August 2008 Sanchez Commentaries & Sample Homilies
EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (A)
August 3, 2008
Hungers to Feed
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez
Isa 55:1-2
Rom 8:35-37-39
Matt 14:13-21
Elie Wiesel was a teenager in 1944 when he and his family were forced from their home in Sighet, Transylvania, and taken first to the Auschwitz concentration camp and then to Buchenwald.Wiesel recounted that experience in his book Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York: 1972),and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for speaking out against injustice.With disarming frankness, Wiesel tells of descending into a darkness so deep that even his faith in God seemed unreliable.He tells of the dehumanizing effects of a hunger so great that it became the master of his nights and days:“At that moment in time, all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread, the bread, the soup, those were my entire life.I was nothing but a body, perhaps even less: a famished stomach.The stomach alone was measuring time.”
After his father died and Wiesel was transferred to the children’s block of the camp, he tells of spending his days in total idleness.“I had only one desire; to eat.I no longer thought of my father or my brother.From time to time, I would dream, but only about soup, an extra ration of soup.”He even says he began to doubt that God saw or cared:“Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.”
As terrible as it was, Wiesel’s desperate and demeaning hunger was not unique, nor is his experience unknown in our world today.Wiesel has given voice to the burden with which too many of our brothers and sisters continue to struggle.They have no food!They are dying for want of a crust of bread.According to statistics compiled in 2008 by Bread for the World Institute, 854 million people in the entire world population of 6.55 billion are hungry.While many in the old world and the new world struggle with obesity and its consequences, the majority of individuals and families in the Third World cannot afford to meet their most basic need for nourishment.As a result, almost 16,000 children die from hunger or hunger-related causes every day. That’s one child every five seconds.
With our eyes on these alarming statistics and our ears attuned to the Word of God, we realize with increasing clarity that the example of Jesus doesn’t simply challenge us to perform acts of charity. The Word of God and the example of Jesus compel us to act quickly and decisively, motivated not just by our guilt or even our care for others but by the demands of justice. Justice means that those who belong to God belong also to one another.Because of the justice dictated by God’s Word and Jesus’ actions, we must attend to the immediate hungers of our brothers and sisters and enact policies that will alleviate future hunger altogether. Apathy toward the hunger of another, the desire to surrender to frustration, foisting the responsibility for world hunger onto other shoulders — these are not permissible, and are entirely at odds with the Word of God. Prayer itself is unproductive if it merely wishes another well but does nothing to translate those good wishes into bread, soup, rice, food.
For advice on how best to approach the hungry, we look first to Jesus. For a good and effective theology of mission, we turn to Deutero-Isaiah.For encouragement in all our efforts, we rely on Paul. In today’s Gospel, the Matthean Jesus is featured as charging his disciples: “Give them something to eat yourselves.” Instead of looking to another to satisfy the hungry crowd or simply sending the crowd away, Jesus asked his disciples to look to their own resources. He encouraged them to make use of what was at hand rather than bemoan what they were lacking.In the end, and with his help, they were able to feed the hungers of those whom God had gathered round them.
Wise in the ways of God, Deutero-Isaiah, in today’s first reading, advocates a manner of dealing with the hungry that prioritizes their needs.First, empty stomachs are to be filled: “Come, eat, drink.”Then, when physical hungers have been met, those who serve God’s poor can offer other sustenance in the form of teaching, preaching and elucidating the Word of God: “Listen that you may have life.”
As one who served God’s people wisely and well, Paul (Romans, second reading) understood that his own hungers also had to be identified.This he did by giving himself completely to Christ, to the Gospel and to the community of believers.With Christ, in Christ, for Christ and because of Christ from whom he chose never to be separated, Paul could do all things.He could be food for the hungry.He could readily share the bread from which he himself drew life and strength.He gloried in that gift.Today we join him in celebrating our belonging to Christ and in renewing our resolve to feed others, as we ourselves continue to be fed by him.
Isa 55:1-2
Just as Deutero-Isaiah worked diligently to remind his brothers and sisters of the loving concern God had for them, so Henri Nouwen served the contemporary church in a similar manner.Through his prayerful insights, Nouwen kept his readers in touch with the God who invites communion.The whole long history of God’s relationship with us as human beings, writes Nouwen, is a history of ever-deepening communion(With Burning Hearts, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.: 1994).From Adam and Eve to Abraham and Sarah, from David to Jesus and ever since, God cries out, “I created you. I gave you all my love.I guided you, I offered my support, promised you the fulfillment of your hearts desires. Where are you?Where is your response?Where is your love?What else must I do?I won’t give up.I will keep on trying.One day, you will discover how I long for your love!”
