people, just a few, who found in Jesus something utterly compelling and irresistible. They didn’t just see that Jesus came from God. They experienced the very presence of God. They could taste what God’s kingdom is actually like. When they were with Jesus, it was like being in heaven already. They found him disturbing, sometimes a bit frightening, but they also found him fun and enjoyable. In his presence there was an added richness to human existence they had not known before. The first to experience this humbling and exhilarating awe was Simon. Sitting on his boat on the edge of the lake, Simon listened to Jesus and was won, heart and soul.

I don’t know about you, but I hate having someone else tell me how to do my job. When it happens, I usually pull faces and start snapping at people. If you are like me, spare a thought for these fishermen who had fished all night and had caught nothing. If someone, particularly someone who did not fish, told me to have another go after a long fruitless night, they’d be likely to get a frosty reception and a good dose of passive resistance. But it was not so with Simon. He was already so captivated by Jesus, that although he was a professional fisherman and Jesus was not, although reason, common sense and fisherman’s lore told him to go home to bed; despite all that, when Jesus told him to let down the nets, he did just that.

The great haul of fish that ensued was a sign to Simon of the immensity of the task before the church, and the gravity of its responsibility. This was a huge haul of fish, a massive haul, which had nets tearing and both boats at sinking point. This haul of fish is a sign of the future church, encompassing all races, nations and types of people. The real catch was yet to come, but this haul was a sign.

Peter’s response was one of awe and penitence. Aware of the presence of God, and overwhelmed by it, the first thing he did was to acknowledge his inadequacy in the presence of the holy. The church’s language is dominated by the language of sin, but there is also plenty of biblical precedent to think of this in terms of acknowledging our creatureliness, the fact that we are made from dust and will return to dust, that we are small, fragile, vulnerable and finite human beings. We need to acknowledge our human frailty and vulnerability, to recognise that we are not gods who can do whatever we like.

Our meetings to celebrate the Eucharist always follow this pattern. It is discernable in Isaiah’s vision as well. We begin by acknowledging that we are in the presence of God (We gather in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and we start by offering God a hymn of praise. But the very next thing we do is acknowledge our human frailty to God, our need of God, our need for God’s compassion and forgiveness. This is why the penitential rite, the singing of “Lord, have mercy”, properly belongs at the beginning of the liturgy. Like Simon, James and John, when we realise we are in the presence of God, the first thing that happens is that we become aware of our need of God’s mercy and compassion.

Such was the impact of this scene on Simon, James and John, that they left everything they had to follow Jesus. They left their jobs, all their securities, their possessions, their way of life, and they followed Jesus. From now on, nothing else mattered. There was no where else to go than to be where Jesus was, to do the things Jesus did and to speak and think like him. Those fishermen left everything for the sake of Christ because they believed God was with them, and because they wanted be involved in God’s mission. Jesus needs followers who are prepared to let go of the present reality to follow him. This can be really hard, even painful. Am I prepared to give up big things, which may include my present job, my present identity and securities for God? For some, that is what God’s call involves. It’s an inspiring call to an adventure with God that will lead us to places and people we can’t even begin to imagine. When God calls us, we might feel a sense of unworthiness, but we are not banished by God. Just as in Isaiah’s vision, God heals our past hurts and failures and the messes we get ourselves into. He endows us with gifts. By God’s grace, we are made heralds of his word. He calls and sends us out into the deep, into the unknown to make his glory manifest in a needy world.

Those fishermen were dead and buried long ago. Since then there have been many, some like those fishermen, others quite different, but all with personalities able to hear and respond to his call. Those people done their bit and they have gone to meet their maker. Now there is only us, we are it. If the gospel is to be proclaimed today it has to be done by us, there isn’t anybody else. God still needs people who are prepared to respond, who are prepared to take the risk, who can work hard for the extension of the kingdom, who can cope in arid situations and with long periods where there seems to be no fish biting on the end of the line. If the church’s mission is to continue to be like a great haul of fish it will be because we understand that Jesus needed people like those fishermen then, and he still does today.