DON’T HOARD IT
TITLE
The title of my homily for this 17th Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B - is, "Share It, Don't Hoard It."
THEME
My theme is: When sharing takes place, miracles
happen.
OPENING STORY
A bus with about 50 people was
making its way towards the gambling casinos in Nevada, when it ran into a
surprise snowstorm. In fact, the snow storm ended up being one of the worst in
years.
The bus driver moved along
cautiously. Then, because it was almost evening and the snow didn’t look like
it was going to stop, he told everyone that he was heading for a motel. He
figured there would be a rush on motel rooms, so he better get to one fast. He
left the main highway and headed for where he thought there was a motel. It was
a mistake. He took the wrong road. It was understandable, because the road
signs were covered with snow and the visibility was poor. He ended up on a back
country road. The more he moved forward, the more he was lost. A short time
later he came to a dead halt—the bus stuck in deep snow. No cars, no houses, no
lights, nothing was in sight but snow. And to make matters worse cell phones were out of cell phone areas - caught in between too many mountain passes.
He stood up and said, “Sorry folks,
I think we’re stuck here for the night. My advice is that we all relax and stay
put. In the morning it should be easier for rescue people to catch sight of a
bus than to spot an individual person. We still have enough gas, so I’ll heat
up the bus on a regular basis throughout the night.
A few people asked questions, but
most people became silent. They were mostly strangers on their way to the
casinos. They sat there thinking or talking to the person next to them—nervous
about what was going to happen.
About a half hour later the bus
driver asked, “By the way, does anyone have any food?”
Once more there was silence.
Finally, a young boy, was sitting in
the first row stood up and said, “I have sandwiches in my bag here and plenty
of munchies. If anyone wants anything, just help yourself. I’ll pass the bag
back.” His mom, who was sitting next to him, was surprised at what he had done.
He wasn’t even supposed to be on the trip, but her sister, who was going to
watch him while she went to the gambling casinos, had an emergency and couldn’t
watch him. So his mom took him along for the trip.
Almost everyone on the bus had food,
but nobody but the boy admitted it. Everyone figured, “You never know how long
we’re going to be stuck out here on this back road in this storm. Hang onto
what you have!” Well, as the bag moved slowly from seat to seat, from person to
person, towards the back of the bus, a strange thing happened. People felt
guilty at not speaking up, so they would reach in and take a pretzel or a
potato chip or a cookie and then put some of their food into the boy’s bag.
Well, by the time the boy got his bag back, it had a lot more food than when it
had started its journey from the front of the bus to the back.
A miracle? No.
A miracle? Yes.
Sharing, giving, opens up more than
hands. It can also open up eyes and minds and hearts.
Thank God, the storm ended during
the night. The next day a helicopter spotted the bus and snow plows eventually
were able to reach it. Nobody starved to death. Nobody was worse for the
experience. In fact, the experience brought these strangers together. Moreover,
they learned to laugh at themselves as they discovered, while talking and
sharing food, that they had a lot more food on the bus than first admitted.
HOMILETIC REFLECTIONS
The story of the bus is like the two
stories we heard in today’s first and third readings. People needed food.
Someone had a little bit, but not enough to feed everyone. They go to a holy
person and ask what to do. He says to give out what they have. And surprise,
they discover that they have more than they need.
For reflection, I would like to make
two points about today’s two readings:
1)
Unity is a very important gospel value.
2) The sharing of food is the first and most basic way of bringing about unity among people.
First: unity. In today’s second
reading Paul pleads with all of us to work for unity. He tells us that there is
“but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope given all of you by
your call. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of
all, who is over all, and works through all and is in all.” So whether we are a
parish or a group of people on a bus, whether we are a nation or a people on a
planet, we are all one body.
Now, the obvious reaction on hearing
Paul’s plea for unity is to say, “Okay, Paul, unity is great, but how are we
going to achieve it?”
Paul’s answer would be, “Read my letters. I spell it all
out in very concrete ways. In fact, didn’t you hear the 4 ways, amongst others,
that I mentioned in today’s reading: 1) Be humble, 2) be meek, 3) be patient,
and 4) bear with one another lovingly? Make that effort and you’ll begin to see
some unity in your life and with the people you deal with every day.
Second: share your food. Or as we
learned from the boy on the bus: Share it, don’t hoard it. Share it, don’t hide
it.
Today’s gospel and first reading are even more basic than St. Paul’s
suggestions on how to bring about unity. If we want unity on the bus or on the
planet, let’s make sure everyone has enough to eat. If we are a body, then that
body needs food. It’s as simple and as basic as that. It’s the Golden Rule.
Don’t we like three meals a day and even more? Don’t we all love to eat?
