20180805
WORK FOR FOOD THAT ENDURES TO ETERNAL LIFE
5 AUGUST, 2018, Sunday, 18th Week,
Ordinary Time
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Green.
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First reading
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Exodus 16:2-4,12-15 ©
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The Lord sends manna from heaven
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The whole community of the sons of Israel began to complain
against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and said to them, ‘Why did we not die
at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we were able to sit down to pans
of meat and could eat bread to our heart’s content! As it is, you have brought
us to this wilderness to starve this whole company to death!’
Then the
Lord said to Moses, ‘Now I will rain down bread for you from the heavens. Each
day the people are to go out and gather the day’s portion; I propose to test
them in this way to see whether they will follow my law or not.
‘I have
heard the complaints of the sons of Israel. Say this to them, “Between the two
evenings you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall have bread to your
heart’s content. Then you will learn that I, the Lord, am your God.”’
And so it
came about: quails flew up in the evening, and they covered the camp; in the
morning there was a coating of dew all round the camp. When the coating of dew
lifted, there on the surface of the desert was a thing delicate, powdery, as
fine as hoarfrost on the ground. When they saw this, the sons of Israel said to
one another, ‘What is that?’ not knowing what it was. ‘That’ said Moses to them
‘is the bread the Lord gives you to eat.’
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Responsorial Psalm
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Psalm 77(78):3-4,23-25,54 ©
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The Lord gave them bread from heaven.
The things we have heard and understood,
the things our fathers have told us,
these we will not hide from their children
but will tell them to the next generation:
The Lord gave them bread from heaven.
the glories of the Lord and his might
and the marvellous deeds he has done,
Yet he commanded the clouds above
and opened the gates of heaven.
He rained down manna for their food,
and gave them bread from heaven.
The Lord gave them bread from heaven.
Mere men ate the bread of angels.
He sent them abundance of food;
So he brought them to his holy land,
to the mountain which his right hand had won.
The Lord gave them bread from heaven.
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Second reading
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Ephesians 4:17,20-24 ©
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Put aside your old self and put on the new
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I want to urge you in the name of the Lord, not to go on living
the aimless kind of life that pagans live. Now that is hardly the way you have
learnt from Christ, unless you failed to hear him properly when you were taught
what the truth is in Jesus. You must give up your old way of life; you must put
aside your old self, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires. Your
mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new
self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the
truth.
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Gospel Acclamation
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Jn14:6
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Alleluia, alleluia!
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord;
No one can come to the Father except through me.
Alleluia!
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Or:
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Mt4:4
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Alleluia, alleluia!
Man does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Alleluia!
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Gospel
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John 6:24-35 ©
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It is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven; I am the
bread of life
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When the people saw that neither Jesus nor his disciples were
there, they got into boats and crossed to Capernaum to look for Jesus. When
they found him on the other side, they said to him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come
here?’
Jesus
answered:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
you are not looking for me because you have seen the signs
but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat.
Do not work for food that cannot last,
but work for food that endures to eternal life,
the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you,
for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.’
Then they said to him, ‘What must we do if we are to do the works
that God wants?’ Jesus gave them this answer, ‘This is working for God: you
must believe in the one he has sent.’ So they said, ‘What sign will you give to
show us that we should believe in you? What work will you do? Our fathers had
manna to eat in the desert; as scripture says: He gave them bread from heaven to
eat.’ Jesus answered:
‘I tell you most solemnly,
it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven,
it is my Father who gives you the bread from heaven,
the true bread;
for the bread of God
is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.’
‘Sir,’ they said ‘give us that bread always.’ Jesus answered:
‘I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me will never be hungry;
he who believes in me will never thirst.’
WORK FOR FOOD THAT ENDURES TO ETERNAL LIFE
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [ Ex 16:2-4.12-15; Ps 78:3-4, 23-25, 54; John 6:24-35 ]
We can
empathize with the Israelites who had to wander in the desert, deprived of the
luxuries of life. The Desert of Sin was rocky and dry. We can
imagine their anxiety each day, wondering where they could find sufficient food
to feed themselves. The scarcity of food made them complain to the
Lord. When we are in want, it is natural for us to lament and
complain. We too will complain when something is lacking in our life, not
just food but also comfort and pleasure. Our bodies seek luxury and contentment.
But what was
their real problem? It was not because they wanted to go back to Egypt,
because life was hard in Egypt under Pharaoh. They had food but there was no
freedom. They were slaves and treated as slaves. So, when
they lamented, “Why did we not die at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt,
when we were able to sit down to pans of meat and could eat bread to our hearts
content! As it is, you have brought us to this wilderness to starve this whole
company to death!” They were simply ventilating their frustrations.
Instead of whining, they should have looked into themselves.
The real
reason was that they did not have sufficient faith and trust in God to look
after them in spite of the spectacular miracles performed before their very
eyes.
They forgot so easily what had just happened. We too are often like
them. When we face trials in life, we get angry with God and failed to
remember how often in the past the Lord had rescued us and showed us the way
out of our problems. This is true even in human relationships. For
all the good that our loved ones or our friends have done for us, we cannot
forgive them for one mistake that they made. We are so overwhelmed
by our present suffering that we forget the many wonderful things and wonders
that the Lord has done for us, or through His channels of love. This is
what the responsorial psalm seeks to remind us.
