Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Gospel is the beginning of the discourse on the bread of life that follows the miraculous feeding of the multitude. For the next four weeks, the whole church concentrates on a single chapter of John’s gospel. Its subject is Jesus, the Bread of Life. Jesus reveals himself: “I AM the bread of life.” The bread from heaven is right here, in our midst—every Sunday. We’re invited to take and eat it, consume and become it. It is God who gives this bread. What does it mean for us to take it? We gather weekly around this table of our Eucharist, hoping to discover ever more deeply its meaning. In John chapter six, we’re exploring the great mystery of what calls us here: What is the purpose of assembling each Sunday to confess our failures, listen to God’s word, ask for what we need, give praise and thanks, and receive the gift of Christ-life in the forms of bread and wine?
The Gospel this weekend tells us that some of the people who had been fed by Jesus crossed the lake to find him the next day. They were eager to remain with him. Jesus seems rather brusque with them, however. He tells them that they are not there because they had appreciated the meaning and seen beyond the sign that he had given them, but because they had filled their bellies and wanted more. So, Jesus tells them that they should be working, striving, for real bread—bread that lasts and can give eternal life. They then ask Jesus what they must do. What they must do, Jesus tells them is have faith in him. This seems to make the crowd defensive, and they challenge Jesus to give them a sign that he is deserving of their faith.
We read in the first verses of the Gospel today, how the religious leaders were confounded with how Jesus got from here to there. In a sense, they were asking our human questions about Jesus in the Eucharist, but even more about Jesus as our Lord and Savior. “How did you do that?” Faith is an understanding which allows for the misunderstandables. How did God split the sea? How did God present manna and quails? How did Jesus take five loaves and two fish to feed so many? How is Jesus present as man and Son of God? How is Jesus present in the Eucharist? All very good human questions and we, like our Jewish ancestors, can grumble, regret and take off to the comfort of the easily explainable. Forget those questions and enter into the miracle. I do love the Eucharist, it is easy to consume. I surrender to the love that Jesus is, even when I can’t stomach or digest all that love means and invites me to.
Today in this Eucharistic celebration we receive Jesus in word and sacrament. Our openness and receptivity to this is what we call “believing.” The life of God in the bread and word is our manna, which sustains us on our journey through our personal deserts. With trust in Jesus, we can move towards greater freedom. It all comes down to trust!! “The bread you eat will claim your heart,” preacher Walter Brueggemann says. In other words, we get the True Bread; and the True Bread gets us.
Blessings in these summer days from Newfoundland, Father William
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Last week, Jesus sent them out and this week they come back to report on their missionary activity. The apostles rendezvoused with Jesus and reported on all that they had done and taught. Jesus said, “Come off by yourselves; let’s take a break and get a little rest.” For there was constant coming and going. They didn’t even have time to eat. So they got in the boat and went off to a remote place by themselves. Someone saw them going and the word got around. From the surrounding towns people went out on foot, running, and got there ahead of them. When Jesus arrived, he saw this huge crowd. At the sight of them, his heart broke — like sheep with no shepherd they were. He went right to work teaching them (from Mark 6).
Dear friends, the image of God as shepherd is a very central one in Scripture. Do you experience as Shepherd? Our God is a shepherd and parent and how God has made himself known to us in the history of Israel and above all in the life story of Jesus is something we need to remember. Our God, our Abba father, our parent is seen as a God who is passionately in search of us, a God whose only concern is our wellbeing, and a God whose heart is set on wanting to be our God, a God-for-and-with-us-people. He comes across as a God in whose eyes you and I are precious, a God to whom you and I matter, a God who has an immense faith and trust in us, a God who delights in being known as our God. A God who goes all out in committing himself to us, a God who pledges fidelity to us, a God who is prepared, in the bright and dark sides of our life and family stories and in many grey areas, to see it through with us.
In Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have become near. Throughout the readings for this weekend we hear of God’s bringing together and caring for God’s people. God would regather the people whom their incompetent leaders had allowed to go into exile, Jeremiah said, and “bring them back to their meadow” where they “shall dwell in security.” In the epistle Christ was a source of bridging divides and establishing peace. When he saw the crowds in the gospel story who “were like sheep without a shepherd,” he felt “pity for them . . . and began to teach them many things.” According to the Letter to the Ephesians, Christ brings peace, gathers together those who were separated, breaks down divisions, and reconciles people with one another and with God.
I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
- John 10:11
Abundant blessings,
Father William
Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world. If this week’s readings have a theme, it might be: “Everything starts with God.” Despite the opposition of the priests who had gotten cozy with rulers
and despite his own reluctance Amos answered the call of God’s “taking” of him to renew the prophetic office of Israel. For its part the Letter to the Ephesians said God’s plan of salvation for each person is so encompassing that it was made even from before creation. And in the gospel Jesus told the apostles to depend on nothing and no one but God and what God put in their paths. Jesus’ “sending” of the apostles to extend his mission of healing reflects the missionary strategy of the
Early Church: travel light, keep moving, do what is good, and put your trust completely in God. Actually, that’s a good approach for Christians of any time and place. Life is a journey, a pilgrimage to holiness. “To take
nothing for your journey” brings home the truth that in the end the only thing you really have is God. To have “nothing,” then means to have everything. The less you have, the more you gain. The deepest security lies in not worrying about security. What can you unload from your life to bring you closer to God?
Pope John Paul II, in Redemptoris Mission writes: missionary activity
renews the church . . . Faith is strengthened when it is given to others!
Since we are all sent, how well do we bring our Christ selves wherever we go? Do people see simply us, or do they catch a glimpse of the One who sends us?
Dear friends, we’ve been invited, have accepted, and are included in this enterprise of church.
We’re blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the heavens.” We’re adopted, redeemed, forgiven, chosen, destined,
and sealed just look at all those incredible verbs in the opening lines of the Letter to the Ephesians. What it all means is that the church is amply provided for in the economy of grace. We have everything we need. We have nothing to lose and nothing to wait for. It’s time to act.
And when we act, we accomplish miracles “in Christ” a much repeated tag to ideas in the epistle.
Onward we go together in mission
Father William