Word to the Wise
Wednesday, December 6, 2006 - Advent Weekday - St. Nicholas
[Isaiah 25:6-10a and Matthew 15:29-37]On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.
There's no question that the Christmas holiday season involves a lot of food. It is part of the celebration of the season. The lack of food for those who cannot obtain or afford it adds to the poignance and suffering in this season as well. This is what gives Isaiah's words such power. Those who cannot find food often report fantasizing about it. It should be no wonder that the crowd that witnessed the multiplication of the loaves and fishes wanted to make Jesus their king! At the very least, he was fulfilling their hope for something to eat! On the level of sheer justice it is a scandal of enormous proportions that there are ANY hungry people on this planet. Yet we know there are millions and millions of those who cannot get enough to eat to maintain a decent level of health. While geography and weather are major problems in this regard, there is no excuse for the political and military obstacles that we humans put in the way of feeding the people on this planet. If yesterday, the Word of God spoke of the "peaceable kingdom," it speaks of that kingdom today in terms of fulfilling hungers of all kinds: for God, for food, for justice, for peace. If the problem seems too large to think about, look for the hungry nearby and feed them. The moment you do, the kingdom of God is at hand. AMEN