Something of the divine longing for communion is at the heart of this invitation to a banquet.Hosted by God and offered without cost to all who hunger, this banquet is more than an occasion for satisfying physical hungers and quenching physical thirsts.Included in this invitation is a call to communion; God, the Creator of all, wishes to establish companionship with humankind. From the Latincum (with) and panis (bread), the companionship God offers involves more than a free meal; along with the water, the bread, the wine and the milk, God offers a share in the divine self.“I renew with you the everlasting covenant.”
When considered within their historical context, these words and God’s invitation become all the more poignant.Deutero-Isaiah and his contemporaries were in exile from their native Judah.Displaced by Babylonia’s conquest, they were wrenched from their homes and their means of livelihood and forced to reside as strangers in a foreign land.No longer independent masters of their own lives, the exiles were in danger of losing their identity as a people and being relegated to history’s distant memory.
But just when all seemed fraught with hopelessness, Deutero-Isaiah interjected hope.As Paul D. Hanson has explained, the prophet’s message of hope came in the form of a call for the exilesto return to their center — God(Isaiah 40-66, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1995).The doubt and despair generated by their defeat in 586 B.C.E. were addressed head-on by the prophet, who identified God as the one who had allowed this terrible event to occur because the peoplehad rejected God’s just order.This courageous move, insists Hanson, redirected Israel’s attention to the covenant relationship as the only thing that could reestablish Israel’s life upon a reliable foundation.
At every eucharistic gathering, believers in Jesus are offered the same relationship in which to find and on which to found their faith.
Rom 8:35-37-39
Army Chaplain Timothy S. Mallard suggests that these verses of Paul’s letter to the Romans, along with those that precede them (vv. 26-34), constitute the vision that he wished to share with his readers(The Abingdon Preaching Annual, David N. Mosser, Editor, Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.: 2004).This vision included the promised presence of the Spirit (vv. 26-27), our call to faith, our justification by grace, our future glorification in Christ (vv. 28-30) and the assurance that God’s perfect plan for our salvation cannot be thwarted (vv. 31-36).Paul wanted believers to realize that it has always been God’s great design to redeem creation; God’s design is so perfect that it includes the regeneration and redemption of every member of the struggling body of believers.Captured by this vision, Paul wished his readers to be swept up, too, so they would live each day in the security that nothing can pervert or prevent God’s loving purpose. Why not? Because that purpose has been accomplished by Jesus Christ, from whose love we shall never be separated.
Paul’s expressed conviction in this regard is so celebratory that some commentators describe his tone as “purple” with joy.Having reflected on the inseparableness of God and God’s love for each believer, Paul shouts out his conviction in the form of a rhetorical question: “What will separate us from the love of Christ?” He answers: Nothing! No one! He understood that the only ones who have the power to separate us, God and Jesus, are in fact the very ones who sustain each of us in the power of that great love. Therefore, as Paul Achtemeier has pointed out, if the only potential “opponents” are in fact our benefactors, then truly there is nothing to fear from any quarter(Romans, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1985).Whatever happens to us that we may construe as being a sign of God’s rejection — tribulation or anxiety, persecution or famine, poverty or war — has lost its power because God has chosen to be inseparable from us.Gone forever must be the temptation to assume that our struggles are “tests” put upon us by God.Banished forever must be the thought that God does not hear or has abandoned us.God is for us.God is with us.God loves us, and nothing can diminish that gift!
Matt 14:13-21
Henri Nouwen once called today’s Gospel a story about the value of small things(Jesus, A Gospel, Orbis Books, Maryknoll, N.Y.: 2001).Whereas worldly wisdom may prefer things to be large, impressive and elaborate, God chooses the small things that seem insignificant to the world.When the disciples told Jesus that all they had were five loaves and two fish, their words implied that such a small amount was simply not enough for such a vast crowd. But for Jesus, it was enough.He took them, blessed them, broke them and gave them to the disciples to give to the crowd.Astonishing as it was, all ate, all were satisfied — and there were leftovers!Here, said Nouwen, a great mystery becomes visible.This is the way of God. If we allow it, God will take the small things, like the little love we have, the little knowledge we have, the little advice we have, the little possessions we have, and multiply them.The more we give them away, the more we discover how much there is to give, not because of ourselves but because of God.
