'Dedication' - Dedication Sunday

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Today we commemorate the Dedication of our Church, here at St Peter’s.

When a church is dedicated it means it is consecrated for worship.

It is set apart as a place that is Holy.

As Christians, worship entails not only the offering of a sacrifice to God but also receiving from God.

The Mass is both a sacrifice that is offered and the living bread that we receive.

It is not only the bread and wine itself but also the benefits that Christ gained for us at Calvary that we receive anew in the Eucharist.

The dual nature worship--offering and receiving--is essential to what it means to adore and serve God, and thus to be part of His church.

How fitting, then, that on the anniversary of our Church’s dedication, our Gospel for the day is the account from Matthew of the feeding of the five thousand.

The story of the feeding of the five thousand not only illustrates the generosity and bounty of God, but also the idea of Eucharist, which is essential to the mission of the Church.

One might understand this story as a metaphor not only for the Church--one holy, Catholic and apostolic--but also for the smaller communities that make up the whole. Communities like St Peter’s.

In the blessing and breaking of the bread, Jesus demonstrates that he is High Priest, both pastor and redeemer.

In distributing the food to the people the disciples enact the ministry with which Jesus has commissioned them.

In feeding on the bread that Jesus offers and which the disciples distribute, the faithful crowds demonstrate the sacrifice of faith and the reception of the gifts of God. 

At the beginning of the story, Jesus reacts to the death of John the Baptist by retreating to a boat by himself. 

When Jesus comes ashore he is surrounded by crowds who have come in search of healing.

As evening comes on, the Disciples tell Jesus that the crowds must disperse to nearby villages to find food and shelter. 

Jesus says to the disciples that the crowds need not go away--rather that the disciples should feed them.

The disciples reply that they do not have enough food to feed them.

But Jesus persists and the disciples bring him what they have.

Jesus blesses the food and distributes it to the people, and there is, miraculously, more than enough to feed the crowd, although there are more than five thousand men, as well as women and children. 

The parallels between the feeding of the five thousand and the church that nourishes the faithful are many, but three parallels are arguably the most significant: the priestly role of Jesus, the commission that Jesus makes to those who minister in his name, and the people whom the disciples feed by the commission of Jesus.

Jesus provides the template for the priesthood in his roles both as pastor and expiator.

Jesus does tend to the physical needs of the crowd but he will also, in the end, tend to the eternal needs of their souls when he offers himself for their redemption. 

We see a direct Eucharistic parallel in his offering of the meal to God and the fraction of the bread that is then distributed. 

But the priesthood of Jesus is unique in that it is ultimately his self-offering of his flesh and blood that restores our relationship with God. 

Although it is the disciples that distribute the bread and the fishes, it is Jesus alone who can ensure the crowd is satisfied.

The priests of the Church that follow Jesus’ way, as paralleled by the disciples, do indeed offer the gifts of God to the people of God.

And they are commissioned to do so, just as Jesus asks the disciples to encourage the crowd to draw near to receive food.

But they offer these gifts in a way distinct from Jesus.

What they offer is what Christ has already offered and continues to offer, mediated by their bodies in the here and now.

The crowds who come to Jesus seeking healing might be understood as the faithful of the Church. They partake in the priesthood of Jesus too, but in a manner different again.

By eating Jesus’ body and drinking his blood they abide in him and he in them.

In this particular story, by eating the bread that Jesus has offered and broken, they partake quite literally in God’s offering of himself.

Although this metaphor of the Church, irradiating from Christ’s saving priesthood, might be seen as hierarchical, in fact it is the crowd itself that is at the centre of this story. 

Because it is in feeding the crowds that Jesus is ultimately interested.

The disciples assume a characteristically human attitude of scarcity. They say there isn’t enough bread. Nor fish. And there are far too many people.

Jesus reminds the disciples of God’s economy.

The same God that fed the Israelites manna in the wilderness continues to offer His people bread from Heaven.

God’s intervention in the world, via the church, is not historical but ongoing.

How might we understand this view of the Church as commissioned by Jesus to feed God’s people in the context we now find ourselves. 

And what parallels might we draw between the ministry of feeding and our own community of St Peter’s?

In our current, extraordinary times we might view the assembly of five thousand people with nostalgia.

St Peter’s is located in the vibrant heart of Melbourne. A city which, right now, doesn’t much resemble the proud, optimistic city we love. 

The restrictions that have been implemented to safeguard public health have had a painful and prolonged impact on our sense of community, and of what it means to feed and be fed as an assembly of God’s people. 

Spiritual Communion in a time crisis is indeed a gift of the Spirit, but it isn’t the same as physical communion at the Mass.

If it were, we wouldn’t need to attend the Mass in person ever again.

And if the Mass were so easily substituted by a purely spiritual understanding of communion, it must reflect poorly upon how we understand what is offered on the altar, hidden under the appearance of bread. 

After all, the bread and fishes that the disciples give the faithful crowds are not spiritual bread and fish.

They are physical bread and fish to nourish physical bodies.

And in Matthew, as in the world today, the people of God require food--real, physical food--connexion and touch to flourish, to be fully human.

Therefore, I won’t and can’t minimise the sense of loss we feel at the fragmentation of our communities.

Yes, ultimately the Church is greater than a building. It’s certainly greater than you and me.

But by becoming flesh, the Son of God has forever made the physical inseparable from our salvation.

We are embroiled in the pain of the body--and the necessity of being in community--whether we like it or not.

Its absence is and must be a source of distress.

How then, on the anniversary of our Dedication, can we reframe the narrative of the Church in a time of great loneliness?

Not as a spiritualised construct but as something our minds and bodies continue to carry?

I believe in these difficult times, God gives us the chance to be ourselves—our minds and bodies—an outward sign of an inward grace.

In other words, to be the Sacrament in the world.

What do I mean by being the Sacrament?

Perhaps at its most simple, it means reflecting in our thoughts and actions the reality that we have received the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. 

It means being kind to the people we live with, even if four months into isolation we’ve become all too keenly attuned to habits and idiosyncrasies we find annoying.

It means being kind to ourselves, allowing ourselves to feel the loss of community and our own frailty, but in hopes our communities—not only at St Peter’s—will again be restored. 

It means offering our support--whether practically or in prayer--to the important work of the St Peter’s food programmes, both to people experiencing homelessnes and also to the wider community through its partnership with the Parliament of Victoria.

In these ministries, our community at St Peter’s quite literally feeds the five thousand, thus living out in works the basic tenets of our faith.

 In being the Sacrament, we teach people about Jesus.

And the Sacrament continues to be shared via our bodies even as our churches are closed.

This is because our bodies are a sign of the Church.

May God give His people the strength to be outward signs of onward grace in the midst of this pandemic

 Amen.