18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A August 2, 2020
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Video of 8am Mass: https://youtu.be/H-X4ONLUPvM
Not enough. Words that haunt every human being, whispered in the mind, festering in the heart – not good enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough, not strong enough, not popular enough, not holy enough. Scarcity is simply part of our condition. Even the super-rich, super-famous, and super-powerful face this fundamental experience of fallen humanity.
An echo of the first temptation given to Adam and Eve, the suspicion that we are not enough can poison anything and everything that we do, driving us to all sorts of disorder. Excessive consumption, competition, and control; despair, desperation, and deception… all have a common root in “not enough.”
Which is why Jesus goes to a deserted place – the physical manifestation of “not enough” – to attract his people to circumstances that shed light on this hidden deprivation. What they experience, what they taste in Jesus Christ leads the crowds to expose themselves to bald-faced scarcity and so be prepared to recognize him who alone can overcome it. The feeding of the five thousand, even more than being a sign of Jesus’ power over nature, is a testimony to his power to provide the human heart with something it cannot find anywhere else. Satisfaction, peace, wholeness.
Of course, embracing this fulfillment does require a response on our part, but one we’re not used to making. Immediately after this miracle, Jesus will walk on water and expose the Apostles’ lack of faith. In the Gospel of John’s account, this scene sets the stage for Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist and the subsequent rejection of him by most of his disciples. Unlike the satisfaction of a hungry stomach which requires only the physical act of eating, the satisfaction of a hungry heart requires the spiritual, supernatural act of faith over and above physical response.
You see, part of the reason this scarcity, this whisper of “not enough” is so insidious is that it is kind of true. The fact is that we are not good enough to make the world what we need it to be. We are not strong enough or rich enough or hard-working enough to stop evil in this world or get to heaven on our own. In a certain sense, we don’t deserve what God offers us… but that is only a half-truth used by the evil one to keep us from accepting it.
We are loved. Period. Our very existence is proof that God loves us for nothing can exist without God’s love keeping it there. The lie starts with the idea that love is earned at all. Once you accept that, everything else slips in because it’s impossible to earn God’s love just as it is impossible to earn your own existence. It is the given, the starting point that existence – and God’s love – is the necessary foundation of everything else. We cannot earn anything if we do not exist and we cannot exist if God’s love does not make us. Even Satan himself exists thanks to the love of God that he so fervently hates.
And that’s why Jesus insists on using five loaves to feed the five thousand. He could simply snap and cause bread to appear – or a five-course meal if he so desired. But he didn’t. He takes what is there – insufficient though it is – and makes it enough… more than enough. What he does with the bread he seeks to do with us and our efforts. To multiply them, to make them sufficient, to infuse them with the divine power to satisfy the human heart. But this requires two very important choices on our part.
The first is to believe, to accept that we are enough. If those five loaves could understand that they were being asked to feed so many thousands of people, what would they decide? But that’s not meant to be the question. They are there and they are what Jesus wants. They… we have to simply accept – without earning it – that we are what Jesus wants, no matter how small or insufficient we seem to be.
Then, we have to let ourselves be handed over, placed into His sacred hands to be… broken. Broken in appearance, but in reality made into more in the same way that Jesus is broken on the cross only to rise from the dead as more. Both of these are acts of faith – faith in God’s love for what we are right now, and faith that he will change us to become more. Although, it will look and feel like we are being broken, losing the shape and form we thought we were meant to have.
“You’re not enough and now you’re going to be even less, broken and scattered.” That’s what the devil whispers to us… sometimes even shouts at us when we try to accept this marvelous exchange. Too often, we concede to this lie and we want to pull back, to leap from Jesus’ hands claiming either that we are not worthy or, by way of over-compensation, acting as if we don’t actually need him to be enough.
Such is the beauty, the divine wisdom behind Christ’s decision to establish the Church. The bread is handed to Jesus not by itself, but by the Apostles, by the Church and is then given back out through that same Church just as you bring me bread and I give you the Eucharist. Without at all compromising the unique and personal relationship God has with each and every soul, He provides the Church as the mechanism, the community, the family through which we are given to him, broken open, multiplied, and satisfied. Even when we can’t perfectly entrust ourselves to Jesus by our own power, if we simply remain in the hands of the Apostles, the Church, we will be brought to him.
This means we can see and point to tangible times, places, and people that are instruments of this mystical transformation from “not enough” to “more than we could ever need.” If you stay with the Church, despite the imperfections of her members, you will be given to Jesus. If you stay with Jesus in his Church, you will often feel broken in his hands. Called from a life of pleasure to a life of chastity, from a life of wealth to a life of poverty, from a life of independence to a life rooted in holy obedience… these feel like being broken. The world and the devil will tell you that you are broken, that giving in to the loving destruction of God’s hands will mean you are not enough. But Jesus and His Church know better. You are enough and, in His hands, you will be more than you could ever imagine.