Companions for the Journey
Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 2, 2020
A story is told of two brothers who worked together on a family farm. One was married and had a large family. The other was single. At the day’s end, the brothers shared everything equally, produce and profit.
Then one day the single brother said to himself, “It’s not right that we should share equally the produce and the profit. I’m alone and my needs are simple.” So each night he took a sack of grain from his bin and crept across the field between their houses, dumping it into his brother’s bin.
Meanwhile, the married brother said to himself, “It’s not right that we should share the produce and the profit equally. After all, I’m married and I have my wife to look after me and my children for years to come. My brother has no one, and no one to take care of the future.” So, each night he too took a sack of grain and dumped it into his single brother’s bin.
Both men were puzzled for years because their supply of grain never dwindled. Then one dark night, the two brothers bumped into each other. Slowly it dawned on them what was happening. They dropped their sacks and embraced one another.
Many years ago a noted churchman wrote an essay in Life magazine on the question, “What is the meaning of life?” He wrote: “I believe we are placed here to be companions—a wonderful word that comes from the Latin cum panis, with bread. We are here to share bread with one another so that everyone has enough, no one has too much….There are many names for such sharing companions: the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God, the Communion of Saints. And while the goal is too vast to be realized on this planet, it is still our task to create foretastes of it in this world.”
Did you ever notice that in the Lord’s Prayer there is a redundancy, the repetition of basically the same word within one sentence: Give us this day our daily bread? Why is that? Scripture scholars suggest that Jesus may have been referring back to a central story of his peoples’ history. When God freed the ancient Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, and they went out into the desert, they soon complained that they had no food. And so God gave them the gift of manna, a bread-like substance that would appear like frost on the ground each morning. They were commanded to take only the amount they would need for one day (except for the day before the Sabbath when no work was allowed; then they were to gather a double amount). In this way they gradually learned, day by day, that they could trust their God to feed them and take care of their needs. Thus “give us this day our daily bread”.
The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves is the only one recorded in all four gospels. It must have made quite an impression on the early community and the gospel writers. Jesus showed himself as the all-important companion for the journey, the one who could feed his people while accompanying them, the one who could be trusted to care for his people even in a wilderness, out of the way place, or desert.
In our celebration of the Eucharist our God feeds us, giving us a foretaste of heaven, when there will be no more tears or sorrow, when no one will starve while others have too much, when every hunger will be satisfied. When we share our bread with the hungry, then we are living according to the pattern of the Eucharist, giving others the foretaste we have received, the glimpse of what life is meant to be because it is lived according to the pattern established by God.
In the dramatic last judgment scene described by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 25:31-46) Jesus even identifies himself with those in need in such a way that, when we reach out to them, we are serving him. “Come. You have my Father’s blessing! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me…” Thus, we welcome Jesus as a companion on the journey by feeding others as our God feeds us. Rather than looking down on the poor, we are called to look them in the eye and treat them as brothers and sisters. This is precisely what Jesus did when he fed the multitude in the wilderness. If we are his disciples, should we not do the same?