The Foundation of Lady Katherine Leveson at Temple Balsall  

Temple Balsall
St Mary's Church
 homeAbout the Foundationcontact ushelp me find . . .


Christian Resources Library

Seeing the Generosity of God

2 Kings 4. 42 - 44 and John 6:1-2

Sermon preached on Sunday 27th July 2003 by
The Reverend Dr James Woodward

The Bright Field - R.S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
And forgotten it. But that was
the pearl of great price,
the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but it is the eternity that awaits you.

The Old Testament Reading points us to the significance of one aspect of the Gospel story which is that there is more than enough food. Having more than enough food is a luxury, a richness, which we in the west, with all our problems of obesity and excess waste, easily overlook - but surely to have more to eat is a blessing if we recognise the need in which most of the world lives.

The Gospel story begins with need - the need for food. That need is met by a seemingly paltry offering. But that small offering is miraculously more than enough, through the mystery of divine provision, transformation and distribution.

We need to have our eyes open to the divine economy within which there is always more than enough for us. God's saving generosity.

The RS Thomas poem speaks to us of how to see the spiritual realities of what God provides - the economy of the Kingdom - to which reason, ambition, commonsense even, may be blind- the turning aside from the striving for a future or from obsession with the past, the turning aside to see the easily overlooked treasure of the kingdom - the hidden pearl, the glimpsed revelation of glory as we journey through our lives.

Prayer is the way we can train the muscles of our spiritual eyes to see the extraordinary blessings of God's grace and presence in amongst the ordinary, the countless 'more than enough' with which God graces us. Prayer teaches us to turn aside and to see.

The Reverend Dr James Woodward