Seeing with Eyes of Amazement

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reflecting on the Word

By Dr. Karla J. Bellinger

Grass? That word jumped out at me when I first read today’s  passage from John. Grass? In Israel? 

When I look out of my window, I see green. I see grass, rich green  grass. I see the dark green of spruce, the rich green of maple, the forest  of green in the woods of oak and walnut and cherry. The region in  which I live is in the rain shadow of Lake Michigan, and bursts with  the color green on the first day of August. Water is abundant. All is  vibrantly green. 

I don’t recall that depth of green when I visited Israel, especially  not in unirrigated places. So it startled me to read “there was a great  deal of grass in that place” (John 6:10). I asked a Palestinian friend  about that. She said, “That would be very unusual. Maybe a few  places in early spring?” 

The author of John writes in multiple layers of meaning, often  frolicking with witticisms that we don’t comprehend in translation.  So why the “grass?” 

I looked up the Greek word used for “grass” . . . and surprise!  Grass wasn’t something that you mowed to play soccer. This Greek  word means “fodder” or “hay”—something that you feed to animals. 

Clever, isn’t it, that Jesus would tell them to recline on the “fodder”  when he is about to feed them? 

Our God is surprising. Philip did the math—a hundred days’  wages wouldn’t be enough. How can we feed these folks? (Elisha’s  servant asks the same thing: “How can we do this?”) 

Using Eucharistic language, the Lord’s abundance was unexpected.  He worked through an unlikely person: an unnamed little boy.  Jesus’s unwillingness to be king was unexpected, too. 

When you look at grass, think how astonishing God is: “The  hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs” . . . in totally  unexpected ways. 

Consider/Discuss 

  • As we head into a month of Bread of Life discourses, we will see Jesus  continually doing the unexpected—feeding five thousand people, walking  on water, ducking away from those who would make him king, calling  himself the Bread of Life, making his supposed followers grumble at his  audacity as they walk away. God’s ways are not our ways. Even more,  God’s ways seem to be radically different from our expectations. How  could we cultivate an “eyesight of amazement” this month, allowing the  Holy Spirit to surprise us in ways that we might not expect? 
  • In what unpredicted ways has God met your needs or answered your  prayers? Who has helped you to “pick up and get going,” even someone  whose help you did not expect? 

Living and Praying with the Word 

Lord, what an adventure it is to follow you! You take us places  we never imagined we might go. You have worked through people  whom we never would have expected. Thank you for keeping us  alert and attentive to your ways, always hoping, always wondering  how you will feed us today. Give us this day our daily bread, with  baskets left over! What are you going to do today, God?

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