Aren't we a fascinating species?
Always looking and expecting something,
Expecting proof,
Expecting people to show their worth,
To prove their worth to us,
Expecting God to prove God's worth to us.
Now first reading,
I wonder if Moses maybe had a good chuckle when God provided manna to his people,
The people that he had promised to take out of Egypt into the Holy Land.
I can see Moses going,
Aha,
Aha,
Look at you.
Because the people didn't trust.
They longed to be enslaved again.
They forgot about everything that they had to endure in Egypt.
And because of some fear,
They lost their trust in God and yearned for a time where they were hostages,
Where they were slaves.
Isn't that silly?
And yet that is what we do in our daily lives as well.
We're so scared to embrace God.
We're so scared to embrace something that we cannot predict,
The future.
And God gives us messages and gives us tasks with promises,
We flounder.
And time and time again,
God proves to us that thy will be done,
That he only has our best interests at heart,
Even though we don't necessarily see it or accept it.
Because what our best interests are in our minds are not necessarily what the best interests are for our souls and what God wants for us in our lives.
In our Gospel reading,
We see people coming to Jesus who have seen his miracles.
We see people coming to Jesus who know that he is the Son of God.
And yet they ask for proof,
More proof.
And that again,
I think is something that can be said for the human condition,
Where we experience the awesome grace of the Lord,
We experience the wonder of God,
And we are so filled with love and awe for a time being.
And then we forget,
We forget the feeling of being connected with the Lord.
It doesn't mean that we're not connected,
It just means that we close our eyes,
We close our hearts,
And we move from living in the heart space into back into the head,
This head of ours.
Isn't it just such a nasty piece of work sometimes,
Not allowing us to fully embrace the mercy of God,
This ego,
This being of separateness,
This being of,
Or the state of being,
Of trying to survive,
Even if it is at the expense of other people,
Of other beings,
Of the planet.
Why does it matter if a species of animals die out,
As long as we have food,
As long as we have the food that we want in the way that we want it,
As long as it's convenient,
As long as it makes my life easier,
What do I give a heck about anybody or anything else?
We have become stuck in our intellectual heart,
Mind,
Intellectuality.
We see things from the point of survival.
That is not what Jesus came to teach us.
Jesus came to break us out of rule-based religion,
Of law-based religion,
Into love-based spirituality and religion.
I see so many people these days shy away from using the word religion.
I am spiritual,
But not religious,
Which is perfect.
That's a religion in own right.
I am a believer in God without necessarily following any dogma.
That is also beautiful.
What saddens me is that many people then react quite violently when you do mention religion.
Why is that?
Our churches have hurt many people in the name of God.
And I'm not only talking about Christianity.
I'm talking about all the religions out there.
I don't think there's one religion that is without blame.
But why is that?
Is it because of the religion?
I don't think so.
Every religion is an expression of God in beauty.
Every religion is a different expression of a way to experience God.
And like we oftentimes say here,
That every person will almost have their own religion because every person will have their own experience of God and that is what we are here to do is to experience God through different ways.
Some people have just gotten stuck in the concept that my religion and my way is the right way.
The only way.
And it's easy to do.
I do it myself.
I judge.
I experience and I express things from my own ego.
And it's a lifelong journey,
I think,
To forget the ego.
To let go of the ego and to let go of what we are not.
The human experience for us is not to learn what we are.
It is to shave away all these misconceptions of what is not.
But beauty in all of this is that we are not alone.
And just as we saw that the Israelites were given manna from heaven and quails,
Meat and bread,
The bread of the angels,
Christ promises us food everlasting.
Christ is the bread of life.
And we get everything to nourish us through this whole journey that we are on,
Through our lives.
But we do that when we say thank you and we accept the gifts from God,
The gifts of grace of the Lord,
Without looking at our neighbors and seeing what they got,
Without looking to see if they use their left hand or their right hand to accept God's gifts.
If they are on their knees or lying down,
If they are standing,
If their head is bowed,
If their eyes are open or closed and everything that we use as excuses to deny the fact that we are all one,
That we are all children of God and that God resides in every single one of us.
So for this week,
Try and open yourself up.
Try and focus when you get,
When you go quiet.
That quiet time is so important.
Switch off your phone,
Switch off the lights,
Have a candle burning and try and move from this intellectual being.
Feel these thoughts and move down into your heart and wait,
Just wait.
When your heart is open,
You will be fed with the food that is everlasting from Christ.
Amen.
