During the Great Depression in the 1930’s, people who were unemployed would hop on a boxcar and ride the rails to the next town, looking for work. “Hobos,” as they were called, would often sleep in “jungles,” hidden campsites near the train tracks. Every jungle would have a campfire cooking a large pot of “hobo stew.” When arriving at a jungle, a hobo would donate a portion of whatever food he or she had- perhaps a turnip, potoato, or onion picked on the way. Everyone shared, so that everyone could eat.
It’s tempting to think that something like that happened in today’s gospel story. A crowd was in the wilderness, following Jesus. They were poor, and they were hungry. A young boy offered up the little he had: barley bread, and some fish. Jesus accepted his gift, shared it with the crowd, and everyone ate until they were full. They even had leftovers. Sometimes the assumption is made that lots of other people, following the little boy’s example, must have shared what they had as well, as with “hobo stew.” Everyone shared, so that nobody went hungry.
However, the gospel doesn’t tell us that anyone shared food aside from the little boy. And Jesus didn’t preach a homily on this occasion about the importance of sharing. Instead, he took the food, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the crowd, and everyone ate. Jesus performed a miracle as a sign that he is the Son of God. The way Jesus performed this sign, and the way it’s described in the gospel, is meant to teach us about the Eucharist. In particular, it teaches that those of us who receive the “Bread of Life” in the Eucharist, have a special responsibility to share our “daily bread” with others, especially those who have less than we do.
There are so many people today who are in need of daily bread. The current economic crisis has caused much suffering to the one billion people around the world who spend most of their meager income on food, just to stay alive. The pain is felt in our community too. More and more are looking for help from food banks, which sadly have fewer and fewer resources. You may recall that when the Pope visited Washington last year, Archbishop Wuerl called for an effort throughout our archdiocese to help stock the shelves of local food banks, and you all generously responded. And, thankfully, you still do. I’ve noticed over the past year that donations to our own St. Hugh’s food pantry are way up. Thank you! You know that people look to the church for help when they’re hungry, or in need. As well they should.
I once heard a radio report which discussed what women think about men on restaurant dates, based on the food they order. If a man orders pork loin, he’s boring. Chicken Caesar salad? He’s broke, or just cheap. Filet mignon? He’s rich. Jambalaya? He’s exciting and adventurous. The bottom line here is that people make assumptions about others, based on what they eat.
In a sense, that’s true for us, as Catholics. Everyone knows that when we come to Mass on Sunday, we eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ. In view of this, they assume that we should be generous, helpful, sharing, concerned for their needs. In short, because we receive Christ in the Eucharist, people expect us to be Christ-like.
Being Christ-like means sharing his responsiveness to the needs of the hungry and poor. You and I can’t miraculously multiply loaves and fishes like Jesus did. But like the little boy, we can share of what we have. In the Eucharist, Jesus feeds us with himself, so we can feed others in his name. Through Holy Communion, Jesus shares himself with us, so that we might be people who share. We might say, then, that receiving Holy Communion is not something we do just for ourselves. It’s something we also do for others.
I remember greeting people in line after Mass here one day. We’d had a silent auction the night before, and it had gone very well. People had been generous. They wanted to help the parish. An Italian dinner was part of the auction, and wine had been served. One person commented: “Father, if we served wine on Sundays that would really get people to open up their pocketbooks!” But, I teased back, we do serve wine on Sundays! Wine that has become the Blood of Christ. And that little sip of the Blood of Christ should do far more to make us share with others, than an entire glass of chianti.
As individuals, you and I need to share the blessings God has entrusted to us to meet the problem of hunger, both here and abroad. Real change will happen only through the conversion of individual hearts. At the same time, changed hearts should lead to changed structures- economic and political. Such structures should be shaped, not by market forces alone or a desire for short-term profit, but by moral guidelines concerned with the development of nations, real human needs, and a just sharing of the world’s resources, which include more than enough food for the entire planet. In other words, hunger isn’t just a concern for individuals. It’s also a matter for the boardroom, and the ballot-box.
