Homilies Alive
Story/Homilies
Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 27, 2003
Homily Code: AS-7
2 Kings 4:42-44
Ephesians 4:1-6
John 6:15
The effort to feed people has
modern scientists hard at work, trying to develop grains that ripen faster and
produce bigger crops. Their best efforts can't produce the results Elisha and
Jesus get in today's readings.
Did you notice that both of
them used barley loaves to feed the crowds? That's something most of us have
never tasted. You can't buy it in any bakery today. A little bit of the barley
crop finds its way into soups, but most of it feeds livestock. It just doesn't
make as good a flour as wheat does.
It didn't in biblical times,
either. Barley loaves, according to scripture scholars, were what people who
didn't have much money could afford. It was the food of the poor even through
the middle ages. Since the poor have never been is short supply, it was easy for
Elisha to get his hands on 20 loaves. With a bit of help from God, he managed to
feed 200 men with that amount. Jesus, of course, did him one better. He fed an
enormous crowd with five loaves.
The Eucharistic bread isn't the
finest product around, either. It's hard to imagine making a satisfactory peanut
butter sandwich with it. Yet, this is the bread Jesus feeds us. It too is the
bread of the poor, for we are in want. And it too multiplies miraculously, for
when we eat it, we become the Body of Christ.
We don't think of ourselves as
a warm and crusty loaf whose aroma makes the mouths of other people water. We
normally think of ourselves as ordinary and common. Yet Jesus still works
wonders with the bread of the poor. He can make us nourishing food for anyone we
come in contact with if, like the boy in the gospel, we offer the bread we are
to his use.
We must remember that as Jesus
works with us, we become more tasty and beautiful to everyone we come in contact
with. He can and does change us everyday, but, sometimes it's so slow we don't
even notice it.
A stranger came by the other
day with an offer that set me to thinking. He wanted to buy the old barn that
sits out by the highway. I told him he was crazy. He was a city type, you could
tell by his clothes, his car, his hands, and the way he talked. He said he was
driving by and saw that beautiful barn sitting out in the tall grass and wanted
to know if it was for sale.
I told him he had a funny idea
of beauty. Sure, it was a handsome building in its day. But then, there's been a
lot of winters pass with their snow and ice and howling wind. The summer's sun
beat down on that old barn till all the paint's gone, and the wood has turned
silver gray. Now the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired. Yet,
that fellow called it beautiful.
That set me to thinking. I
walked out to the field and just stood there, gazing at that old barn. The
stranger said he planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new
country home he's building down the road. He said you couldn't get paint that
beautiful. Only years of standing in the weather, bearing the storms and
scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful barn wood.
It came to me then. We're a lot
like that, you and
They took the old barn down
yesterday and hauled it away to beautify a rich man's house. And I reckon
someday you and I'll be hauled off to heaven to take on whatever chores the Good
Lord has for us. And I suspect we'll be more beautiful then for the seasons we've
been through here-- and just maybe even add a bit of beauty to our Father's
house.
Author of barn story is
anonymous