Our Human Needs

Eighteenth Sunday - A

Readings:

* Is. 55:1-3

* Rom. 8:35, 37-39

* Mt. 14: 13-21

Our Human Needs

Grounded Among the Skyscrapers

There is nothing so refreshing in summer as running through the grass in bare feet. Isn’t that a great feeling? You kids are probably very familiar with that experience-but even for the oldest among us, isn’t that a good memory?

As we become surrounded by higher buildings and bigger houses, there is something very literally “grounding” about feeling direct contact with the cool earth. The phrase “to become grounded” is used these days to mean re-positioning ourselves, finding the stable centre, or getting a solid footing again.

But our ancestors didn’t need this phrase, because they were literally grounded as they walked the fields, ploughed the furrows, and picked the vegetables.

Sit Down on the Grass

Today’s Gospel is one of those great stories that shows so clearly how Jesus was in touch with the most basic realities of people’s lives. It is always easy to imagine that Jesus was somehow “above it all”-that he only seemed to be a real person. But he was able to be “grounded in reality” because he truly lived and suffered as one with the human experiences of everyday life. Jesus lived these experiences one event at a time, just as we do. He lived in “real time”, with all the same limitations that brings to us.

For example, the Gospel today begins with Jesus getting the news that his beloved cousin, John the Baptist, has been killed by King Herod. In his grief, he headed for the water with his closest friends-it says he “withdrew by boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves.” Nothing strange or unearthly about that reaction-we can imagine that Jesus’ heart was broken, that he cried, and that his friends comforted him in this terrible loss.

But just as their boat touched land, Jesus sees a large crowd of desperate people who had come after him on foot, in need of healing. So much for Jesus and the disciples’ trying to have quiet time apart! The Gospel reports that Jesus reacted much like a worn-out but loving parent with sick children who are crying in the middle of the night: it says, “he took pity on them and healed their sick.”

Lonely in the Crowd

By evening, another crisis arose-everyone was hungry. The disciples reminded Jesus that--in spite of a crowd of about 5,000 present--it was a “lonely place” with no village or shops. They urged Jesus to send everyone back home to eat. Again, Jesus thinks of people’s realistic needs, and says, “You feed them!” We can almost feel a lesson coming on. The disciples are probably a bit confused at this point, but they obediently bring Jesus the only thing they manage to come up with--five loaves and two fish.

By this time, the people had probably been standing for quite awhile, to hear and see Jesus better. Like a gracious host, Jesus tells everyone, “Sit down on the grass”. As if he were sitting at the head of a huge dinner table, he then says the blessing, breaks the loaves, and asks the disciples to pass the food. Of course, we know how the story ends-with a super-abundance of food for all, and twelve baskets of leftovers.

The Miracle of Love

Does it help us to look closely at the human details of this story as we have just done? Or do we only notice the miraculous ending? But there should be no competition between the human and the miraculous in this story-because this Gospel is really a love story.

Oh, you say you didn’t recognize it as a love story, because it didn’t involve a beautiful blond with stars in her eyes, and a handsome guy with courage to spare and sensitivity to burn?

Well, St. Paul has an even better plot line and an ending that is out of this world: “Nothing can come between us and the love of Christ.”

Faith in God’s Faithfulness

First, St. Paul lists some crises that might make us think God is absent: we might be troubled or worried, be persecuted, lack food or clothes, be threatened or even be attacked by someone.

But even more, “neither death nor life...nothing now or in the future, nothing big or small, not any created thing... can ever come between us and the love of God.” Paul says this Love is the Person of Christ Jesus our Lord-Who is the very love of God made visible.

Just as we see Jesus meeting the simplest needs in the Gospel, we can be sure that nothing about our lives today is inconsequential or too small to be covered by Jesus’ love.

Yes--we still have the mystery of suffering in our lives. Yes--there is evil in the world, and it would be immature to see Jesus as a Cosmic Genie who blinks away all that.

But we can live our human lives with faith in God’s faithfulness. We can trust and remember that no matter how empty we may feel, Jesus sits down on the grass with us every day, and fills our hunger to the brim.