Homily for August 3, 2014 - 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for August 3, 2014

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hungry Yet?

 

            So I’m a big fan of Snickers bars, and I think they have a pretty catchy ad campaign. I’m sure you’ve seen it – their tagline is, “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry.” They had one in the Super Bowl a few years ago where there’s a backyard football game being played by a group of guys – and an old lady. After the old lady drops of a pass and gets tacked by a big man, the old lady eats a Snickers’ bar, and magically morphs into a tough football player, because the football player just wasn’t playing like himself when he was hungry.

            Have you ever noticed that the tagline is true, that “we’re not ourselves when we’re hungry”? People get so grouchy and mean sometimes when they don’t have food! It’s almost as if they’re not themselves when they’re hungry.

            And perhaps that’s why Jesus did an incredible miracle of food in the Gospel today. You see, food for the ancient people is very different than food for us. Food is really easy to get here in America – we just walk down the street to the Grade A (Shop-Rite) and pick up a sandwich or something. But if you lived in ancient Jerusalem, think about how much more difficult food was to obtain – you had to till the ground, plant the seeds, water the fields, wait several months for the grain to grow, then harvest the grain, grind it, and bake it into bread. This was a several-month process involving a lot of effort, blood, sweat and tears. Food, therefore, meant a great deal to the ancient peoples – it took a lot of effort to produce a relatively small amount, so it was very valuable.

            And Jesus just gave them an incredible amount of free food! Who doesn’t like free food, even in today’s modern world? Whenever I did youth group events at my former parish, the number-one rule was: serve pizza. Free pizza will get kids to come to pretty much anything. So the ancient Jews, naturally, are thrilled that they receive free food, especially considering how valuable it was!

            But Jesus was not primarily interested in feeding their physical hunger. He fed their physical hunger, but in John’s Gospel, He goes further. He begins to talk to them about their deeper hunger. We all have a hunger to love and be loved, a hunger to find a home, a hunger to know that life has meaning and purpose. These hungers can only be satisfied in God. Only God is the one who loves us infinitely; only Heaven is our true and lasting home; only in seeking a life of holiness do we find our life’s meaning and purpose. Our hungers can only be satisfied in God.

            And in what specific ways do we feed this hunger? Through the Word of God and through the Eucharist.

            The Word of God – the Bible – is God’s love letter to humanity, but not just humanity in general – to you in particular. It’s a story of how our passionate, unpredictable God has acted in human history, and how He continues to act in the world today through the Holy Spirit living in the Church. When we read the Scriptures, we hear the good Lord speaking to us, trying to win our hearts for Himself. Don’t let a day pass by without being fed by God’s word!

            In addition to the Word, our hunger for meaning, purpose, and love can also be fed in the Eucharist. Not too long ago, I was talking with a kid from my former youth group up in Bethel. He was telling me that his parents refused to take him to Mass one weekend, claiming that they were too busy. So on Monday morning, this thirteen-year-old boy got up early, walked two miles on along a busy road without sidewalks, and went to Mass. When he got back, his parents were angry that he did something so dangerous, but he knew that he had an inner hunger for God that could only be satisfied in the Holy Eucharist – Jesus’ true Body and Blood.

            We are all hungry. We are hungry for physical food – and so Jesus performed an incredible miracle of abundance in today’s Gospel. But more than that, we’re hungry to know that we are loved, that our lives have meaning. And Jesus satisfies that hunger, if we feed on His Word in Scripture and on His Body in the Eucharist.

            Because, as the old commercial says, “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry.” I think a good definition of holiness would be, “To become the best version of yourself.” A saint is you, just the best version of you, with all of your gifts and talents, your personality and your possessions, all being used to love God and our neighbor. So one could paraphrase the Snickers commercial and say, “You’re not the best-version-of-yourself when you’re spiritually hungry.” Don’t go hungry. Feast on His Word and the Eucharist. And become the best version of yourself – become a saint.