18th Sunday in Ordinary Time
We are at the beginning of August and It will be no time until the schools reopen at the beginning of September and the summer holidays for 2026 will be a distant but hopefully a good memory. Time waits on no one and for many of us it is passing by just too quickly. The First Reading is taken from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah 55:1-3. The prophet, living among the Jewish exiles in Babylon, utters words of consolation for the despairing exiles. Here he tells them that Yahweh is inviting them to a banquet which he freely gives them. Yahweh alone can provide for their real needs; they are foolish to look elsewhere for consolation or help. If they cooperate, he will fulfil the promise he had made to David, the promise of a future Messiah. The Second Reading is from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans 8:35, 37-39. St. Paul concludes this chapter with a hymn in praise of God’s love for us: “with God on our side,” he says, “who can be against us?” Then come today’s verses, which are rhetorical questions, showing that there is no power in heaven or on earth that can take away or lessen God’s love for us as manifested in Christ, his Incarnate Son.
In our Gospel story for this Sunday, we hear about the feeding of the five thousand. The people in this story are a crowd that realize Jesus had something to offer them in their “deserted places.” Jesus wasn’t just filling their stomachs. They were not the rich, the famous, the educated or the powerful; they were the afflicted and the marginalized people that Jesus went out of his way to seek out. The words of Jesus were there to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted Life may have passed them by, but Jesus didn’t. He took note of them, and they in turn saw in him a place to be nourished, a place where deep hunger and longings would be fulfilled. The physical bread of the miracle story was of temporary value. It could not satisfy deeper spiritual hungers, but it was a sign that Jesus can and that his heart is moved with pity for us. Notice how he handled the food with reverence, the same reverence he felt for the crowd whom he knew were the beloved of God. The sign for us today is that we too are the beloved sons and daughters of God and we will not be left hungry or alone for God is with us in the good, bad, happy and sad things that are part and parcel of our daily life. In this version of the story, there is no boy to provide the loaves and fishes for this miracle. The disciples have food with them. Jesus Is asking them to share out of their supplies. He Is asking them to risk it all, to take a chance with him. And they take the chance to be agents of change as the disciples’ have learned that whatever they have, it will be more than enough in their collaboration with Christ as they risk what they have in his service.
As we heard last week, the person who discovers the treasure in the field goes out and sells everything to buy the field and have the treasure. The disciples too are being invited to invest everything they have in Jesus. Are we prepared to follow Jesus wherever he leads us as we bring ourselves to the one who does not disappoint for there is no power in heaven or on earth that can take away or lessen God’s love for us shown to us through Jesus his Incarnate Son.
Fullerton T 