03/08/2024
Reflection for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Year B; August 04, 2024 Theme: Why do you seek Jesus?
by Fr. Ephraim Udochukwu Ibekwe
Dear Brothers and Sisters, many in our world today have lost the focus because of Bread! Many have gone astray, have betrayed others, have despised God, because of what to eat and drink. The insatiable quest for food has dominated the whole message of our today’s “Men and women of God, prophets and televangelists”, Hence, Jesus is a miracle worker! He is one who cures our sicknesses, raises the dead, He is one who feeds the hungry and raises those who have fallen. Indeed, this is what Christ does and of cause, His mission was much more spelt out in Lk. 4:18-19 When He said; “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”, however, the whole preoccupation today is to approach Christ without knowing and believing in him, but to receive miracles, to be enriched with wealth, to be cured of our sicknesses, Hence, Augustine prays to God in His confession “Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first, to call on Thee or to praise Thee? and, again, to know Thee or to call on Thee? for who can call on Thee, not knowing Thee? for he that knoweth Thee not, may call on Thee as other than Thou art. Or, is it rather, that we call on Thee that we may know Thee? but how shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?”
We must hence, seek to Know and believe in Him not for the good things that come from him but because He is God and deserves our praise and worship, even though these do not add to His greatness. It is this unbelief that led the people of Israel in the first reading from the Book of Exodus 16:2-4.12-15, to murmur against Moses and Aaron. They forgot How God had manifested Himself before Pharaoh in Egypt so as to set them free from Bo***ge. Notwithstanding this faithless attitude, God once more and time and again showed himself as the omnipotent God and sent them manna from above, they ate and had their fill. But this compassion of God did not spur them to believe, or trust in God. They were after Bread, but had hearts filled with unbelief and distrust in God.
This quest for Bread continues in the Gospel of today from John 6:24-35. They people were looking and searching for Jesus. Were they really looking for Jesus? No, they were seeking for the miracle worker, they were looking for bread. He fed them last Sunday, and they really want Him to continue that work. Many people of God today have really become Bread seekers and that was the reason behind their want to crown Jesus the King, not because they believe in him but because they want merely a king of loaves. They were surprised as they missed the track, and Christ told them that which lies at their hearts “Truly, truly I say to you, you seek me not because, you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of loaves” He Goes on to ask them to only labour for the food which endures to eternal life and the way to achieve this is to believe in the Son of God and He goes on to tell them “ I am the Bread of Life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst”.
Our lessons for this Sunday?
Whom do you seek?: This is a very important question today to every Christian, and indeed every Man of God. Many look warm Christians in essence do not seek Christ. This is the reason why Churches are scattered in every nook and cranny of our communities. They seek for solutions to their problems, the seek revelations, they seek signs and wonders, they seek the future, they seek to know those behind their misfortunes, they seek money and indeed they seek food, moving from one church to the other, from one prayer house to the other. They are mere seekers. Little wonder the gospel message is misunderstood, misinterpreted, misjudged. Little wonder why nobody listens to those who have the word that proceeds from the mouth of God. There is a whole lot of confusion as people interpret the scriptures in ways it suits their selfish desires. They men of God on their own part seek power, glories, praises. They want to be worshiped and adored and that is why they tell people what they want to hear. Their triumphant posters are scattered on every billboard with many invitations to people who seek them. Hence, the world is gradually sinking and religion is becoming the woe of the common man. Christ wants us to seek him in spirit and truth, to look upon him the bread of life and to believe in him so as not to hunger or thirst again.
Bread seekers: In the same vein as above, we have lots of bread seekers in our world today, and easily they crowd is ready to make anyone who can set this bread before them king. You can only understand the intension of the seeking crowd today , from the gospel of last Sunday, “Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him King, Jesus withdrew again to the hills by himself”. They were looking for a king, whom they will turn into a bread Maker.
And this intension motivated them again to go out to seek for Christ and get him to perform another miracle of bread multiplication. They would always dump Christ and compare Christ to Moses. Every Man of God, must understand and ask the question of why do people seek Me? Do they seek Christ in Me or am I a mere social worker? A philanthropist? A man who have left the gospel for politics? Why do people seek me? Whenever you misunderstand your function as one who has come to preach Christ who is the bread of life, when you fail to point Christ to the people, when you fail to acknowledge that what you were able to do for the people is only but the grace of God working in your life/ and when you hastily accept the Kingship from the people, that is when you missed the mission. Many people who come to us in the crowd are only but bread seekers, many who praise us, are mere bread seekers, we must understand that the people of God need much more than mere loaves, they need Christ, they need to believe in Jesus for eternal life.
Who are the Murmurers: Many and often times we fit alongside the role of the mumurers. We are ungrateful of hearts! At the slightest provocation we murmur against God. We praise God this minute for his divine providence, the next minute we murmur and despise him, we run away from him, we despair, looking for solutions from the house of Pharaoh because of the misfortunes and challenges we encounter. The scriptures want us to focus on Christ and never forget his blessings.
The Holy Eucharist; the true Bread: Through his Passion (suffering, rejection, torture, pain and eventually death on the Cross) Christ had given to us His own Body and Blood, as the sacrificial offering on the Altar of the Cross, and which we then share with one another, as we partake in the Eucharist. The Eucharist, the Most Holy Eucharist that we celebrate in the Holy Mass is this very gift of Our Lord, as the Bread of Life, giving us all His own Body and Blood as spiritual and real sustenance. Thus, all of us who have been blessed to receive this gift of the Bread of Life, the Communion in the Eucharist, are those who have received the assurance from the Lord that they will share in the eternal life that has been promised, as long as we partake faithfully in this sharing of the Body of Christ. Through our conscious love for God and for one another, for our fellow brothers and sisters in the same Lord, we have been called to follow the Lord whole heartedly.
My dear Brothers and Sisters, Do you really believe in God? Do you really believe in His Son Jesus Christ, whom He sent as our redeemer? If you do with all sincerity, St. Paul in His letter to Ephesisans 4:17.20-24 asks us to put off the old Man that belongs to the former manner of life and hence be renewed in the spirit of our minds, hence we must do so by striping the heart of all manner of unbelief that pushes us away from knowing whom God is.We must seek to know and believe in him because He is the bread of Life and has promised that anyone who comes to him shall not hunger and He who believes in him shall not thirst.
Let us pray that God the Father of Christ the bread of life, through the Holy Eucharist may make us to grow in holiness and goodness.
