"THEY ALL ATE AND WERE SATISFIED."

Homily for August 6th, 2017: 18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A.
         Is. 55:1-3; Matt. 14:13-21.

AIM: To show that our deepest longings are satisfied only by Jesus Christ.      

     

        We Americans live in one of the richest societies on earth. More people in this land have access to more of the good things of life than, perhaps, any other people anywhere. Even those whom we reckon to be living beneath the poverty level would still be considered well off by millions of truly impoverished people in today’s Third World. Many of the people who show up at our rectory door,  looking for food or financial help, have cell phones.

          Amid this material abundance for so many, however, are people truly satisfied? A glance at the morning’s headlines or at the daily TV news provides plenty of evidence that many are not. Why? Because it is never enough to satisfy our physical hunger if our spiritual hunger remains unfed. 

          “Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy?” God asks in our first reading from the prophet Isaiah. Isn’t that what many of the glossy ads on TV and in the magazines are urging us to do?  Promising happiness if only we’ll buy their product or service? Let’s be fair: much advertising is useful. If I’m looking for a pair of lightweight trousers for the brutal heat of a St. Louis summer, and I see an ad telling me about a sale on men’s summer clothing, I’ll hurry in to get what I need. The ad has served me well. 

          Too often, however, advertising is designed to kindle our desire for things we never knew we needed till we saw the ad. After we have parted with our money, we find that an inner emptiness remains. How can we get rid of that? How can we satisfy the deepest hunger of all: our spiritual hunger? In our first reading Isaiah gives us God’s answer to that haunting question: “Heed me, and you shall eat well. ... Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life.” 

          Jesus knew that deep inner hunger which only God can satisfy. At the beginning of today’s gospel reading he has just received the terrible news that his cousin, John the Baptist, has been executed in Herod’s prison. Jesus knows that he must get away from the crowds, to be alone with his heavenly Father. He withdraws in a boat “to a deserted place by himself.” 

          But the people will not leave Jesus alone. Discovering his destination, they get there ahead of him. Upon disembarking, Jesus sees a “vast crowd.” What has brought them there? Some, surely, are attracted by Jesus’ wonderfully simple yet vivid way of speaking. Others may hope to witness his healing power, or to experience it themselves. Beyond such fully understandable reasons, however, there is another: somehow the very ordinary people in that vast crowd sense in this man, Jesus, someone who has the answer to life’s greatest problems; a man who comes from another world — from God. 

          Jesus’ heart goes out to these people. He realizes, Matthew tells us in a previous passage, that they are “like sheep without a shepherd, harassed and helpless” (Mt. 9:36, NEB). By the time Jesus has healed many sick people in the crowd, it is evening. His disciples want to send the people away to the neighboring villages to get provisions. With what must have been at least the trace of a smile, Jesus challenges them to provide food. His disciples are aghast. “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here,” they respond. 

          Why didn’t Jesus use his miraculous powers to provide food on his own?  He wanted to teach his disciples a lesson. In telling them, “give them some food yourselves,” Jesus wanted the disciples to learn to trust not in their own resources, but in his power. What the disciples have to give is pitifully inadequate. When those meager resources are entrusted to Jesus, however, they are transformed beyond imagining. When every person in the vast crowd has eaten to the full, each of the Twelve is still able to fill his basket with leftovers. This detail too teaches a lesson: when Jesus gives, he gives not just abundantly, but superabundantly.

          This story, recounted six times over in the four gospels, shows us who Jesus Christ is, and what he does for us. Jesus is the story’s central figure, the giver of God’s gifts in abundance. To distribute his bounty, he relies on his friends. What they have to give is totally inadequate. They are entirely dependent on Jesus. The story continues today — in every Mass. We who are called to distribute the Lord’s gifts to his people wear special clothes: not the uniform of masters, but the livery of servants, whose task it is to pass round the dishes and to see that everyone is fed: from the Lord’s two tables, of the word and of the sacrament. 

          This gathering of the Lord’s people — like every Mass anywhere — is the continuation of what Jesus did in the upper room at the Last Supper the night before he died. It is also the continuation of that lakeside meal when a vast throng was fed by Jesus from pitifully inadequate resources. Here, and here alone, is the satisfaction of our deepest hunger. Here the beautiful words of our first reading are fulfilled: 

          “All you who are thirsty, come to the water!

          You who have no money, come, receive grain, and eat;

          come without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk!”
          Here we, the joyful people of God, repeat with a full heart the words of our responsorial psalm:

          “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”