Some thoughts for Corpus Christi Sunday 22 June 2025

 

“Give them some food yourselves.”

--Luke 9:12-17

 

The Gospel for today is Luke’s version of the famous feeding the multitude with five loaves and two fish. According to Luke there were about 5000 people who had come out into the countryside to listen to Jesus and it was getting late. The Apostles knowing it would be dark soon, ask Jesus to send the people away so they can find lodging and food.  But instead, Jesus tells them:

 

Give them some food yourselves.

 

Exasperated, the disciples complain, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish…” (9:13), and that is when Jesus tells them to have the people sit down and did something quite mysterious: He gave thanks for what little He had and shared it… with everyone.  

 

I like this story very much.  It has a special place in my heart and my life. I have been in that lonely place the Apostles worry about, a place where supplies are few, and hope seems to quickly fade. But today, the deacon at church gave a homily that focused on two things from this reading. First, that command to “Give them some food yourselves.”  Don’t expect someone else to do it. Don’t wait for the government to step in, or the church to start something. Feed them yourselves. When we see someone in need, we can’t just look away, or turn our backs on the problem.  Jesus is speaking to all of us, calling out to all of us: Here’s your chance. What are you going to do?

 

The other thing the deacon focused on was that small amount: 5 loaves and 2 fish.  That wouldn’t even feed the 12 Apostles, what difference would it make for 5000 or more hungry people far from home? When faced with need, or someone in trouble, how often do we dismiss our own ability to help by saying: What can I do? I’m just one person. The problem is too big, or their problem is too complex. I wouldn’t even know where to start. Plus, I don’t have enough money or resources to make any real difference. Anyway, I’ll probably just make things worse. So, instead of doing anything, too often, how often do we just close our eyes and turn away? Or worse, like the Apostles, someone needs our help and we just send them away;  tell them to try Casa Juan Diego,  Star of Hope, Salvation Army or Covenant House.

 

The deacon argued that we are called by the Gospel to live lives of charity and solidarity with the poor and the hungry. Solidarity with the lowly and the afflicted.  And, he promised that no matter what we had to offer, no matter how small or humble our gift, in God’s hands it would be enough  –in fact, more than we could ever imagine. I felt the tears filling my eyes and warming my cheeks even before I realized I was crying.  That small gift was exactly what I needed. It gave me hope. At a time when America is turning its back on the poor and the lowly in favor of tax breaks for the wealthy; when refugees are being rounded up by masked officers, detained in secret places, and deported to for-profit prisons in foreign countries, for a Catholic deacon to say again and again: Don’t send them away. Don’t send them away.  Take care of them yourselves. It felt like the beginning of a revolution.

What's in your ark?

“The waters swelled, lifting the ark
until it floated off the ground…”  -Genesis 7:17b

The ark floated off the ground.  It rose up –and then, as the waters rose, swelling, it floated away.  The ark is what survives the flood. The ark and all that is in it. So, what we put in the ark is very important.  And I am pondering now… what have I put in my ark?

Think back to the original story. What did God have Noah put in his ark? Two of every living thing, male and female.  All life. All living things. Basically, God told Noah to value life; every living thing, from the wisest owl to the dumbest ox, from the mighty elephant to the lowly mouse, predator and prey—all living things. Life itself. Put it in your ark! Protect it. Value it. And when the flood waters came and the ark floated of the ground, that was what was saved. Life itself, that was what was in Noah’s ark.  What is in your ark?  That’s what I am asking myself these days. Like that commercial—What’s in your wallet?

What’s in your ark?  I think that is a question I couldn’t have imagined before this flood. Without the surreal experience of the past few days, I wouldn’t have realized the importance of this very basic, very essential question.

Yesterday we went back to Carol’s house (my mother-in-law).  We wanted to see if the water had gone down and we could get into her house and salvage a few things. Instead we learned that the water had risen. The knee-deep water from Sunday was now perhaps waist or even chest deep in places. And, while he was checking our ID, the policeman who was there told us to be careful. An alligator had been spotted in the water on one of the streets.  So, instead of going into her house we stood around –about ½ a mile away—just staring at the vastness of the water and thinking about all the things we should have got out of the house on Sunday morning –when we still had the chance.  And astonished that this is what our world had come to –the flood waters rose, they swelled, and there was nothing we could do about it…

But standing there, we were approached by a City of Houston worker who had just been talking to another woman. He came over to us and asked us where our house was.  Lynne explained to him she was hoping to get into her mother’s house but it was too deep. He asked for the address and she told him and he handed her his phone. He said there were pictures on it of all the houses on the flooded streets.  He told her she could look through the pictures and send any that were helpful to herself. At least you’ll have that for insurance purposes, he said. He showed her how to navigate through the pictures and how to select them and send one to herself. Then he left his phone with her and walked away to check on someone else.  When she finally found a picture, it was frightening. The water looked like it was over halfway up the front wall of the house. Maybe 5 feet deep.

As we stood there, a few other neighbors were gathering nearby and staring at the water with us and another man and his small boy came over and asked if any of us wanted to borrow his canoe and go in and take pictures of our houses.  He said someone else had just borrowed it, but when that person got back we could take a turn.  His little boy, maybe 8 years old, offered to go for us if we didn’t know how to paddle a canoe.  

Think about that: all over Houston in small and great and even heroic ways people are offering help, even putting their own lives at risk to help one another.

“The flood waters swelled, lifting the ark until it floated…”

What are you you putting in your ark?

The other side of this is: as we drove up to try and check on my mother-in-law’s house, the policeman was there at the barricade checking IDs. Certainly, he might have been there to make sure no one accidentally drove into the waters; protecting us from our own foolishness. Wen he told us about the alligator we laughed.  He didn’t.  I suspect, more than anything, he was there to protect the almost abandoned neighborhood from looters.  The news keeps warning us about looters and scammers who are coming to these troubled places to take advantage of a horrible situation.

“The flood waters swelled, and the ark floated off the ground…”

When the flood waters swell, your ark will begin to float… what will be in it?

There is another ark in the Bible. The one that Moses builds. In the days of Noah and the flood, God tells Noah to place all living things in it.  In the days of the Exodus, He had Moses build another Ark as a dwelling place for His own presence among His people. Put the thing you value most in the ark. Life. God… What do you value most?

In both places God gives pretty detailed directions for the ark’s construction; He is clearly concerned with the making of the Ark. But I think that may be because He is even more concerned with what we put inside it.  And because He knows that the floodwaters are coming. They always do.  And God knows that whatever we put in that ark, that is what will survive the flood.   That is what will begin to float when the flood waters swell.  What are you putting in your ark?  Yesterday my wife gave the keys to one of our cars to a friend who had to be rescued in the middle of the night from her flooding house.   And before that she learned that a neighbor needed formula her baby and we were off to the store.  What will survive your flood? Faith, love, generosity, kindness, compassion, courage, a reassuring smile? or will it be: selfishness, greed, cunning and hate?   In Houston, mostly we have seen only the good –but in places, sadly, we have seen all of these floating in the flood waters around us.

Like the commercial asks: What’s in your ark?