The feeding of the many is told six times in the course of the four Gospelsand is featured by the Matthean evangelist as a messianic meal.Jesus represents the Promised One of Israel, who hosts the hungry and satisfies them both physically and spiritually.Under this main messianic theme, Douglas R.A. Hare has identified several sub-themes(Matthew, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky.: 1993).First, Jesus’ actions are reminiscent of those of Elisha, who with 20 barley loaves fed 100 men and had bread left over (2 Kgs 4:42-44).Just as God empowered Elisha, so God is active in Jesus to feed God’s people.Second, just as Elisha enlisted the help of his servant to feed the many, so Jesus involved and continues to involve those who call themselves his disciples. Those who pray “Give us this day our daily bread” are to help make sure that all have bread on a daily basis.This seems to be affirmed by Jesus’ charge: “Give them something to eat yourselves” (v. 16).
A eucharistic motif is also subtly present in this Gospel. The loaves and fish were not meant to be identified with the gift of himself that Jesus gave at the Last Supper and on the cross.But the feeding of the many does anticipate both that gift and the banquet that will be enjoyed in God’s kingdom.Prophesied by Isaiah (25:6) and Deutero-Isaiah (55:1-2), the heavenly banquet is to be a universal celebration of salvation where every hunger will be satisfied.
The final verses of this Gospel tell of the leftovers being collected, 12 baskets full.Although much attention has been given to the number 12 as representing the 12 apostles or the 12 tribes of the new Israel (the church), perhaps it is good to look beyond symbolism to find a lesson in stewardship.Sharing the good gifts that God provides can satisfy the hungers of the many today, but caring enough not to waste those gifts can also provide for tomorrow.As William Barclay (“The Gospel of Matthew,”The Daily Study Bible, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, UK: 1975)has put it:God’s generous giving and our wise using must go hand in hand.
Sample Homily for Aug. 3, 2008
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“God Bets It All on Us”
Fr. James Smith
Paul promises that nothing can separate us from God’s love. Wonderful! But what does that actually mean?
We say that God loves us because God created us. That’s nice, but we didn’t ask for it; maybe even would have refused if asked. We say that God loves us because God sustains us in existence. That is good of God; but after all, God is responsible for what she made. We know God loves us because God gives us goodies and wishes us well. That is wonderful; but the proper name for that is “benevolence.” God’s love might indeed be hidden behind all of those nice things, but we can’t distinguish love from its look-alikes. So what is God’s love?
Let’s take a human analogy. (Remember: All of our talk about God is analogy, metaphor. We cannot really know what God is like; we just assume that God is something like us — only infinitely better.) What is human love? Parents love children, for example. Yes, but it is hidden beneath their hovering care. Pure love is a rare commodity.
That is because love is between equals, and equals are almost a nonentity. Wherever two or more gather, one is superior or inferior, smarter or dumber, stronger or weaker, better or worse. Love is hard to negotiate because if you offer yourself to an inferior it isn’t fair; but if you offer yourself to a superior it is dangerous.
So, the first thing a potential lover has to do is to diminish the differences, level the playing field. She does this by creating a space around the beloved. We like to think that we are free, autonomous people surrounded by space. Not so. We live in a veritable spider web of relationships: parent/child, employer/employee, uncle/nephew, friend/enemy. There is no way we can extricate ourselves from this grid unless someone loves us.
Love creates a space of absolute freedom. Love says: You owe me nothing, you are not dependent on me for anything, I cannot win or earn your favor, I release you from any obligation whatsoever. I simply place myself in this empty space between us and leave you completely free to accept or reject me.
All things being equal (which they cannot be between God and us), that is how God loves us. God sets aside all of our differences and looks for some basis of equality by which he can love us. God finds that focus in his true Son. God ignores the infinite distance between us and says: “Jesus shares equality with me, and because he is your brother, you are my adopted child; I recognize your equality as his.”
In doing this, God sets aside his right as Creator, his power as Judge, his authority as Parent. God says: “I create this space between us which sets you free of obligation. In this space, I offer myself to you; I leave you perfectly free to accept or reject me.”
And that is how we love God. We free a space between us. We sever the cord of “creature,” we burn the bridge of dependency, we cut the umbilical chord of childhood. We say to God: “I create this space of freedom between us. I demand nothing from you and acknowledge no debt to you, since you have written it off. I offer myself to you and leave you free to accept or reject me.”
If putting our whole self at the disposal of another human is a risk, divine love is a crapshoot. It would make no sense at all if we were not playing with “house money.” For you non-gamblers, that means that we cannot lose because we are not playing with our own money. God has staked us. God shoved all of his money, his love, his self into the pot and said: “I’m betting everything I have on you.”