KEEP US GUESSING

2 kings 4:42-44; Ps 145 The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

God has a  way of keeping us guessing.  We can never truly figure him out. God often stretches our minds in order to ensure that we we embrace reality as it unfolds in our midst we do so with Him as the interpretive key not our own devices.

Secondly, St Paul says these words, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God."  Why?  I think in large part because God can never be hemmed in or limited.  The only limit we can say about God is that God is love.  Here in lies the true interpretive key of reality.  God only sees what is possible.  No matter what comes it is always possibilities that lie ahead.

Imagine living in a manner in which we were see only possibilities rather than limits, fear, reluctance.

This is what the gospel brings to mind.

Jesus sees a crowd and poses a question, "where can we get enough to feed all of these people?"

Instantly there are several reactions.

Philip begins to calculate.  "200 days wages would not be enough to give them a little.  In his calculations he gets discouraged.

How often is this our reaction to life as it unfolds.  We calculate or miscalculate to our demise and begin to grow weary with discouragement, frustration, and doubt.

Of course this is the way of the world.  The world tells us to calculate, plan ahead, predict the outcome in order to better control reality.  This is not the way of God and we are not of the world, we are of God.

The human mind can never fully calculate what God's providence has in store.  There must always be room for something more, a surprise so to speak, or room for that which we say, "we had not planned for."  With God there must always be an opening for something still to come.

Then Andrew, one of the other Apostles, almost gets it.  For a brief moment he sets a side his calculations and begins to trust the one who brought him.  You can hear in his tone as he recognizes the boy with 5 loaves and two fish.  He sounds excited and hopeful and assured that all will be well.

Then something happens.  His tone of hopefulness, "here is a boy with 5 loaves and 2 fish" begins to turn sour into despair.  "But what good are these for so many."

It is a tragic moment.  Not sure why he gives up on hope.  Perhaps it is the naysayers around him,  perhaps it is the crowd, or perhaps she begins to trust his own inner security or insecurity rathe than the bigness of christ.  Whatever it is he shrivels and shrinks.  He grows small rather than large.

Then there is the boy, the muchacho.  He does only one thing, he gives.  He offers his meager lunch to JEsus.  HE watches JEsus take the little that he offers and turns it into real possibilities.

I love to imagine the boy in mind as he watches all of this unfold.  I imagine him grinning from ear to ear as he tells the story of how the little that he has becomes so much more in the hands of the living God.

PErhaps this is what St Paul means when he tells us it is fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.  It is fearful because we have to let go of ourselves, our doubt, our fears, our reluctance, our own security and begin to see as God sees and Trust that God only sees possibilities.

So this week, the meditation for us is to see which of the three are wee.  Are we like philip still calculating everything wanting to predict, plan, control?

Are we like Andrew and we let hopefulness get crushed by the crowd, the naysayers or our own inner insecurity?

Or are we like the boy who simple states, You want it, here it is, take it, it is yours and lets the largeness of God transform the little we have to offer?