18th Sunday Year C - Homily 4

 Homily 4 - 2019

You may remember last week’s Gospel where we had Luke’s version of the Lord’s Prayer: “Father, may your name be held holy, your kingdom come, give us each day our daily bread… and so on” We often use it, or Matthew’s longer version, as a prayer that we all know and so can recite together. But the disciples had asked Jesus to “teach us to pray”. Simply to recite the prayer only requires a fairly average memory. To “pray” it apparently takes something more, something that Jesus needs to “teach” us. I think it takes a whole lifetime to learn it well, that is, to understand its implications and to mean it.

Take the thought, “give us each day our daily bread”. “Bread”, I suppose, is to be understood metaphorically and so can mean, “give us each day ‘whatever we need’ for the day”. What do we need ‘for the day’? Whatever about millions of people elsewhere in our world, we in the West belong to an economy where probably no one would be satisfied simply having enough ‘for the day’. Well, would we be satisfied with simply having ‘enough’ – full stop? Is that what Jesus is prepared to teach us – to be satisfied with enough? And if it might be, how might we learn to mean it? That is what I think takes a lifetime; and the wiser we become, the more we understand what in practice Jesus is suggesting. Perhaps even “enough” comes to mean progressively less and less than we imagined. I think that, also with time, we can come to mean our request with greater and greater conviction.

Why on earth might Jesus be suggesting that we go down that path? There seems little doubt that that is what today’s Gospel passage seems to be on about. Is Jesus just out to test us by perversely asking something difficult of us? Hardly. In fact, Jesus suggests that we wind up the prayer by asking God, “Do not put us to the test”. Neither Jesus nor God is on about testing anyone. I think Jesus is hoping that we come eventually to ask for simply “enough” and to mean it because, counter-intuitively, it is the way to genuine human maturity and true inner peace. It might be worth giving it a try, and seeing what happens.

How might we start to be content with “enough”? One way may be to begin to appreciate more what we already have, to learn to say “thank you” to God, honestly; and to say it more and more frequently for more of the things we already have and enjoy. Pope Francis suggested a couple of years ago, that we cultivate the habit of saying grace before meals - and taking sufficient time really to mean it. Some people, at the end of each day, take time to look back and review the pleasant surprises that happened, to look for those moments when they felt the presence and the goodness of God, or when they simply saw something beautiful, even something quite ordinary that they see every day but often take totally for granted. It can be good practice to say “thank you” to someone, and mean it, when she or he does us an ordinary, routine deed of kindness. I

One consequence of this growing in gratitude is that we come eventually to see that everything is gift. Our priorities change. We don’t need to try to fill our lives by “taking things easy, eating, drinking, having a good time” – which never satisfy. When we can accept that everything is already God’s gift, waiting to be appreciated, then enough is enough. Just “give us this day our daily bread”.