1st Sunday of Lent A - Homily 2

 Homily 2 - 2008

We are familiar with the story, and the temptations.  Turn these stones into loaves of bread.  Why? to feed himself? but one stone into one loaf would have been enough for him.  May the temptation have been, rather, to give the people what they want: give them bread?  Is that what we are up to with Project Compassion – give them bread? economic development?

Jesus felt the temptation; but he insisted that human persons do not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God – but they do need bread!

On one occasion in Jesus’ life, Mark’s Gospel recounted: Jesus saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set about to teach them at some length … His disciples came up to him and said, This is a lonely place, and it is getting very late, so send them away … to buy food for themselves.  He replied: Give them something to eat yourselves…  Then he took the five loaves and the two fish, said the blessing, and began handing the loaves to his disciples to distribute among the people.

People were in need, so he gave them bread.  But his first response to their deeper need was to teach them at some length – human persons do not live on bread alone.

What did he teach them? If people live on every word that comes from the mouth of God, what do those words say? In a nutshell, Jesus taught them that God is love, that God loved them, each of them individually and all of them collectively; that, because they were loved, they had a profound dignity.  He taught them that, because they were loved by God and empowered by God’s love, they, too, could love..  Indeed, that their truest dignity as human persons was lived as they began to love, to love each other, as they moved beyond self-interest and family-interest to build community – or, as last week’s Gospel put it, to be merciful, to be peace-makers.  That empowers life, beyond survival.  Interestingly, by his feeding the five thousand, Jesus showed them in practical terms his conviction of their worth and dignity.

During this time of Lent, as we reflect on almsgiving and respond to the opportunity provided by Project Compassion, we recognise that development aid must be given in ways that do more than permit survival.  The giving that empowers life must respect and foster human dignity, and promote and strengthen human community.  We can be grateful that Caritas Australia (which distributes the income raised through Project Compassion), deliberately concentrates on community-based projects: projects requested by communities, run by communities, for the direct benefit of communities.

Caritas Australia has faced the temptation of raising money by the generally successful and lucrative means of sponsoring children – and has chosen not to follow that path out of concern for what it might do to the sense of dignity of the father and mother, and the rest of the children, in a family where one of the children becomes the conduit of the family’s livelihood.  It has also been concerned about the effect on community of some family or families being helped financially, and other families missing out.  As well, it questions the practice of a child writing to thank a donor when, in many cases, the incidence of widespread poverty is the result of the indifference and sometimes injustice of the nation to which the donor belongs.

We move now into Eucharist, where Jesus comes to us sacramentally as bread and wine.  He is not present to nourish us simply as individuals, but to shape us into community.  We share Eucharist together.  We remember how, at the Last Supper, he took the bread and gave it to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and eat it…. Then he took the cup, gave it to his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and drink from it.  The whole thrust of Jesus’ redemptive action – his turning around of the power of sin – is to call individuals beyond themselves into community, and to make us, together, his Body, as he draws us into the powerful dynamic of his own love.