This is the major point made by Pope Benedict in Caritas in Veritate, the new encyclical he released earlier this month. When it comes to business and politics, according to the Holy Father, the “bottom line” isn’t the “bottom line.” The “bottom” we should be most concerned about is not the bottom line of a financial statement, but those who live at the bottom of the economic ladder, who are left scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Just like the people with Jesus in the wilderness back then. Just like the people who, because we’ve been fed by Jesus, look to us, today.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time
My seven year-old daughter Winnie learned to ride a two-wheeler a few weeks ago. Now that she’s up and going, she couldn’t be happier or more proud, but she understandably had her fears when she started. We’d run down the playground together, one of my hands on her back seat and another on her handlebar. When we got enough speed I’d let her go, but after just a few feet she’d hit the brakes and stop. She wasn’t confident; she was afraid of falling. At the same time, she knew that she couldn’t continue to ride with training wheels forever. At some point, they had to come off, and she had to ride by herself. And she did.
Jesus, in today’s gospel, took the training wheels off for his twelve apostles, in a manner of speaking. Up until this point, they had been travelling alongside Jesus. He was visible to them, present with them. They ate, drank, prayed, travelled, talked, and ministered with him. Jesus had been teaching them about faith, as we’ve heard at Mass over the past few weeks. But now it was time for them to put these faith lessons into practice for themselves. Jesus was sending them off in pairs. They would have to ride on their own, without Jesus at their side, holding their handlebar and their seat. It was time for the training wheels to come off.
Sooner or later, the apostles would have to learn to do this, because Jesus wasn’t going to be with them forever. But it’s a lesson we have to learn too. Like the apostles, we have to make our journey of faith without Jesus visibly at our side. We need to ride without training wheels.
Jesus never said it was going to be easy, but it has to be done. When learning to ride her bike, Winnie told me: “Daddy, I’m only going to brake when I’m scared, I’m itchy, or hair gets in my face.” In our faith journeys, we contend with the very same things. We can become afraid; we can get distracted or uncomfortable; we become anxious when we can’t see where we’re going. We want to hit the brakes; we want the training wheels back on; we want to see Jesus right at our side, holding our seat and our handlebar.
But we can’t. So sometimes we’re tempted to find “Jesus substitutes.” You know: crutches that we think will help us make it. Things we hope will numb our pain; fill the void; distract us from our boredom; provide us with a sense of security; give our lives meaning and direction. It might be a relationship, a job, money, status or achievement, a hobby, the promotion of some “righteous cause,” a bottle of wine, or hours wasted with the computer or TV. These things may not necessarily be bad, in and of themselves. But they become bad when they substitute for Jesus. When they keep us from putting all our trust in him.
Jesus calls us to look for meaning or security not in the things of this world, but only in him. Consider his instructions to the disciples in today’s gospel. They were to travel without food, money, luggage, or extra clothes. Just shoes, one cloak, and a stick. Nothing that would keep them from relying completely on Jesus. We should take this to heart as we continue on our own faith journeys.
But again, that’s not easy. We want training wheels. We want to see the one we’re called to trust. Very rarely, maybe we can. But more often than not, all we can do is catch glimpses of him, or hear rumors about him. Our God isn’t normally a shouter; he’s a whisperer. He brushes past us, instead of crashing into us. He taps our shoulder from behind, instead of getting in our face. God does answer prayers, but not always in an obvious way. We wonder: Did I get an answer, or am I just imagining things? Is it providence, or coincidence? I work with lots of people who are trying to figure out if God is calling them to be ordained a deacon. One fellow said to me: “I wish God would put up a big banner! I wish he’d send me an e-mail!” But that’s not the way God operates.
Consider this: We attend Mass every week. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ. But on Monday morning, are we dramatically different people? When we walk into work, do people say to us, “Wow! What happened to you?” as if we’d had come sort of “Extreme Makeover-Grace Edition” experience? Probably not. Yes, we did receive God’s grace. But grace is, well, graceful. It doesn’t typically overpower us, but gently strengthens and heals us. Grace is the work of the Holy Spirit. Rarely does the Spirit operate like at Pentecost- with mighty rushing winds and balls of fire. More often, as the Bible describes it, the Spirit’s work is like a breath, or a still, small voice.
If God didn’t act this way, our faith journey would be like riding a bike with training wheels. Which at times, may not seem like such a bad thing. But training wheels are for children. What God wants for us is to have a strong, mature, healthy faith with which we can withstand the realities of life. And for us to have that, God needs to take off the training wheels, and let go of our seat.
