Isaiah 55:1-9 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Luke 13:1-9

Our physical nature as creatures in this world means that we must constantly attend to the need of our bodies for food and for water. Our appetites tell us when we are hungr y or thirsty, so that we constantly sustain ourselves, receiving the gifts that God has provided for us. But we ar e not content with manna suf ficient for each day, and we want more and more, until our appetite becomes an addiction, to which we ar e all too easily inclined to add more addictions, until our life is spent in pursuit of things of which we have no need, and in which we never find satisfaction. But we are also spiritual creatures, who share something of the likeness of God, despite the Fall, and our deepest yearning and hunger is for God himself, in whom alone can we find the tr ue peace which comes from discovering that for which we have been searching all our lives. The Lord is calling to us to open our eyes, our hear ts and our minds, and to find eternal fulfilment in knowing and loving him, who provides our daily bread. We must lift up our eyes to the Lord who is waiting to forgive us and bless us with the kno wledge of his love, in the light of which we at last see and understand that it is the Lord for whom are hearts are longing.

It is also all too easy for us to lose sight of the spiritual nature of our journey after we have embarked upon it, for our human nature is capable of self-deception and self-r uin on a remarkable scale. One might have expected those with r ecent memories of the Exodus from Egypt to be mindful of the astonishing debt that they owed to God, and of the powerful acts by which he had saved them fr om their enemies. But many wer e quick to display their impatience with Moses and with the Lor d himself, defying his commandments, resorting to idolatry and immorality, and rising up to complain bitterly about their perceived ill-treatment. Wer e they not better of f as slaves in Egypt? These were people chosen by God, baptised by their miraculous passage through the waters of the Red Sea, and fed with manna from heaven. Christians should take note and understand that we too are capable of falling away fr om God, through wilfulness and pride, and by allowing ourselves to be distracted by the pleasures and idols and ideologies of our own world. God puts our pride to the test, just as he tested Israel in the wilderness, but he also provides many gifts of grace to those who put their faith in God, r elying upon him alone for salvation.

We should make no mistake: we might deceive ourselves, but God is not deceived. However ingeniously we tr y to constr uct our arguments, or our latter day towers of Babel, attempting to impose our own order upon the universe, and to r eimagine it and even the Lord in our own likeness and image, once we depart from the word of God disorder and chaos begin to manifest themselves. God does not look upon us benignly and tolerantly when we disobey his law, and espouse the spirit of the age. When we choose evil, we may expect to suf fer the consequences of our folly, for its fr uit is bitter and leads to our destruction, and God will judge us accor dingly. God’s desire is that we should bear good fr uit, and to that end he has made covenant after covenant with us, bestowing his word and his law upon us, and finally sending his Son to pay the ransom for our sins. Jesus speaks plainly to his listeners about the choice they must make: they can continue to live in disobedience, thus separating themselves fr om God’s grace, or they can repent and be reconciled to God, entr usting themselves to faith in him alone. The Rev Stephen Trott