“What is this?”

Homily for August 2, 2015 (18th Sunday in Ordinary Time)—St. Kevin Parish
Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15; Psalm 78; Ephesians 4:17, 20-24; John 6:24-35

“What is this?”

How many parents have had to answer that question from a child looking up from something unfamiliar on the table or their plate?  Providing the right answer can be a delicate business.  Was the question asked with a sneer or a smile?  Was it asked with a tone of curiosity, disgust or fear?  Providing the direct and simple answer—“broccoli,” “tofu,” or “Romaine lettuce”—will only get you so far.  It may only lead to more questions or the kind of table debate that may begin with appeals to eating what’s good for us or the merits of trying new things but ends with the words that no child wants to hear:  “Because I said so!”

Perhaps we can sympathize, then, with God’s great patience in dealing with the children of Israel.   Today’s first reading finds them once again (!) grumbling and whining during their Exodus from Egypt.  In response to their cries and complaints—even their desire to return to relatively security of their slavery—God feeds them with a food that appears as “fine flakes like hoarfrost” on the ground.  Manna (the word is derived from Hebrew words for “What is this?”) is a sweet honey dew excretion derived from insects that infect a plant native to the region.  Even today, it is considered a delicacy by the Bedouin tribes that move through the area.

The newness of this food and the manner in which God commanded people to gather it (enough for the day and a double portion for the Sabbath) tested their faith.  Sometimes we prefer the security of a slavery we know—an addiction, an unhealthy relationship, a dead-end job—to the uncertainty of a freedom we are only discovering.  In a similar way, we can miss the significance of a sign that God gives us because it is beyond our expectations or demands.  Even after people saw Jesus feed over 5000 with five loaves and two fish, some still demanded a sign so that they might see and believe in him.   It was their way of asking, “What is this?”

On our own faith journeys we may find ourselves asking the same question.   We’re confronted with difficulties and tragedies and ask, “What is this?”  We pray hard for something (too often not considering whether it is God’s will), it doesn’t materialize, and we ask, “What is this?”  We see refugees living in squalid camps, children dying of preventable diseases, soldiers returning from overseas with horrible injuries and memories, and we ask, “What is this?” We look at this beautiful world that God has given us and see it torn apart by violence and exhausted by greed and neglect, and we ask, “Lord, what is this?” We can easily lose heart.

Yet it precisely our hearts that we need to change.  St. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4 that in order to really understand and appreciate what is before us, we need to put away our old selves, be renewed in mind and heart, and put on our new selves.  His metaphor comes from the ritual of Baptism, in which those who were to be initiated literally disrobed, were immersed in the waters of life, and were given white garments as symbols of their new life in Christ.  Yet baptism, then and now, is not an end in itself.  Rather, it sets us on a lifetime journey of conversion and renewal—our own Exodus through this life to life eternal.

What is this?  It’s life.  Let’s deal with it with it—not as people of fear, suspicion, anger or disdain but as people of faith, hope and love.   +