Have you ever
received a bill, fully expecting the total amount due to fall within a
certain range, only to discover that you owe almost double what you had
budgeted? I had that experience happen to me a couple of weeks ago and
it sure isn’t pleasant.
For some people,
this experience comes when the electric bill arrives after having
enjoyed loads of cool air conditioning during the hot, humid, and hazy
days of July or August. Or, the experience comes after enjoying a nice,
warm and toasty home during the cold and chilly days of December or
January. Stunned by the total amount of dollars owed, you suddenly wish
that you owned a sizable block of stock in Excelon.
For others, the
experience comes when the telephone bill arrives. Suddenly, a parent
finds out that one’s teenager has secretly been placing long distance
telephone calls to his or her Juliet or Romeo from 10:00 p.m. until 4:00
a.m. ...on school nights! Now it makes sense why mid-term grades have
plummeted. But, as far as the teenager is concerning, “everything is
fine.”
The exact same
experience strikes others when the cable television bill arrives in the
mail. One quickly discovers that “Video on demand” isn’t free. It’s
hard to believe how fast all of those movies can add up! And now, you
find yourself wondering whether the cost was worth it.
Then, there’s the
sometimes difficult and embarrassing experience of inadvertently
stumbling upon a child’s secret stash of contraband or web surfing
history. All of a sudden, your parental instincts have been verified
beyond the shadow of a doubt. “This is normal,” we tell ourselves
nervously as we try to get a grip on things. But, our gut tells us
that we have to do something about it.
When we stumble upon
these disconcerting things, the first three words that pop out of our
mouths more often times than not are stated in the form of a question,
namely: “What is this?” Now, if we discovered any of these things and
we just happened to speak Hebrew, only one word would flow from our
lips. Can you guess what that word is? (The answer can be found at the
end of the homily.)
After one month of
freedom from the life of slavery they knew in Egypt, the Israelites now
found themselves somewhere in the middle of the Desert of Sin―a
place I think was aptly named―where
they did not know what lay ahead. God had answered their prayers by
rescuing the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt. God vowed that
He would lead them into the Promised Land.
But, the Desert of
Sin didn’t fit the bill of Israelite expectations. It was hot and the
Israelites were thirsty and hungry. It seemed as if there no relief was
anywhere in sight. In the midst of these challenges, slavery in Egypt
looked much better in comparison to wandering around in the hot desert
and dealing with parched lips and growling stomachs. Compounding
matters further was the Israelites’ doubt and uncertainty about what lay
in the future.
Only one month
earlier, God had demonstrated His power and love by delivering the
Israelites from slavery. How quickly they had forgotten how God had
answered their prayers by blessing them with the precious gift of
freedom! Instead of remembering and being grateful for this gift, the
Israelites were now demanding that God provide them water. Despite
their forgetfulness and lack of gratitude, God once again demonstrate
his power and love. He answered all of the Israelites’ grumbling and
prayers by providing them with water at Meribah and Massah. However,
instead of seeing God manifesting His love for them, the Israelites
forgot about God and ran for the water, only to discover, once they
sipped it, that the water was too bitter for drinking.
The Israelites
received what they wanted, but not in the form they expected!
Would that they had only recognized the lesson that God was teaching
them in the midst of their languishing in the Desert of Sin.
Then, in their
hunger, the Israelites demand food. Again, God demonstrates his power
and love by providing the Israelites food. But, when the Israelites
saw this food spread before them across the desert sands like a fresh
snowfall on a prairie in Nebraska, instead of thanking God for this
gift, the Israelites said―in
that distinctive tone reminiscent of a kid who is being served liver and
onions for dinner―“Manna,”
that is, “What is this?”
The Israelites
received what they wanted, but not it the form they expected.
Would that they had only recognized in this experience the lesson they
hadn’t learned when God provided them with water from the rock.
The lesson is
obvious: God does provide for our needs, but we shouldn’t be surprised
that what we get doesn’t come in the form we wanted.
Consider once again
those situations where we blurt out, just like the Israelites, “What is
this?”
When an exorbitant
electric or heating bill arrives, we suddenly are thrust into a test
where we have to decide between what we really want and what we truly
need. In this test, we must re-evaluate just how much air conditioning
or heating we really need. Believe it or not, God is in the middle of
this, reminding us that passing creaturely comforts come at a price and
that we really can live quite comfortably without many of those things.
The bill wasn’t how we expected God to remind us about according first
priority to what is truly important in our lives. But, the bill sure
makes the point, especially when it affected something we worry about
very much, namely, our pocketbooks.
When that
long-distance telephone bill comes, we are tested about how we might
teach our teenagers about responsibility for the choices we make.
Believe it or not, God is in the middle of this, reminding those of us
who are parents that we must teach our children that love―even
if it is a teenager’s infatuation―and
bearing responsibility for one’s actions are intimately linked. It’s
not an “either/or” but a “both/and” proposition. The telephone bill
wasn’t how we expected God to remind us about our responsibility to be
the best of teachers of our children. But, once again, when it comes to
something we care about, we realize that we must act.
