Who Brought The Bread?

Raise your hand if you are an overachiever. Raise your hand if you think you always need to get it right. Raise your hand if you are a bit of a control freak. Raise your hand if you find yourself confessing the same thing over and over again. Well today’s gospel is for those of us who may or may not have raised our hands. The disciples were bummed that they forgot to bring bread for the journey….AGAIN! They were thinking, “Jeez, he gave us one job and we screwed it up again!” And yet Jesus was thinking with a different mind, the mind of His Father. He said, “Watch out, guard against the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” The disciples thought the leaven reference was a cryptic rebuke because they forgot the bread, however, it was a metaphor to teach them that the sin of pride is like the yeast that multiplies like wildfire when activated. The Pharisees suffered from the pride of thinking that if they followed all the rules and if they did “religion” then God would love them more. That somehow their “doing” religious stuff or practices was what determined God’s love or favor. I know for me, I can easily get sucked into this kind of thinking. I want to strive for God’s love and I think that if I behave and am good or do good things then He will somehow love me more. This is pride and it can spread and rise just like yeast when activated, and practiced.

So Jesus challenged the disciples with a question, “Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?” In other words, why do you think this has anything to do with something you have done or not done? He then points out and reminds them of the very recent miracle of the loaves and fishes, which had everything to do with the Father’s love, compassion, and mercy for His people, and little to do with anything they had to offer. All that was required was obedience and surrender to His power. If I look back on my life and all the answered prayers, the healings, the miracles, the getting me through the trials, the wonders, the love, the kindness, the mercy, the forgiveness, and the blessings, I hear him saying to me, “Why would you concluded that any of these wonders were a result of your doing and not mine? Stop kicking yourself for not getting it right and for forgetting the bread again, and just trust in my already proven faithfulness. Do you still not understand?” And of course, the over achiever in me wants to say, I understand and I trust and I believe and all the things I’m supposed to do, rather than just rest in obedience to his love. It’s a perpetual journey toward wholeness and guess what, wholeness will never be “achieved” here in this world. I know for me that I want it all now and as a result I can miss the beauty of the journey itself. When we let Jesus walk with us, it takes away our need to do the saving, our compulsion to remember to bring the bread, our thinking that we have to earn grace, and our trying to do it all perfectly. Jesus is the savior, the bread, the grace, and the perfection, and when we are with him, we too have all those things in and through him. 

So instead of focusing on what we are doing or not doing, let’s keep our eyes fixed on the working of Christ and all that he is doing and has done and in that we will have the bread of life. It is well with my soul. 

Reading 1 GN 6:5-8; 7:1-5, 10

When the LORD saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth,
and how no desire that his heart conceived
was ever anything but evil,
he regretted that he had made man on the earth,
and his heart was grieved.

So the LORD said:
“I will wipe out from the earth the men whom I have created,
and not only the men,
but also the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air,
for I am sorry that I made them.”
But Noah found favor with the LORD.

Then the LORD said to Noah:
“Go into the ark, you and all your household,
for you alone in this age have I found to be truly just.
Of every clean animal, take with you seven pairs,
a male and its mate;
and of the unclean animals, one pair,
a male and its mate;
likewise, of every clean bird of the air, seven pairs,
a male and a female,
and of all the unclean birds, one pair,
a male and a female.
Thus you will keep their issue alive over all the earth.
Seven days from now I will bring rain down on the earth
for forty days and forty nights,
and so I will wipe out from the surface of the earth
every moving creature that I have made.”
Noah did just as the LORD had commanded him.

As soon as the seven days were over,
the waters of the flood came upon the earth.

Responsorial Psalm PS 29:1A AND 2, 3AC-4, 3B AND 9C-10

R. (11b) The Lord will bless his people with peace.
Give to the LORD, you sons of God,
give to the LORD glory and praise,
Give to the LORD the glory due his name;
adore the LORD in holy attire. 
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
 The voice of the LORD is over the waters,
the LORD, over vast waters.
The voice of the LORD is mighty;
the voice of the LORD is majestic. 
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.
The God of glory thunders,
and in his temple all say, “Glory!”
The LORD is enthroned above the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as king forever. 
R. The Lord will bless his people with peace.

Alleluia JN 14:23

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord;
and my Father will love him
and we will come to him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel MK 8:14-21

The disciples had forgotten to bring bread,
and they had only one loaf with them in the boat.
Jesus enjoined them, “Watch out,
guard against the leaven of the Pharisees
and the leaven of Herod.” 
They concluded among themselves that
it was because they had no bread.
When he became aware of this he said to them,
“Why do you conclude that it is because you have no bread?
Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts hardened?
Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?
And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?”
They answered him, “Twelve.”
“When I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand,
how many full baskets of fragments did you pick up?”
They answered him, “Seven.”
He said to them, “Do you still not understand?”