LOVE IN THE TIME OF HUNGER

There’s a picture in today’s Gospel that makes you stop and look: it’s the picture of Jesus, the Man, who’s just learnt that His cousin has died. Although He knows this has been coming, imagine Him recalling the times they played together, grew up together, before the Great Calling separated them and they had to walk different paths.

He wants nothing more than to grieve – He’s still Man – with only the ones close to Him. It’s a very human want. But the people persist. They want Him. They chase after Him.

So He leaves the boat and His grief, and heals their sick.

He puts their sick before His own sick Heart.

He puts aside His tears for His cousin to feed everyone hungry for His Word. Those who don’t know, not yet, that He can – will – satiate their physical hunger that day, too.

If the story of the miracle of the five loaves and two fish has become too familiar, examine this picture instead. Of course the miracle was amazing. It’s grace and healing and proof of His divinity for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. But this evidence of Jesus, the Man, is equally compelling.

It’s evidence that for us humans, it is possible to swallow grief to help someone in need, that it is possible when the world comes crashing down to give hope to someone else. It shows that if Jesus the Man could struggle with loss and heartbreak and still heal a crowd who didn’t know He was in pain, us normal people can do the same.

Nothing, St Paul insists to the Romans, can come between us and the love of Christ. Not a troubled heart or a lack of food. Not a single thing that happens to or around us. That second reading is so full of assurance for anyone looking for hope, or comfort in a time of grief. Or maybe looking for assurance that the wrong path we’ve taken hasn’t broken our relationship with the Father entirely.

Paul doesn’t say – and Jesus doesn’t, either – that the hopeless situation, the sadness, the guilt or remorse, will disappear. Instead, they both say that in the middle of the hunger, sadness, or fear or loss of hope for a brighter present, God is there. He hasn’t checked out.

He can swallow anything to heal and feed us, make us whole inside.

These are the trials through which we triumph, by the power of Him who loved us.

The thing about the miracle of the loaves and fish is the faith that made it happen.  It’s hard to muster belief when you’re all the things Isaiah mentions today: thirsty for someone to speak hope, poverty-stricken in faith, hungry for forgiveness. While we could argue that Jesus had a direct line to God when He prayed, He said that through Him, we now have the same line, too.

It doesn’t necessarily bring a miraculous solution to our external circumstances, but clinging to God in the midst of it, consuming what He gives in heart and spirit feeds our faith, and helps us to stand more strongly.

Why spend your wages on what fails to satisfy?

Why look for rest and refreshment elsewhere?

And if taking from God while we can’t pay for it seems selfish, well, that’s what He’s asking us to give to someone else. Like Jesus did that day.

Give them something to eat yourselves.

If we find ourselves saying, like the disciples, ‘All we have is…’, that’s enough to start with.

Or ‘I don’t have enough time, enough patience, enough love, enough determination for this… This isn’t enough for me to fix things…’. But Jesus doesn’t ask for what we don't have. He asks us to bring Him the tiny bit we do have.

Love doesn’t exist only when it’s convenient. It’s not bright and alive only when the world around is good and peaceful. Love is hard to give when we’re dispirited, broken inside. But the world still needs our hands, our hearts. Around us, every day, there are people dealing with pain, loss, lack, fear. They’re in our own families, workplaces, neighbourhoods. They need us when we’re still trying to sort our own lives out, often at the most inconvenient times. Do we say no? Not now? Get help from someone else?

The Father’s not telling us to do it alone. He says to give Him what we have, go to Him to get the rest of the resources, and go out to help someone else to stand. He’ll help us with the pain, strengthen us with patience and compassion. We just have to want it enough, to ask Him for help, to accept His help and, working with Jesus, to give it to others.

And someone else might get to see a miracle, too.

God bless you and the love you give to someone in need in the week ahead!

Article by Joyce Norma, HFC Blog Contributor