That video-on-demand
television bill also tests us. As we survey the titles of all of the
movies that we’ve watched, we are tested to ask ourselves, “Forget the
money, was the time spent watching those movies really time well
invested?” Believe it or not, God is in the middle of this, reminding
us about how we waste precious hours on trivial amusements. We didn’t
expect God to remind us in this way about how we oftentimes fail to use
the limited amount of time we have as human beings in doing loving
things for and with others. But, it is truly amazing how such
realizations can push “couch potatoes” to recognizes that they really
don’t live life and time is quickly passing them by.
And, yes, God is
present, even when a parent inadvertently stumbles upon a child’s secret
stash of contraband or web surfing history. Like Adam and Eve, we’ve
all thought the fig leaves would cover up what we thought only we knew
about ourselves. But, God is truly present here, testing parents to
balance the strict requirements of justice with the loving dictates of
mercy. As parents and as kids, too, we didn’t expect that God would
manifest His power and love in quite that way. But, unless we become
more transparent about our true motives, we’re not “Dancing with
Wolves.” No, we’re “tap dancing on the trap door of temptation,” as one
of my brother Augustinians expresses this concept.
As Jesus’ disciples,
when we discover something that surpasses our range of expectations, we
need to restate the question “What is this?” as “Where is God in all of
this?” These moments provide the opportunity to learn that there is
something more substantive to feeds souls, something more than any water
and bread, more than any air conditioning and heating, more than all of
those long distance telephone calls, video on demand, stashed away
contraband, or web surfing. Each of these situations, spurred by the
question “What is this?” provides a test as well as an opportunity to
recognize how God manifests His power and love in our lives by providing
for our needs.
At the same time,
however, we have to remember, like the Israelites, that what we demand
may not be what we get if only because God’s goal is to help us
recognize that He alone supplies for our true needs.
John S. Dunne wrote
about this experience of emptiness and spiritual longing―the
thirst and hunger experienced by the Israelites in the Desert of Sin and
those of us wandering around in our own Desert of Sin―what
Dunne called “languishing.” Dunne compared this languishing to the
“exhausted blood that flows through the veins back to the heart.” Only
when the exhausted blood flows through the heart (that is, through God),
can blood be renewed and return to the body to bring it what the body
needs. Dunne likens that renewed blood to love, observing, “The
discovery of God takes place when languishing becomes love...when the
exhausted life is renewed in the heart.” For Dunne, God’s presence in
the heart is where our languishing is transformed into love and our
emptiness becomes plentitude.
From the Israelites
through all of those nameless people who sought out Jesus at the
lakeside and to this community of disciples today, people demand many
things from God, forgetting all that God has already given to them.
And, when God provides for our needs, the first words typically to cross
our lips are “What is this?” Today’s scripture reminds us that holiness
becomes evident when we recognize God’s power and love transforming our
languishing into love and filling our emptiness with exactly what we
need…even when it comes packaged somewhat differently than we had
estimated!
Such holiness,
however, may prove to be quite discomforting and even frightening when
we would rather be comfortable and cozy. Why? Because the gift of
God’s power and love challenges us to surrender those values and habits
we’ve grown accustomed to and which we use to define our day-to-day
existence as human beings. These choices have made us forgetful
and ungrateful for the gift of God’s power and love.
The columnist, David
Mazel, once recounted an exchange he had with his rabbi. When the rabbi
asked Mazel how things were going, the columnist innocently replied,
“Things are going all right. But, it wouldn’t hurt if things went a
little better.” Raising his eyebrows in a stern glance, the rabbi
responded, “And just how do you know it wouldn’t hurt?”
We believe that
God’s blessings will bring us endless bliss and rapture. But, instead,
they may well bring pain and require conversion of us.
This is what St.
Paul was telling the Ephesians when he wrote: “You should put away the
old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful
desires….” St. Paul told the Ephesians―and
is telling us today―that,
in baptism, we gave up something old for something new, a life of
languishing for a life of plentitude, a life of wandering in a vain
search for happiness for a life of stability that found its roots and
nourishment in God. “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds,” St. Paul
wrote, “and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness
and holiness of truth.”
Even though we
oftentimes confuse what we want with what we need, God does not abandon
us, even when we find ourselves, like the Israelites of old, wandering
around in the middle of the Desert of Sin and making all sorts of
demands of God. God not only sees and understands our languishing but,
through His beloved Son, provides an inexhaustible means to satisfy all
of our needs. To those who were testing him in his Desert of Sin, Jesus
said:
“I am the bread of
life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me
will never thirst.”
Today’s scriptures
remind us that the pursuit of God―who
alone fills our languishing―is
the most important pursuit of our lives. Surrendering our comfortable
values and habits is difficult indeed. But, as God manifests His power
and love by providing for our needs, it is through this bitter water and
unusual bread that God provides the substantive nourishment our souls
truly need.
Are we willing to
drink that
bitter water and eat that unusual bread?
(Answer: The Hebrew word is
“manna.”) |