18th SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6: 24-35
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate today the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we remember today also St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of all priests. We come before the Lord kindly asking that his Word of today may mould us into better people. The theme I would give to today’s Word is, ‘Our God does not leave us alone’.
The first reading of today presents the Israelite complaining to God because of the hunger they were experiencing in the desert. It was very unfortunate that the Israelites, because of hunger, they forgot all the good and mighty deeds that their God worked in saving them from the mighty Pharaoh. Surely people easily forget the good that God does to them in their lives. What is surprising is that, even in their complaining, our God who does not leave us alone comes to be with them and to save them through the gift of manna from heaven. In our own way, because of the challenges of this world, we sometimes complain against God, considering our past as a better place to be, but our God does not leave us alone even when we are complaining, he comes to be with us. In our second reading, St. Paul addressing the Ephesians, invites them as God invites all of us to be transformed for the better in our lives. Though at times, because of our human weaknesses we take longer to respond positively to God’s invitation, our God does not leave us alone.
God’s presence in human life is explicitly revealed in the Gospel of today, where we see our God who is there for his people teaching them, telling them the truth, revealing to them what is most important and providing them with what helps them physically and spiritually. Because of physical food, bread and fish, people looked for Jesus. Knowing their motive behind looking for him, Jesus taught them, helping them to understand what they should value most. Preaching on 2 August 2015, Pope Francis said, “after the multiplication of the loaves, the people had begun to look for Jesus and they found him in Capernaum. These people followed him because of the material bread that had satisfied their hunger the day before, when Jesus had multiplied the loaves. The people had given more value to the bread than its provider had. It was due to their spiritual blindness that Jesus points to the need to go beyond the gift and discover the giver.” Dear brethren in the Lord, we are to examine our motives for looking for Jesus and see if we are different from the people in today’s Gospel.
Preaching on 1 August 2021, Pope Francis said, “the first question we can ask ourselves is why do we seek the Lord? What are the motivations for my faith, for our faith? We may be going the same direction together, but going for different motives. In the month of July we were praying for vocations; it is wise and worthy it to ask ourselves our prime motives in those vocations. Are we missionaries or mercenaries in our vocations?” Our God who does not leave us alone invites all of us to examine our motives in all we do.
Our God who does not leave us alone teaches us in today’s Gospel to know what is of prime value and importance, thereby knowing the will of God in our lives. This will spare us the temptation of idolatry. Pope Francis continued, saying that we need “to discern this because among the many temptations we encounter in life, among the many temptations, there is one that we might call idolatrous temptation. It is the one that drives us to seek God for our own use, to solve problems, to have thanks to Him what we cannot obtain on our own, for our interests.”
In our Gospel today our God is teaching us that true love is not conditional love. We see people looking for Jesus with strings attached. How often are we calculative in our love for others? How many times do we think of what we will gain at the end? It is from this background that our Holy Father laments, “we live in a world where people love things and use people, instead of loving people and using things.” The Word today is challenging us to examine our pull and push factors.
What is interesting in the Gospel of today is, after being taught by Jesus, the people then asked a life-changing question, ‘what shall we do?’ the answer is Jesus himself who is the bread of life, who comes to quench not only our physical hunger but spiritual hunger that is the hunger of eternal life. The answer is Jesus himself, our God who does not leave us alone. Amen.