HOMILY 15TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR B.
I was reading a reflection on this gospel, by the Jesuit writer Mark Link… and he used a comparison of this gospel with and example from the Civil war General and
Whilst Jesus gospel was about peace… Jesus also wanted his disciples to be single minded in their goal……….. and in terms of the clarity of focus…. In achieving one’s goal…………It is hard to ignore the similarity between Jesus instruction… and the way famous civil war general conducted himself in a major battle……
An observer of the time, in describing General Grant wrote this…
“All depended upon the quickness of the movement… It was important that grant should be unencumbered with as little baggage as possible…. He took with him no assistant, nor an overcoat, not even a clean shirt .. His entire baggage for the six days – I was with him at the time-the birographer writes, was a toothbrush….. He fared like the commonest soldiers..sleeping on the ground, with no covering, except the canopy of heaven…”
Jesus is asking his followers to be detached from ‘things’ because they can clutter, obstruct and weigh us down in achieving our goal of proclaiming his gospel in action and word…..
Jesus wanted his disciples to ‘travel light’ so to be free to live his good news….
He also wanted the disciples to rely entirely and trust entirely in the providence of God and not spend their time collecting and storing things in case of what might be….
Someone once said that “half the confusion in the world comes from not knowing just how little we really need…..”
If that is true… and I believe it is….. then the question is….. in this day and age where consumerism is accelerating……. Where we have learnt all too well the meaning of words such as “manufacturing desire…..”….. “creating demand”… (that is, in some ways the ‘creed’ of the advertising industry… its not that you need it… its not that you started out wanting it… its that, now we have suggested it to you… maybe you now do want it and need it…….”
So, if its harder than ever for us to know how little we need… (and how little some others actually have)…… perhaps the problem in our modern culture at the moment is that there is an alarming (and ever growing gap) between what we want…. And what we really need…….
Here is a question…. One that bears a little bit of thinking…… if an angel appeared to you or me tomorrow and said to us….. God has authorized me to grant one of these two prayers….
You can either ask for a win on Gold lotto (tonight/ next Saturday night)…… and the jackpot is eg… $30 million…. But you can only spend it on yourself…… // or you can ask that in life you will always have only enough to meet your needs (and everyone else will also have only enough to meet their true needs)…. (and “true needs” are those “as determined by God; and not our own judgement)………… which one would we be tempted to choose… and which would we choose…..
Because I have this rather uneasy feeling that for most of us…. One of those prayers has already been granted…….
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