A Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Readings: Exodus 16:2-4, 12-15 Ephesians 4:17, 20-24 John 6:24-35
Here’s the thing with saviors: You’ve got to know that you need one. God offers salvation, but some people do not know that they need it. You can be so lost that you no longer know what it means to be found. So sad, you cannot remember what joy looks like.
Last autumn, The Atlantic published a memoir by one of its senior editors, Jenisha Watts. It is a compelling and heartrending story of five children, whose mother, under the influence of crack, would leave them abandoned for days at a time. That someone should climb out of such poverty and abuse is worth celebrating, but Ms. Watts wrote “Jenisha from Kentucky” to illustrate what child abuse and drug addiction can do in families already wounded by generations of poverty.
Colby Watts, the author’s brother, shares a childhood memory with her. In one small paragraph, he manages to capture all the systemic chains of evil that bind so many of our brothers and sisters today. His story does not startle, but it poignantly illustrates the destruction of childhood innocence.
He told me about a time when he was alone downstairs in our apartment, and the cops barged in. He’d gotten a teddy bear on a school trip to some kind of medical clinic, and it had a big bandage on it. Someone was hurt during the raid. I’m not sure what happened—or how much of this is the dream logic of a traumatized child—but he said that “somebody took my Band-Aid off my teddy bear because they was bleeding that bad.”
Of course, the entire memoir should be read, especially by those who think that being poor and being addicted are choices that only lazy people and the morally weak make. They need to see that the effects of sin are woven deep into our generations. We are well wounded before we ever go on the attack.
“I was so mad,” he said. “I loved that teddy bear.”
Listening to his memories, I felt like a wound was reopening inside of me.
Jesus said,
I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst (Jn 6:35).
Those who frequent the sacraments should be careful not to reduce the words of Jesus to an attestation of what we call “the real presence.” Of course, Christ is sacramentally present in the Eucharist, but he identifies himself as the Bread of Life even before the events of Holy Week. We do not call Jesus the Bread of Life because he comes to us in Eucharist. He comes to us in the Eucharist, and in many other ways, because Jesus is the Bread of Life.
Jesus is saying that he is the very meaning of life, that to know, love and serve him is equivalent to the food we eat to live. But that is the thing with saviors. You must know you need a savior to find one. You must be hungry before you look for food.
Perhaps this explains the presence of faith among the poor and the powerless and its diminishment as one rises into happier and healthier ranks. The jaded might be inclined to say that God only comes into his own in times of trouble. But those with more sympathy will feel sorrow for those who are outwardly successful and inwardly miserable. In the long run, especially in view of eternity, to be poor of heart may be worse than physical poverty.
Either way, we should worry when we pass over the question of being saved, when we say, I do not need a savior; one was given to me at baptism. Indeed, he was, but giving and receiving are two separate things. The question is, have we received our savior? Have we seen our need for him?
“If others were not lazy and immoral, they would not be where they are today.” Yes, that does apply to some people. But if you really think that it applies to most, you should ask again if you have ever met your savior, if you have seen your own need for him. Those who have known the savior’s mercy in their own lives, not only as a point of doctrine, are not judgmental.
There’s the rub. The needy are more likely to know their need for a savior. The self-sufficient may well be scorning their savior. And if what you feel for those less fortunate is scorn, your need for a savior is great indeed.
