Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
My trip home last month became an opportunity for an a-ha moment. First of all, I took the unfamiliar route to the airport, lost my way and then panicked. I got on the plane just on time. I was not looking forward to my six-hour layover at the Washington DC airport but it helped me catch my breath. The best analogy I can use to explain how I felt is that of a tired and worn out puppy. It was as if I was sitting in the airport huffing and puffing. It was not just the way to the airport. It was the last six months. It is when I sat down that I realized how tired I was. Later after dinner that evening, I decided to read the scriptures and connect with my Creator. My Bible opened to the book of Revelation chapter two. The passage read: ““I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate the wicked…. Moreover, you have endurance and have suffered for my name, and you have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first. Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first”(Rev 2; 2-5). I sat there in stunning self-realization.
Over the last six months my work had over taken me. I was tired, I was exhausted and I was empty. My prayer life had taken a beating and I had always justified it by the fact that it was God’s work that I was doing. After all, I was not choosing to be busy but that was what ministry was demanding. But then, sitting at the airport, I also remembered my honeymoon with God in my early twenties. That was different than what I was feeling now. I had indeed lost track of my first love. What is the point of doing God’s work if I forget the God whose work I was doing? Somehow I had let God get away from the center of everything that I am. I felt like Elijah in the desert in today’s first reading. I had worked very hard for God but I clearly was missing God. So the last month or so has been a return to love God with the love I had at first. I am not there yet, but I sure do not want to be where I was a month back.
As we reflect on the scriptures today, we will realize how they are calling us to keep Christ at the centre.
Christ at the Center. I want to draw your attention to the three times that Jesus uses bread as an analogy for the centrality of God in human life. In the desert, when the devil came to Jesus and asked Jesus to change stone into bread, Jesus answered, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). And again in the story of the Samaritan woman when the disciples returned with food and urged Jesus to eat, he said, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work” (Jn 4:32). In last Sunday’s gospel Jesus said, “Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life.” Continuing that theme in today’s gospel, Jesus contrasts the manna that fed the Israelites in the desert and the bread that he gives which leads people to eternity.
I do not think that Jesus is anti-bread. On the contrary, he fed the people when they were hungry. I hear Jesus say that when it comes to our life’s central pursuit it is got to be God. It is not wrong to seek to be happy, secure, painless, or even rich. But in our human weakness we are capable of losing our way; of making our career, our financial security, or even our own self our central pursuit. We may still go to church because we need God, but our spirituality may remain at the periphery. Today’s scripture is teaching us to keep Christ at the centre; to make God our central pursuit.
The practical dimension of Christ at the Center. The enlightenment, the French Revolution, the industrial revolution and the World Wars fashioned a world where the centrality of God became harder and harder to practice. The rise of the secular society saw religion relegated to privacy of the home and the human heart. There are many examples of this. Whereas businesses would close their shutters on Sundays, today the church competes with the market economy to occupy the central space in human life. Whereas, we teach every other pursuit in public schools somehow we have convinced ourselves that religion cannot be a public pursuit. In our secular society, we have no control over these problems. Perhaps the only control we have is how much we allow ourselves to be influenced by what is happening around us.
From my own experience, I know it is easy to lose track of God at the centre. So let me ask you: As you perceive it, what is your central pursuit these days? If you too busy working so that there is no time to pray or to keep holy the Lord’s day, or, if your human concerns are overtaking you so that your spirituality gets left on the sidelines, or, if you find yourself lukewarm with regard to God, then it is time to consciously bring Christ to the centre.
Being Home at Church and Church at Home. What do you call a person who has God radically at the centre? Such a person is called a radical disciple. As a parish community, each year we set time aside to reflect on what it means to be a disciple. This year too, our parish discipleship retreat is coming up. But this year we want to focus on discipleship at home and in our families. The theme for this year is, ‘Being Church at Home and Home at Church.’ We are inviting every parishioner to focus on discipleship as a family at home and vice-versa. This retreat will not only deepen our understanding of discipleship but also provide us the resources live our discipleship more consciously at home. So may I please ask you to mark your calendars for Sept 8th from 9 am to 1 pm. You and the entire family, or whoever lives at home with you is invited to this retreat. There will be a youth segment, a children segment and a Spanish segment of the retreat. Children under four years of age will have babysitting provided. Lunch will follow the retreat.
You will receive a letter and an rsvp card from the parish this week. Please respond to the call to bring Christ to the centre.
As we offer this bread and wine at the Eucharist, let us pray that we can bring Christ to the center of our lives.
- Fr. Satish Joseph