looking beyond: 18th sunday B 2012

I would like to propose two lessons. 

The first lesson is from our first reading today.  We can call it "the failure to see the grander design of things; the failure to see the bigger purpose, or should we say the failure to see that the purpose is bigger than ourselves."

The first reading tells of difficulty of the Israelites just freed from the bondage of Egypt.  They had no food, they had no drink and so they blamed Moses.  Well, in reality we grumble sometimes, for as long as it is not within hearing distance of the superior or the person concerned.  But this grumbling was quiet different.   It was downright insulting and rude, something which smacks of pride and so lacking in sensitivity and real appreciation.  "Would that we had died at the LORD's hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!  But you had to lead us into this desert to make the whole community die of famine!"  Well it is a correct observation, but there are things you just should not say.  Nevertheless it was said and it reveals to us how the Israelites then saw the exodus, how they saw their freedom from slavery, how they saw their journey from Egypt to the promised land.  And how was that?  It was a failure to see the bigger picture, a failure to see the bigger purpose, the grander design.  The grumble revealed that it was just about me, it was just about my own convenience and survival, it was just about my own good, it was just about my family!

People who are self-centred and who think only of themselves are actually people who could not see the reasons and purposes of things beyond themselves, people who cannot see things beyond their needs and good.

Another lesson is from the gospel.  It is the inability to see beyond this world.

The people in Jesus’ time followed him because he can give them bread, he can feed them well and better still, he can feed them well for free - people will do anything for a free lunch.  Thus they wanted Jesus to become their king.  But Jesus would not allow that to happen.

There was confusion among the listeners because of their inability to see beyond - beyond this life, beyond mere bread and money, beyond my work even, beyond my studies, beyond what I do.  This is about God, this is about heaven, this is about the soul and spirit, this is about eternal life.  Let us be conscious how we define blessings, what we mean when we say we are blessed by God; let us be aware about the contents of our prayers, what are we praying for all the time.  

Possess within you the ability to see beyond this world, beyond the present, beyond yourself.

So these are the two lessons I propose for this day:  to learn to see the grander design of things, that way we can go beyond ourselves and share ourselves with other people; and secondly to learn to see beyond this world, that this world and all its values are passing.