_{Holy Spirit Catholic Church}

_{Homilies
Archive}

_{18th Sunday of Ordinary Time
August 2, 2009} 

        It was a rainy afternoon, and the child was bored.  The demand came as expected, "Mom, I want some cookies."  Hoping to control the indoor chaos and to give the child something to do, the mother said, "Why don"t we go to the kitchen and bake some homemade cookies?"  "No way!" came the response.  "That takes too long.  I want some cookies now!"

        There was a PBS show several years ago entitled AFFLUENZA.  It dealt with materialism and happiness.  The show offered a quiz to see if a person suffered from affluenza.  The first question of the quiz asked, "Which of the following is comparable to the size of a typical three-car garage?  A basketball court?  A McDonald's restaurant?  An RV, or the average home in the 1950's."  The answer is that most of today's garages are the size of an entire home in the 1950’s.

        The second question asked, "In what year did the percentage of Americans calling themselves 'very happy' peak?  1957? 1967? 1977? Or 1987?"  The answer: The number of "very happy" people peaked in 1957, and has declined or plateaued ever since.  These two questions tell us that we now have garages as big as our entire houses were in the 1950's, but we were happier and more satisfied in the 1950’s.  What an irony!

        Beginning last Sunday, and continuing for three more, we are reading from the section of John's Gospel most often called the "Bread of Life" discourse.  It is one of my absolute favorites.  In it Jesus challenges us to ask ourselves what really satisfies us.  He tries to offer us the bread that satisfies, "the food that endures for eternal life."  What John makes clear is that so many people, those who walked with Jesus and those who have followed since, continually misunderstand what it is Jesus offers.

        The First Reading from Exodus shows us ourselves as we often are...never satisfied.  The Israelites had been enslaved in Egypt for some 300 years.  They had prayed for deliverance, and God had delivered them.  Now they find themselves in the desert.  Water and food were scarce.  They were thirsty and hungry.  It was bad enough that they began to wonder whether leaving Egypt had been such a good idea.  They were willing to go back into slavery just so they could have full bellies!  There was no sense of patience for what was to come, no sense that despite the great miracles God had worked to gain their freedom that God would still take care of them.

        The Psalm response suggests a question: Do we live on what God gives us or on what we try to get by ourselves?  Are we satisfied with what God offers, or would we like to turn back to some period of our lives when we thought our bellies were full?  Like a child who wants a cookie right now, are we willing to settle for second best in order to get something now?  Or, are we willing to trust God that if we have a little patience and make an effort we will end up with something far better?

        Last Sunday we read how Jesus had fed the multitude.  After the event, Jesus had to withdraw from the crowd because they wanted to make him into something he was not.  They wanted to make him king because in a land that suffered constant hunger he had managed to feed them.

        The same crowd searched for Jesus and found him.  They did not go in search of him for what he really had to offer, they went to find him to get another free meal.  Jesus desperately tried to tell them he had something much more satisfying to offer, but they never managed to hear him.  After all that he had done, they still asked for another sign for proof that he had more to offer than food.

        They saw history like we see our own.  They remembered how their ancestors ate manna in the desert, but they credited Moses for doing this.  Jesus tried to get them to see a deeper truth: It wasn't Moses, it was God who had fed them. 

        We still seek satisfaction through our own efforts apart from God.  We credit ourselves, not God.  We still use our own definition of satisfaction to determine our happiness: the one with the most toys wins.  We stack stuff up that we never use in garages as big as our parents or grandparents homes, but we still sense that this either isn't enough or it is not the right stuff.  Debt is our consequence; not to mention the accompanying stress, pressure, and unhappiness!

        John's Gospel today is speaking of the Eucharist and faith in it...meaning connecting ourselves to Jesus Christ, the real source of satisfaction.  Real satisfaction will never come unless we make God the source of it.

        The PBS show gave a dictionary-style definition of AFFLUENZA: N. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Jones. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste, and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream.

        Jesus challenges us today to ask ourselves what really satisfies us.  Do we live on what God gives us or on what we try to get by ourselves?  Do we use our own definition of satisfaction to determine our happiness?  We must realize that the real source of satisfaction and happiness is Jesus Christ in the Eucharist!  Pray for the wisdom to understand this great Truth and live it.  Don’t let the AFFLUENZA bug get you!