SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME B

[cappie]

Today’s Collect really gets to the heart of the matter.

“O God, protector of those who hope in you . . . bestow in abundance  your mercy upon us and grant that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may use the good things that pass in such a way as to hold fast even now to those that ever endure . . .”

With these words, we pray that we might pass through this world without losing sight of the eternal realm. In other words, we pray to live out our earthly lives without forgetting the truths of eternal life—those things that always have been and will be forever.

  We were not created to begrudgingly trudge through life, motivated solely by the promise of a heavenly reward  rather, we pray to remember things eternal because they can give us much-needed perspective in this life. Eternal things—the things of God and of Jesus, of the religious and the spiritual—remind us that the lives we live day to day, week to week, and year to year are but the blink of an eye in the sight of the one who is everlasting to everlasting. 

One of the virtues of such an eternal perspective is that it keeps us aware of the fact that God is God, and we are not; that God’s ways are not our ways; that there just might be a different way to respond to present circumstances or envision future possibilities than the way we typically do. 

 So, when we pray  that we may use the good things that pass in such a way as to hold fast even now to those that ever endure . . .”

, we are asking God to keep us mindful of the very thing God did—and still does—in Jesus Christ. That is, God enters this world, sanctifies it, and reminds us that the ways of this world won’t get the last word.

We need a reminder of that through any and all of the messiness of day-to-day living, our relationship with Jesus makes it possible for us to see things from an eternal perspective now; to glimpse the Kingdom now; to walk in eternal life today.

This is what God has always been doing: in the wisdom spoken through the prophets,  in the Red Sea waters lifted at the hand of Moses, in the bow that Noah saw set in the clouds, in the sacred covenant made with Abraham, in the creation fashioned from a formless void.

All of these things are signs that God has, since before time began, been showing us glimpses of eternity. It doesn’t only happen in dramatic ways. We can participate in eternal life by reading a bit of scripture, praying with the psalms, or naming God’s activity in the world around you.

And don’t worry. Even when you lose sight of things eternal—as we all do from time to time—God will find a way to reach toward you in covenant loyalty, as if to say, “I am here, and I will never go away. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, I am in this.”   You just have to remember   God, is constantly calling you into eternal relationship even in this midst of this temporal world.

That eternal relationship is not a testament to something old or new, but to the one thing that is constant: the faithfulness of a God who never ceases to work the wonders of eternity. And so, we pray to behold those very wonders by recounting not only God’s saving deeds long past but experiencing them today. 

Notice the parallels between today’s Gospel and First Reading. Both Elisha and Jesus face a crowd of hungry people with only a few “barley” loaves. We hear similar words about how impossible it will be to feed the crowd with so little. And in both, the miraculous multiplication of bread satisfies the hungry and leaves food left over.

 It’s so easy to say things like, “I could never buy enough food for all these people.” or “There’s a kid here with a couple loaves of bread, but I don’t know what good it’s going to do in a crowd this size.” 

But that kind of attitude isn’t going to help us see through a lens of eternity. We can do that only if we show up and faithfully start passing out what’s there. Once everyone’s had enough, we just might find that we are glimpsing the Kingdom of Heaven. Not only that, but we can make quite a nice meal from what’s left over.

 

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[little2add]

Father, we know each day has a purpose You will in our lives. On the days it is hard for us to stand up against all of the calamity and chaos in the world flying at our faces, help us to seek You and find You in moments of calm and clarity.

Let Your peace reign our hearts, minds, and actions. Let Your Holy Spirit fall over us in a calm sense of purpose, yet renewed vigor to follow Jesus with more determination each day we live.

Amen