The truth is
that God wanted to strengthen their faith in Him and teach them obedience to
His word.
He deliberately did not allow them to go straight from Egypt to the Promised
Land but made them wander in the desert for forty years. Otherwise,
when they enter the Promised Land, the lure of riches, an affluent life and
living among the amoral pagans would destroy them more than their poverty.
God was training and purifying them in their love for Him and strengthening
their unity among themselves so that they could be strong and united
sufficiently to attack their enemies and conquer them.
Indeed, God
wants to have a relationship with us based on trust, love and obedience so that
we can share in His divine life. This was the same situation for the crowd that
followed Jesus when they saw the signs. When the crowd found Jesus after
He sought to escape from them because they wanted to make Him their
revolutionary leader, He said, “I tell you most solemnly, you are not looking
for me because you have seen the signs but because you had all the bread you
wanted to eat.” The people sought Jesus so that He could provide them their
material, temporal and physical needs.
But Jesus
wanted to give them more than just material fulfillment. He wanted to
give them the fullness of life which is found in authentic relationships with
God and with others. The truth is that we can never have enough. We spend our
whole life seeking for more and more when in reality we do not need so much to
be happy in life. The fact is, we need very little to be happy.
Look at those who live in third world countries. They have so little but
they seem so happy, running around and playing with nature and with their
friends. What we need is love and authentic relationship to make us
truly happy.
Happiness is
having relationships. We need to have a relationship with God,
others and self. This explains why Jesus said, “The first is, ‘Hear,
O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall
love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with
all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
(Mk 12:29-31)
This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Do not work for food that cannot last,
but work for food that endures to eternal life, the kind of food the Son of Man
is offering you, for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.”
Happiness and
fulfilment is to live the life that Jesus is offering us. This is what St Paul is
exhorting us. “I want to urge you in the name of the Lord, not to go on
living the aimless kind of life that pagans live. You must give up your old way
of life; you must put aside your old self, which gets corrupted by following
illusory desires.”
The mistake
most people make, even if they know the emptiness of the things of this world,
the futility of power and glory, is to seek to love others with the love in
them. We get married, hoping that our marriage will be a loving
marriage. We have children, hoping that our children will give us joy, meaning
and enrich our relationships. We cultivate friendships hoping that
through these friendships, our lives will be richer and more fulfilling
emotionally. But the truth is that many of us are disappointed with our
relationships. Many marriages are on the rocks, some have ended in
divorce, and many are living in cold war or just tolerating each other.
Children are a disappointment too because they do not care about the parents;
only their own career, financial nest and enjoyments.
But why are
human relationships unfulfilling? It is because we love ourselves more
than we love others. Consciously or unconsciously, we make use of them to fulfil our
lack and we expect them to compensate our emptiness, insecurity, low
self-esteem with their unconditional love and encouragement. Worse still, some
make friends in order to get material things and money from them. We love
ourselves and things more than we love people. This is why most
relationships are demanding, selfish, possessive, insecure, controlling and
protective.
But when we
place the love of others before self, then we lose our fear. When there is love
all the other questions will be answered. When we love and care for a
person, we will make sacrifices for them easily. We are happy to sacrifice ourselves
for others as Jesus did in giving His entire life as a ransom for us.
When we love, we put the other person’s interests before our own, their
happiness and convenience before ours. We are always asking how we could love
the person more. His happiness is ours, his joy is ours.
This was what
the Lord did. He came to give us a relationship with Him. He is the manna and
the meat from heaven because He has come to give His body and
blood. He is the Word of God that comes down from heaven, the Bread
of life, the manna. The Israelites only had the signs and the foretaste
of God’s love and mercy when they ate the manna in the desert and the meat from
the quails. But we have in person the compassion and love of
God. If God invites us to love Him, it is in order that He can
empower us to love as He has loved. Jesus said, “This is working for God:
you must believe in the one he has sent.”
Only when we
believe in Him can we then begin to accept all that Jesus said and did. Only faith in can
Jesus help us to believe that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. Our
lives are to be modelled after His life, which is a life of entire giving of
self to God and to others in service. Following His life, we will find
great joy and true freedom in love. When we put on the mind of Christ,
then we are no longer afraid of suffering because we suffer for love. We are
no longer afraid of death because love is stronger than death. We are no
longer attached to things because love is greater than all the things of this
world. (cf Songs 8:6) In this way, we can live our life dynamically
and freely.
So we must,
as St Paul urges us, let our minds “be renewed by a spiritual revolution so
that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the
goodness and holiness of the truth.” To do this, our minds must
be one with the Word of God. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who
comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never
thirst.” We must come to the Lord in prayer, reading the Word of God and
receiving Him daily in the Eucharist so that our lives will always be in union with
His. Otherwise, cut away from the vine, we wither. We can only live
that life of self-emptying, giving ourselves entirely to God and others for
service, provided the Lord lives in us and empower us to do what He did.
Written by The Most Rev William Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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