Homily

After He heard about the death of John the Baptist Jesus went apart by Himself into a deserted area. But soon some people discovered He was there and in a very short time thousands of people came to see Him, to hear Him, to spend time with Him, to be healed by Him. Jesus felt great pity for the people who came to Him and it seemed He spent many hours with them. Finally, as the daytime is coming to an end the disciples are worried because the people will be hungry. With five loaves and two fish, Jesus feeds them all. All the people eat, and, Scripture says, “they were satisfied.”

This Gospel story is rather thought-provoking. These thousands of people have given up their day, their work, their time, to go into the desert and be with Jesus. Why did they do it? I suggest to you that they came because they were hungry. Not hungry for food as the apostles were worried, although that may have been true by the end of the day. They were hungry for the sake of their souls. They were spiritually hungry more so that physically hungry, and that is why they weren’t leaving even though evening had arrived. We don’t know how far these people walked to get to Jesus, but remember that they did walk and probably some of them walked for miles. But hunger will do that, it will spur us on until we are satisfied, until our need is met.

It is a fantastic miracle, this multiplication of loaves of bread and fish. I can’t imagine what the disciples must have been thinking when this small little bit of food they were passing out never ended, and thousands of people were fed. But they were not just fed by bread and fish. They had already been fed by the words of Jesus, by His presence and by His healing touch. After all they did not travel the distance they walked to get a free meal. They came to Jesus to satisfy the spiritual hunger in their lives.

We are not so different from them. We too come here to hear the words of Jesus and to be with Him in a unique way at the Divine Liturgy, because we are also spiritually hungry. We know there’s more to life than just food and drink and trying to find peace and happiness for ourselves and our loved ones as we walk in our daily lives. But I ask you to think about the spiritual hunger that helps to bring us here today. I ask you to think about it and recognize how true and real this hunger is. I ask you to think about this hunger as a part of human life—not just for ourselves, but for every person on this planet living today, because that is what it means to be human: it means we are hungry and thirsty for God. Every human culture, every tribe, every civilization that existed since the beginning of humanity recognized spiritual powers and gods that were not of this material world. There never were any atheist tribes or peoples. That shows the truth that we were made for God, even if those people did not know the true and living God. They still reached out for Him. And of course there are many people who will tell us that these poor people invented gods because they were ignorant and stupid. They didn’t know any better. If only they had gay marriage, the internet, cell phones and legalized marijuana they never would have felt any need for God. Right? How many problems do we see in the world today, all around us? How many of them are caused by people looking for satisfaction and life in all the wrong places, because they do not look for God.

It’s true that 2,000 years ago the lives of the people in Galilee were much simpler than our lives are today. Most of them possessed very little in the way of material goods and had to work hard just to survive from day to day. But that does not make them any less human than us, nor does our wealth of goods make us smarter or wiser than they were. We are like them as people. Our souls are hungry for divine life as their souls were. The question for us is whether we want to satisfy our hunger with actual nourishment, real soul food, true fulfillment or are we often choosing junk food with no lasting value because it’s quicker and easier and it gratifies our passions for the moment, but it adds nothing to us of any worth. In fact, this satisfaction of our passions often leads us into sin, and our hunger only grows stronger because of it.

So I ask you to consider your own hunger for the divine life of God, offered to us by Jesus Christ, and not to be confused or misled to think that it can be filled by other means, or to think that we have it within our own power to be soul-deep satisfied by comfort and pleasure and the lack of any pain or self-denial. I ask you to remember that without prayer we are weak, without attention to Christ we are short-sighted, without a certain detachment from this world we will always be dissatisfied, without a love for the Lord we can never love those around us as fully as possible and we will never feel as loved as we can be. Without a true dedication to Christ our Lord we rest our lives only on people and things that are passing away even as we ourselves are passing away, and we miss our true and genuine vocation to be united with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in this life and forever. Even today, like the thousands in Galilee so long ago, let us not leave this place without being fed by Christ, without being satisfied as we place our hope in Him.