Father Dan Juelfs
Homily from the Televised Mass, NewsCenter1
The 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 4, 2024

This is the work of the Lord, that you believe in the one he sent. 

Last week we began a segment, a six-week segment, taken from the Gospel of John for our Sunday readings. Specifically, the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. Our first segment last week was the account of the feeding of the 5,000 with the five barley loaves and the two fish. Today’s segment continues from there with the people seeking to have more, and Jesus challenging them to look deeper into the generosity of God. To look beyond what they see on those externals, those visuals.

Our first reading today from the Old Testament, gives us an account of God feeding the Israelites with manna and the quail in the desert. God showing his care and his concern for his people, for the people, and helping them to begin to trust in his care. Yes, he led them out of Egypt. Now they’re complaining because they don’t have anything to eat. God calls them as he offers the manna, as he provides it for them, he gives them the opportunity to come to trust him in his care. To believe that he is going to continue to provide. He asked them only to collect what they need for the day. Not to worry about tomorrow. Again, to trust that he’s going to provide again for tomorrow. 

Throughout that 40-year time of traveling throughout the desert, throughout their sojourn from Egypt to the promised land, God continued to teach the Israelites to trust in him, to believe that he was going to provide, and helping them through the times of struggle whether it’s with food, the manna, the quail, or water at another point. But God continues to show his care for them. Sometimes the Israelite people were faithful to that. Sometimes they weren’t. Sometimes they got tired, and they quit waiting for God to do something so they’d make an alliance with whatever government they could find a way to make an alliance with and then find themselves in exile. Again, God would send a prophet, he would send someone to somehow bring them back, put them back on course, bring them back to the promised land — re-establish them as his people. That God’s faithfulness was continually shown throughout their periods of faithfulness and unfaithfulness.

Today’s Gospel calls the people in his time, in Jesus’’ time, to look past the signs that they remember —the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes a few pages before what we read today. To look past their memory of what they knew from their ancestors, of God providing them with food in the desert. To listen to what Jesus is teaching them now about who he is. To listen to when he says, “I am the bread of life.” 

This is a claim that goes well beyond what they had experienced before. Well beyond the visual, the signs of being fed, the signs of being cared for. But now Jesus is talking about something that goes well beyond their experience, well beyond what they can visualize or can see. 

How did they respond? What are they supposed to do? In the past they’d always been limited to those visuals, the things they experienced and now Jesus is calling them to look beyond that. To trust that God is still doing things far greater than what they’ve already seen and what they already know. Far greater than what he provided for them as he provided manna in the desert. Now he’s making a new promise. It’s a promise of a life that will last forever. 

Like the people of Jesus’ time, we too are called to believe in the one whom God has sent — the person of Jesus. We too are called to believe in the promises of Jesus, and not limit to ourselves what we’ve already experienced in our lives. This is the work of the Lord. To believe in the one who God sent and to believe in the promises for tomorrow and for all eternity. Just like the Israelites, they were called to collect only enough manna for tomorrow believing that God was going to continue to provide. We too are called to take God’s word to believe in what it is that God has said and we’re challenged to believe that God is going to provide for eternal life. A life beyond what we know now, and we’re called to live our lives in a way that expresses that belief.