Today’s readings tell stories of scarcity and abundance.
There was scarcity and abundance in the reading from the Book of Kings
when only twenty barley loaves fed a hundred people; there was scarcity
and abundance in the gospel story when only five barley loaves and a
couple of fish fed a crowd of five-thousand. In both stories,
people were not only fed and satisfied, there were even leftovers. Lots
of leftovers! It seems that God cannot be outdone in generosity!
That’s certainly the
message in the reading from the Book of Kings. The servant of the
prophet Elisha, faced with the impossible challenge of feeding
one-hundred people with just twenty barley loaves was, not surprisingly,
quite certain that many of the people were going to go hungry. Elisha,
on the other hand, was confident that God would supply for what was
lacking. And Elisha was right. God did.
In the gospel reading,
it was Philip, the apostle, who was convinced that, no matter how much
Jesus might have wanted to feed that crowd, there was simply no way he
could. But Jesus found a way. He always did. And the way he found
actually gives us a place in the story.
Let me explain. If he
had wanted to, Jesus could have fed that huge multitude out of thin air.
It would have been enough for him simply to have spoken his all-powerful
word for abundant food to have come out of nowhere. But Jesus was not a
magician. His miracles were not magic acts or sleights of hand, And his
miracles were never about him: they were always about others. They were
always compassionate responses to human need that included a human
component, a human contribution, even.
Or put it
this way: for Jesus, divinity was never a shortcut around humanity.
Never. And so, today’s story starts at a very human level. Jesus takes
what little was available to him – five loaves of bread and a couple of
fish that a young boy in the crowd happened to have - and he turns that
obvious insufficiency into more than enough to satisfy an immense crowd
of hungry people.
The reason I said that
we have a place in the story is that we are a little like that young
boy. With his little stash of food – certainly more than he needed for
himself - the boy had it made. We could even say he was well-off. And he
could have hoarded what he had – held onto his food, kept it for
himself. After all, what concern was it of his that there were a lot of
people around him who were hungry? But, no, he willingly let go of
everything he had.
My friends, that young
boy is our link to the story. We – not all of us, of course, but many of
us (and I very much include myself) live pretty comfortable lives. Like
the boy, we have more than we need. We not only have full cupboards and
fridges at home, we have full closets as well, and many of us, bank
accounts, credit and debit cards, and maybe some life savings, too. We
can choose to hold onto what we have, or like the boy, we can welcome
the opportunity to put what we have at the service of those who have
little or nothing. Maybe not all we have, like he did, but at least some
of what we have.
We can learn a lot from
young people, can’t we! I’m reminded of a family that brought their two
children, a young boy and a young girl, to one of our newcomer dinners.
The boy had just celebrated his sixth birthday and he came with one of
his birthday gifts in hand – a brand new Lego set which he gave to me
and asked that I give it to a kid who didn’t have one. I was blown away.
That young boy hadn’t read the gospels yet but, thanks to a wonderful
mom and dad, he knew the gospel. He ‘got’ the gospel. And he certainly
taught me a gospel lesson that evening!
In a homily he gave back
in the 4th century, St. Gregory of Nazianzen, bishop of Constantinople,
spoke some words that my young friend understood without ever hearing
them. “Give something, however small, to the one in need,” he said.
“For it is not small to one who has nothing. Neither is it small to God,
as long as we have given what we could.”
That’s the perfect
commentary on both the boy with the Legos and the boy in today’s gospel.
Something fairly small, shared with a generous spirit, ends up being
anything but small.
This is a theme that
Pope Francis takes up time and time again in his off-the-cuff weekday
homilies. “Giving freely,” he said in one of them, “leads to freedom –
freedom from the obsession of owning, freedom from the fear of losing
what we have, freedom from the sadness of not being able to share our
wealth with others.”
My friends in Christ,
that says it well. It’s not just about giving and sharing, it’s really
about freedom. If we think only about getting more and more, we are not
free; if we hoard what we have, we are not free; if we are obsessed with
losing what we have, we are not free. We are free only if – and when –
we let go and take delight in sharing what we have with others.
And God, who is never
outdone in generosity, will turn whatever it is we share into a
marvelous, even miraculous, abundance! It all starts here at the table
of the Eucharist!
Father Michael G. Ryan
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