Richard Bollman, S.J.

SCRIPTURE: 18^th Sunday B

Exodus 16:2-4,12-15; Ephesians 4:17,20-24; John 6:24-35

These four Sundays in August we read from John’s Gospel,

an extended discourse from Jesus with the people

about the miracle of the great feeding that we heard last week.

This is called the "Bread of Life" discourse,

exploring the meaning of the miracle the people witnessed,

and the meaning of the Eucharistic table that we experience each week.

As is often the case in John’s Gospel,

Jesus maintains that what we first see and find from him

a cup of water, a vessel of wine at the wedding, a barley loaf:

its all needs to be held carefully and then almost set aside.

Because there is more to learn, a deeper mystery to explore.

So today we start exploring the fuller meaning of the picnic in the wilderness,

by comparing it with the miraculous bread God gave to the people

through the hands of Moses. This is the first reading, from Exodus.

Jesus says explicitly that Moses gave something

that was from the power of God, for the sake of a deeper life and calling.

And that he himself is that bread for the new community of faith.

We start with that scene from Exodus today.

And we continue with the second half of Paul’s letter to Ephesus

where he encourages the following of a righteous way of life

different from the ways of the pagan culture, the Gentiles.

By faith in Jesus we are empowered to become a new kind of human person,

living a human nature created in the image of God.

HOMILY. 18^th Sunday Year B, 2009

"Remembering What Gives You Life"

Bread inspires confidence. That’s the core of this Gospel.

The gift of food, having enough, it also inspires gratitude.

The trust and gratitude might take us farther along

in our journey to life than just the food itself.

This is the heart of Jesus teaching: gratitude and trust.

It’s simple enough. It’s a teaching of St. Ignatius also:

at the end of the day look into your life to see the gift.

Gratitude and trust start to grow.

I’ve been exploring this a little more lately: I feel the need

to notice how I’m being nourished, and to take it personally.

As I mention at the bottom of the parish letter this morning,

I’m taking some time for vacation the next two weeks.

A woman asked me a few days ago: do you Jesuits have places you go to?

I mean like resorts or do you get a deal on hotels?

I said, no, it’s more like we have a lot of houses,

even a few cottages on water,

and they’re for us to use, you just need to look ahead for accomodations.

Is there room for a visitor?

So I’ll take off for Boston this first week of vacation

to visit a friend and stay where he lives

at a Jesuit house in downtown Boston, on Newbury Street.

It’s a great address, two blocks from the Prudential center,

handy to the underground trains too.

I can get there by public transportation from Logan airport.

Their cook is fabulous. The streets are alive.

And the last time I visited, well I just kept the key,

so this is an easy fit. You know how it goes with your own places.

But the lady’s question prompted me to just look at it all

and be very grateful. To take it personally. Gifts. Sacred things.

Paying attention helps you even to trust that the troubles you have

are part of a bigger picture, the gift of life.

And that’s Ignatius talking too: to remember not just what’s clear and easy,

but the struggles too, the dark places, all part of life’s gift really.

Last week I needed to answer a question for an interview,

and the question was: where did you get your calling as a pastor.

I felt pushed, even intruded upon, like, well I don’t really know,

but then I just had this flash of many things that pulled me this way,

starting with the life of ritual and incense and chant at St. Clement Church,

and the high school teachers I had at St. Xavier,

and my failure to succeed in academic life at the university in San Francisco,

that played a role too, some mistakes, failures, fears.

You choose what you think you can do, and then you find

well, this is suitable, this is where you fit. Maybe there’s a plan here.

So I was glad for the question,

and I brought it into my prayer of thanks at the end of the day.

Along with all the things I miss as a result:

like marriage, a life partner, or maybe just to have a kitchen of my own.

Isn’t that the way it goes:

the more our thanksgiving becomes reflective and real,

the miracles of our life start to show up better,

and the "miraculous" is brought into connection with the losses,

and they work together to give shape to who we are. All of it is gift.

Like you, I’ve visited people in the hospital

who might be in a life and death struggle,

and still they live with a desire to pay attention to it all,

because it all starts to matter so much more. Life itself.

My cousin Louetta is in recovery, touch and go, from colon cancer,

but when I caught up with her on the phone last week

she heads right to the truth of it, with humor and optimism.

"Just back from the hospital again:" she says.

"they rerouted the colostomy, and now I’m normal,

but," she admitted, "I don’t know how to use it very well yet.

My muscles have gone a little weak."

Louetta was one of the icons of my growing up years,

12 years older than me (everybody was older than me)

but a funny, welcoming girl, following her own tune in the late forties,

pregnant unexpectedly with her one child,

followed by a quick marriage and heading with her husband to another state.

That was Louetta. He was Ken. Their daughter was Stephanie.

She’d sign her Christmas cards: Ken, Lou, and Stevie.

Her daughter, looking back on it says, "we sounded like a moving company."

Family survivors. They give me such hope. They are a part of life with me.

Jesus is urgent to let us know that it is not only barley bread

that gives us life. It is something more alive than that,

the events that shape us and call us to respond,

the events, the people, that feed the soul.

When you lean in this direction, then every Gospel story starts talking to you.

You touch the garment of Jesus as he passes, your drink the cup at the well,

God shows up with surprising faithfulness.

I can look out from my plane window and see the green parks and rivers

and the houses of Boston, and unlock one door where I have a key

and find friends who know me. Thank you.

Lord Jesus Christ, is this who you are?

I need to stop and take it in. The living bread.

I hang up the phone and know my cousin is still her best self

and I learn about illness and survivial as she has always taught us.

Even when her husband died of Alzheimer’s disease.

Lord Jesus, is this who you are.

Christ within my story.

The bread from heaven.

We celebrate it here on Sundays.

Catholic Mass. Come early, stay late.

Know your goodness, share your fear, allow for the next right thing.

We touch the Gospel in the assembly who have come,

we develop a taste for something bigger than our worries.

We have eaten today, and we shall eat again tomorrow.

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