18th Sunday of the Year
The readings reveal God’s unconditional love – a love without conditions even when people grumble, fail and complain as in the first readings. God is constantly seeking to connect with us – something not always easy to accept and which needs to be extended to others. To do this may mean looking beyond what is before us. Jesus says we need to look beyond what fills our bellies to see the love with which it was given.
People still equate faith with getting to heaven rather than facing realities that touch us every day. To those seeking power and privilege, Jesus says, ‘Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life.’ Scholars say that ‘eternal’ (aionios) refers to the quality rather than duration. It is time when justice and peace is established in contrast to violence, injustice, and oppression. It focuses on relationships that lead to peace and justice rather than temporary gains of power, privilege, or property. It is a privilege for me to be engaged with people who are passionate about peace and justice and seek to make things better and safer for others. This is the food that endures to eternal life because it is based on relationships, connection and mutual care rather than money, political power, or possessions. Taking a line from The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint -Exupery, ‘It is only with one's heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye’ Mary McGlone suggests it could be an introduction to John’s Gospel. It is about moving to a life-giving depth when we ‘Believe in the one (God) has sent.’ It is moving into a different world view which can seem upside down. It includes hungering for his presence, his love and sharing it with others.
After feeding the multitudes, Jesus tries to teach what he really has to offer. It leads people to ask, ‘What does God want us to do?’ to which he responds, ‘This is what God wants you to do: To believe in the one he has sent.’ This believing is about faith which leads to action expressed tangibly in our heart, our feet, our eyes, and ears. It is profoundly relational, emotional. It is to look at others as Christ sees them. Scripture is clear that bread is God’s gift to all including those deemed unworthy or disposable. This faith has much to do with vision where we see God’s presence in and through the signs of everyday life.
Each reflection on the scriptures offers another image of the God of Jesus. Where the crowds expected a this-worldly figure who would lead in them in this-world agendas as with political figures, Jesus had ideas different to what they wanted or expected. The question to us is whether we will live into God's image, or try to force God into our image? Our actions or failures to act; our neglect or violence can obscure God’s image in the world.
As we encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, we also through encounter him in and with the poor. His body is visible in people who are bruised, abandoned, tortured and abused. Jesus cannot be divided. St John Chrysostom (4th century), said: ‘To receive in truth the Body and Blood of Christ, given up for us, we must recognize Christ in the poorest!’ Warning against hypocrisy, he asks: ‘Do you wish to honour the body of Christ? Do not ignore him when he is naked. Do not pay him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect him outside where he is cold and ill-clad. He who said: ‘This is my body’ is the same who said: ‘You saw me hungry, and you gave me no food’, and ‘Whatever you did to the least of my brothers (and sisters) you did also to me…’’ Pope Francis often speaks of the church as a field hospital: The thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds.... And you have to start from the ground up. (Aug. 19, 2013)
Jesus gave bread – himself- for the liberation of others. He gave his life for championing justice, truth, the poor, and the exploited by standing up to injustice, deception, greed, and exploitation. Like the bread broken and given, he was broken, scourged, and crucified by those in power.
The readings today overturn notions that fulfilment comes only when we own enough, eat enough, experience enough, or know enough. But this process causes our relationships and communities to deteriorate and our hearts to grow increasingly empty. We know there is another way. As we trust in God’s abundance, we can find the freedom that comes from simplicity, the unity that comes from collaboration, and the abundance that comes from generosity. Do we trust in Jesus enough to risk living according to his way, and commit to seeking the unity that is possible when we share whatever we have with others? How might our world change with this kind of attitude? Would we leave millions of people without a vaccine because of patents, profits, and self-preservation? Would we be content for a billion people to lack water, food, healthcare, and proper education? Would we continue to have wars and conflicts if we used just enough rather than stealing resources from other nations? Past and contemporary conflicts and struggles can be reduced to one basic reality: some people have more than they need, and hoard it. God has given us what we need to feed, house and care for everyone in our world, but many sacrifice peace and unity on the altars of greed. To make a change, we must embrace God’s generosity - not just for us, but as flowing through us to others. Paul calls us to ‘Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.’ We are called to be leaders, agents of change – not passive puppets. The writer says we have ‘learned’ Christ. This learning or education is not a learning about Christ but following his way to begin a transformation within us and around us. Jesus does not need us to worship him, but to follow him!
By providing food for the crowds, Jesus drew them beyond the signs before them to what can satisfy human hunger - a hunger satisfied by intimacy with him – to another level of awareness - to see as he sees. It is to see dignity and beauty in a beggar; to see the need for healing and reconciliation in a shamed woman; to see potential in those who may be an enemy because of fear; to see beyond the colour of skin, or gender, or politics or socioeconomic status.
Being more like him, we can see as he sees, and respond with his heart. We are called to look at the world differently where we see abundance rather than scarcity; love rather than fear; generosity rather than greed; and peacemaking rather than violence. God is at work in our lives and at work in us. What would Jesus’ words mean for communities and churches tempted to think small and shrink the table of hospitality rather than extend it. God wants us to think big and act boldly. God’s vision of possibilities and the energy to realise them is diminished when we fail to align ourselves with God’s reign of peace, beauty, and justice. The more we work alongside marginalised and impoverished communities to bring about justice, the more we see the face of God. ’I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.’ I doubt if this hunger or thirst ever end because the more we taste God’s presence, the more we crave it. Even when things seem negative, we experience spiritual hunger when lonely or overwhelmed; when feeling helpless amid news of ecological destruction, poverty, hunger and inequality; when our sisters and brothers tear each other apart in the home or on the world scale; and, when we lament what is happening in the world and what it could be. It is through these experiences that God connects with us and meets us each day.
Jesus calls us to be relational: just as bread is broken and shared among friends and family, we are most nourished when we are living out Jesus’ message to care for one another and build just relationships in society. It is not about religious rules, doctrine, or dogma because they often provide reasons for us to disconnect from others. What we see is the heart of God with boundless compassion for people who are hungry and thirsty in any way, and we have a part to play. This is the miracle. This is the way to ‘eternal life.’
Nourish us, O God, with the bread that gives life to the world.
Bring wholeness to our broken relationships,
that they may become sacraments of your boundless generosity.
And give us the courage to speak truth to power. Amen