And if we read the Gospels, we find
out that the most common thing that Jesus does is to eat. He knew that
food is basic to life. He knew that food brings people together and he knew
that when people get together they eat.
Today’s gospel story of the
multiplication of the loaves is the only miracle story in the public ministry
of Jesus that is found in all four Gospels. In fact, the story appears six
times. Jesus is always eating or feeding people. He goes to Cana and a married
couple have more wine for their wedding. He brought a little girl back to life
and the first thing he tells her parents is to give her something to eat. He
tells the story of the Prodigal Son and ends the story with a great feast. Jesus is accused of being a glutton and a drunkard. The night before he dies he has a
Last Supper with his disciples. And when he appears to his disciples as the
Risen Lord he breaks bread at Emmaus and eats fish at Galilee.
So, today’s gospel and first reading are
about eating. They also have hints of the Passover. Elisha and Jesus are
like Moses. They make sure people have their manna, their food, as they cross
the desert of life, going towards the Promised Land.
And it should be pointed out that
today’s gospel is from John. We have been using the Gospel of Mark most of this
year in Ordinary Time. It’s the B Cycle. Last Sunday’s gospel told of the scene
in Mark when Jesus and his disciples were surrounded with a vast crowd of
people who were hungry and “were like sheep without a shepherd.” This Sunday
and for the next 4 Sundays we will be hearing about this same group of hungry
people from the famous sixth chapter of John. And John the poet will try to
stretch us by asking us to look at what we are hungering for in this life? Yes,
we need bread. But do we hunger for more? And if we have enough bread, what is
that more that we are after? Is it God? Is it what perishes or what can last
forever?
Food unites people - but only when it
is shared. Food can also divide people - especially when people are
scared - scared that there might not be enough of it.
And what we say about food, we can
also say about all the other goods and gifts that God has given to this world.
Those goods and gifts can unite us - but only when they are shared. If we look at
what divides us, what causes unrest and wars, isn’t it when people are selfish?
Haven’t our wars basically been about land and material resources and the goods
of this world?
PRACTICAL APPLICATION
The obvious practical application
for today’s readings then is that we share our food, our talents, our
resources, our time and ourselves with our neighbor. When we don’t, we are
doing our small part to keep our world separated.
What the little boy in the gospel
and what the little boy in the bus did, we are called to do. That is our
vocation, our calling: to share.
In fact, food is where we must
start.
The way to a person’s heart is through his or her stomach.
Before we
talk about anything else, our world must unite to make sure everyone on this
bus, this planet, had enough to eat.
Jesus knew this. Do we?
Few of us here
probably have ever really felt the pain of real hunger and starvation.
But
haven’t we all had the basic experience of being stopped by someone when we had
to go to the bathroom? They talked and talked and we didn’t hear a word they
said. Well, there is a step before the bathroom: if someone has an empty
stomach, it’s no use talking to them about religion or politics.
Didn’t Abraham Maslow in his famous
hierarchy of basic needs tell us the same thing? He said that food, housing, a
job, security come before religion and everything else?
Major Barbara, in George
Bernard Shaw’s play by the name, is described as being deeply worried about where she is
going to get money for the poor, “How are we going to feed them? I can’t talk
religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes.”
Didn’t Nehru, the former
prime minister of India, say the same thing, “I want nothing to do with any
religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth,
and ignorance. I want nothing to do with
any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are
capable of becoming happier and more civilized on this earth, capable of
becoming truly human, master of their fate and captain of their soul.”
Our religion, our Judeo-Christian
tradition, teaches us exactly that: from the Old Testament to the New, from the
Letters of our Popes to the Bishop’s Pastoral Letter on the Economy.
Isaiah told us to “share your bread
with the hungry, to shelter the oppressed and the homeless, to clothe the naked
when you see them and not to turn your back on your own.” (Is. 58: 7)
And all
through the gospels Jesus repeated that same message, but especially in Matthew
25 where he tells us to feed the hungry and give a drink to the thirsty, to
clothe the naked and to welcome the stranger, to take care of the sick and
visit those in prison.
Then in today’s gospel we see that Jesus was not all
words. The crowd was hungry and he fed them.
And it wasn’t Karl Marx who said,
“The bread that you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your
chest belongs to the naked; the gold that you have hidden in the ground belongs
to the poor.” No, it was St. Basil.
The boy in the gospel and the boy on
the bus tell us loud and clear, “Share it, don’t hoard it!” “Share it, don’t
hide it!”
Or as St. Paul put it, “We are one
body. If the hand forgets the foot, or the eye neglects the ear, then the whole
body is in trouble.” If we hoard our food or our gifts, we will never have a
united world or a united bus.
Share it, don’t hide it!
