More Than A Lesson

Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time                                              July 29, 2018
Fr. Albert                                                                                            St. Peter’s, New Iberia

Do you believe in miracles? I don’t just mean great coincidences or beautiful, though totally natural moments like the birth of a child. I’m talking about defying the laws of nature, doing the impossible, miracles. Believe it or not, miracles are a necessary part of the Catholic faith. It’s not that everyone who wants to go to heaven has to perform miracles, but if we do not believe in them, then this whole thing is pointless.

We all know this story. Jesus multiplies the loaves. He makes 5 barley loaves feed more than 5000 people. The simple explanation is that Jesus miraculously turned a little bread into a lot of bread. But, there is a popular theory out there which challenges this idea. You see, there are highly educated people, refined, enlightened, relevant people who’ve decided to give us a much more “reasonable explanation.” Their theory? It’s not a miracle of multiplication, it’s a miracle of sharing.

And you know, this theory can be pretty appealing at a first pass. It starts with a believable concept. People are selfish. That’s pretty true, right? Well, then it goes on to give us another reasonable assertion. People, especially rich people, don’t travel without being prepared. Then, we turn to the little boy with some bread and fish. Who doesn’t love kids? Who doesn’t love a good story about some innocent child teaching everyone an important lesson they’ve all forgotten?

So, here’s the new, more enlightened theory: Jesus gets this sweet, generous child to share his little bit of food with the people around him. The miracle is that all the selfish, rich people in the crowd see this little boy give his food away and they are moved to break out their secret stores, suddenly solving the problem of people of food shortage. The best part about this whole story is that is wraps up a neat little message that just about anyone can accept: if we all share, if we are all generous, then everyone will have enough.

If you can’t tell, I’m mocking this idea. Maybe you’re wondering why. Simple. It’s just plain wrong. Not only is it a wrong interpretation of the Gospel, but the message of “sharing” as the solution to all our problems is false. That’s two bold claims, so let me explain.

First, the Gospel passage. This isn’t a good explanation because it makes up details that simply aren’t there. John never says anything about rich people hiding food. John never says anything about people sharing. What he does say is that people sit down and the Apostles distribute the food. It clearly says that they distributed the same loaves Jesus blessed. To make it even clearer, John explicitly says they “filled twelve wicker baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves.” Five loaves don’t make that many crumbs, but the Gospel is telling us that that is what happened. A miracle. Beyond nature.

Anyone reading this passage the first time would come to the same conclusion. The only way someone could come up with that other story is if they started with an agenda, an assumption that forced them to find details that aren’t there and ignore the ones that are. That’s exactly what happened. This idea came from H. E. G. Paulus. He was a rationalist in Germany in the 1800s. A rationalist is someone who believes miracles cannot possibly happen. So, he had to make up another explanation. The fact that Christians accept this theory from someone who flat out denies miracles is absurd because Christianity is a religion entirely founded on at least two miracles: The virgin birth of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Deny miracles, you deny that. Deny that and there is no reason to be a Christian.

But Christians still try to make these things go together. Why? Because it would be really nice if we could just get along with the world. The secular world doesn’t like us to talk about miracles, heaven, hell, and all that spiritual invisible stuff. They like it when we make them feel they are just like us. The secular world likes the message “just be nice and everything will be ok.” They like that message because it’s simple, it’s easy, and it’s something we can do for ourselves.

Which brings me to that other bold claim I made: that sharing is not enough to solve our problems. Sharing and generosity are essential. You can’t get to heaven without being generous. But! But, we cannot solve our problems on our own. Again, the whole idea of Christianity comes back to an all-powerful God who does miracles. He does miracles because he knows we can’t solve our problems on our own. In the end, the problem with this non-miraculous theory – and the idea that a little sharing is all we need – comes back to the same old trap. Pride. It is the arrogance of saying we know enough to exclude God from the picture, that we can do enough on our own to not need miracles.

Yet we do need them. It’s true that there is enough food on this earth to feed everyone. It’s also true that we waste too much. It’s theoretically possible for us to share enough food to feed everyone. But, this miracle of the multiplication isn’t the real point anyway. This is the beginning of the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus’ most infamous teaching on the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a miracle. Every. Single. Time. No marriage or human relationship can satisfy your hunger for love and save you from loneliness. No amount of mindfulness, meditation, and happiness coaching can give you lasting meaning and purpose you desire. No amount of niceness can save your soul. And no amount of cuteness or fun or learning can replace our need to worship God. Only God can do all of that for us… in addition to feeding our physical hunger.

The same temptation to turn this miracle story into a fuzzy lesson on sharing applies to our approach to the Mass. We often want to make it about community time or fun music or a cute display for the children. Mass is not something we do on our own to solve our own problems. It is the powerful intervention of God to do what we could not. Just like this miracle, however, God chooses to use us in His intervention. Jesus doesn’t magically conjure up food, he multiplies and transforms what is already there. He works through His Apostles.

So, it is important that we cooperate with God’s way of doing things. To do that, it helps to understand what is going on at Mass, what it means. For that reason, Fr. Blanda and I will spend the next four Sundays explaining step-by-step what we do at Mass and what it means. No one can fully explain it, but we can have a deeper understanding, a chance to enter into the mystery. Open your hearts and minds to what the Gospel tells us during these next weeks, and to what the Church actually teaches about Mass.

And all of that will come back to that first question. Do you believe in miracles? Because that’s what about to happen now, that’s what happens here every day and if you don’t believe, why bother? Why bother with the schedule, the rituals, and the effort? Either it’s miracle and we need to act like it, or it’s not and we need to move on.