Readings: 2 Kings 4:42-44; Psalm 145; Ephesians 4:1-6; john 6:1-15
Grace, mercy and peace to you dear family of God’s people. Today is the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B. The readings of today are immensely rich and God has so much to teach us through them.
- The First Reading
The First Reading is the story of God’s miraculous provision through His prophet Elisha.
- The Second Reading
In the Second Reading, Paul exhorts us to live a life worthy of our vocation. Our greatest vocation is that we are followers of Christ (Christians), Children of God. Our lives must conform to this identity.
°The Gospel
The Gospel tells the story of how Jesus multiplied five barley loaves and two fish to feed a multitude. The details are staggering.
There are many possible themes we can explore today.
For instance, we can look at:
- Trusting God in difficult situations
- Bring the little (Barley loaves and fish) you have to Jesus.
- The power of thanksgiving
- The theology of orderliness.
- Nothing gets wasted
- Pick up the pieces left over.
My last reflection on this Gospel was titled: “Nothing gets wasted.”
Today, I want to share with you a message I haven’t shared before on this Gospel. It is titled “Knowing when to escape.” This is based on the response of Jesus to the reaction of the people to His miracle.
After witnessing the miracle of Jesus, the people must have remembered Moses who fed the Israelites with Manna in the desert and led them from slavery in Egypt to the Promised land. They also remembered the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15:
15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.
They saw Jesus as that prophet and so, in their excitement, they wanted to force Him to become their king.
Instead, Jesus escaped back to the hills by Himself.
The question is why did He escape? The answer is in why they wanted to make Him king.
They wanted Him to be a political king (Burger King) who would provide bread for them like Moses and who would use His power to overthrow the Romans and give them freedom from external rule and oppression.
Jesus is a king but that’s not the type of king He is and that’s not what He has come to give. He is not a king who has come to supply physical bread. He is the Bread of Life who comes to satisfy a deeper hunger and liberates us from a higher form of slavery.
There are three lessons I want to share from the escape of Jesus.
Lesson One: The danger of Praises.
Here, Jesus teaches us to beware of people’s praises and adulation. People will, out of excitement; praise us for what we have done well. However, we need to beware for 3 reasons.
A. People’s praises can be very fickle. Remember that those who wanted to force Jesus to be king, would later say, “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15). If our desire is to be praised or we get so used to being praised, sooner or later, people will change their chorus and we become helplessly miserable.
B. People’s praises are not always sincere or prompted from a good motive. The people praised Jesus because of how they intended to use Him, what they wanted to get from Him.
C. Human praises can distract us from focusing on God and what He has called us to do. This is why praises can even be more dangerous than criticism.
Lesson Two: Don’t let people make you what they want you to become.
The people wanted to make Jesus the kind of king they wanted.
Sometimes people want to make us what they want us to be. We need to be careful of pressure from people. We should know when to escape, when to avoid people’s pressure and seek direction from God.
People try to make us in their image and likeness, into what they want us to be. Our focus must be on what/who God wants us to be. Some of us have allowed people to make us bitter, unhappy, angry and mean. They have lured us to becoming enemies of their enemies. Some of us have become slaves to certain people because of money, pleasure and bread. Some of us have become small gods that people have made us.
The sad part is this – to those we allow to make us, we have also given the power to mar us. When people make us into something terrible, they will still mock and judge us. When people raise us higher than we can sustain, they still bring us down, make a show of it and enjoy the game.
Lesson Three: Don’t rush the process
Jesus is a prophet, priest and king. In His ministry, He manifested Himself first as a prophet (teacher). He then manifested Himself as a priest offering Himself, and it is only after this, that He manifested Himself as King, having been given all authorities.
Today, the people wanted Him to jump the process and become King before the sacrifice on the cross. Jesus wouldn’t rush the process. This teaches me not to rush, but to wait for God’s time and believe everything will happen according to His wise plan. I should not try to get anything before the time is right. I should not try to get what He has not prepared me for. I should calm down, trust the process and wait for the One who has made all things perfect in His time.
Wisdom for the day – don’t let anyone make you into who God has not made you or called you to be.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on July 28, 2024