We may need to let go of some things as well: the things we cling to for support when Jesus can’t be seen. The one thing we must hold on to, however, is our faith. Faith that while Jesus may not always be visible, he’s still by our side; faith that while Jesus may not be holding our seat, he’ll still support us and keep us steady; and faith that we never really travel alone, and that Jesus waits for us at the end.
Jesus, in today’s gospel, took the training wheels off for his twelve apostles, in a manner of speaking. Up until this point, they had been travelling alongside Jesus. He was visible to them, present with them. They ate, drank, prayed, travelled, talked, and ministered with him. Jesus had been teaching them about faith, as we’ve heard at Mass over the past few weeks. But now it was time for them to put these faith lessons into practice for themselves. Jesus was sending them off in pairs. They would have to ride on their own, without Jesus at their side, holding their handlebar and their seat. It was time for the training wheels to come off.
Sooner or later, the apostles would have to learn to do this, because Jesus wasn’t going to be with them forever. But it’s a lesson we have to learn too. Like the apostles, we have to make our journey of faith without Jesus visibly at our side. We need to ride without training wheels.
Jesus never said it was going to be easy, but it has to be done. When learning to ride her bike, Winnie told me: “Daddy, I’m only going to brake when I’m scared, I’m itchy, or hair gets in my face.” In our faith journeys, we contend with the very same things. We can become afraid; we can get distracted or uncomfortable; we become anxious when we can’t see where we’re going. We want to hit the brakes; we want the training wheels back on; we want to see Jesus right at our side, holding our seat and our handlebar.
But we can’t. So sometimes we’re tempted to find “Jesus substitutes.” You know: crutches that we think will help us make it. Things we hope will numb our pain; fill the void; distract us from our boredom; provide us with a sense of security; give our lives meaning and direction. It might be a relationship, a job, money, status or achievement, a hobby, the promotion of some “righteous cause,” a bottle of wine, or hours wasted with the computer or TV. These things may not necessarily be bad, in and of themselves. But they become bad when they substitute for Jesus. When they keep us from putting all our trust in him.
Jesus calls us to look for meaning or security not in the things of this world, but only in him. Consider his instructions to the disciples in today’s gospel. They were to travel without food, money, luggage, or extra clothes. Just shoes, one cloak, and a stick. Nothing that would keep them from relying completely on Jesus. We should take this to heart as we continue on our own faith journeys.
But again, that’s not easy. We want training wheels. We want to see the one we’re called to trust. Very rarely, maybe we can. But more often than not, all we can do is catch glimpses of him, or hear rumors about him. Our God isn’t normally a shouter; he’s a whisperer. He brushes past us, instead of crashing into us. He taps our shoulder from behind, instead of getting in our face. God does answer prayers, but not always in an obvious way. We wonder: Did I get an answer, or am I just imagining things? Is it providence, or coincidence? I work with lots of people who are trying to figure out if God is calling them to be ordained a deacon. One fellow said to me: “I wish God would put up a big banner! I wish he’d send me an e-mail!” But that’s not the way God operates.
Consider this: We attend Mass every week. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ. But on Monday morning, are we dramatically different people? When we walk into work, do people say to us, “Wow! What happened to you?” as if we’d had come sort of “Extreme Makeover-Grace Edition” experience? Probably not. Yes, we did receive God’s grace. But grace is, well, graceful. It doesn’t typically overpower us, but gently strengthens and heals us. Grace is the work of the Holy Spirit. Rarely does the Spirit operate like at Pentecost- with mighty rushing winds and balls of fire. More often, as the Bible describes it, the Spirit’s work is like a breath, or a still, small voice.
If God didn’t act this way, our faith journey would be like riding a bike with training wheels. Which at times, may not seem like such a bad thing. But training wheels are for children. What God wants for us is to have a strong, mature, healthy faith with which we can withstand the realities of life. And for us to have that, God needs to take off the training wheels, and let go of our seat.
We may need to let go of some things as well: the things we cling to for support when Jesus can’t be seen. The one thing we must hold on to, however, is our faith. Faith that while Jesus may not always be visible, he’s still by our side; faith that while Jesus may not be holding our seat, he’ll still support us and keep us steady; and faith that we never really travel alone, and that Jesus waits for us at the end.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)