Today’s short Gospel passage seems to jump all over the
place.
First, Jesus drives out a demon.
And the Pharisees say he did it by the power of the Prince
of Demons.
Then Jesus has pity for the people and goes to all the
towns and villages.
Teaching, proclaiming the Good News, and curing every
disease and illness.
And finally, he tells us The harvest is abundant but
the laborers are few.
It seems like a mishmash of three somewhat disjointed messages.
But for me, it immediately called to mind a front-page
story from this Sunday’s Post.
A story of feeding hungry children in rural Tennessee—in
Appalachia.
We spend billions of our federal tax dollars
on school lunch programs.
And millions of our American children desperately need
that free lunch.
For many, it’s their main meal of the day.
But in the summer, when school is out, there is no free lunch.
So we spend billions more on summer lunch programs.
The article focuses on a program that buses those lunches
out to the kids.
A school bus that serves as a lunch wagon winds through
the hills and hollows every day.
Kids wait at the small trailer parks and other community
sites.
When the bus comes, they each get a bag lunch, and they
eat it in the bus.
This ensures that the kids are the ones getting the food—
and that each gets only one bag.
The article includes a lot of (online) pictures of the
kids.
And some background details about the tough economy, the
depressed area,
The lost jobs, and folks struggling to get by.
It shows some of the real people behind the statistics.
Child hunger in America
may not rank among the world’s greatest tragedies.
But it is a tragic suffering.
And one we ought to be able to do something about.
Is the lunch bus a flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars?
Is the lunch bus an ideal solution?
Neither.
But kids need to keep eating while we all work together
to find better solutions.
So, how does the lunch bus touch on the three messages of
today’s Gospel?
Jesus’ heart was filled with pity.
And he went to all the villages to spread the Good News
and cure the suffering.
We, through our dollars and our caring, send that bus to
visit all the creeks and hollows.
Easing the suffering and carrying at least some implication
of the Good News.
Jesus said The harvest is abundant but the laborers
are few.
He was speaking primarily of harvesting souls.
And, indeed, we’re still called to that labor.
But those words also carry an additional, direct message
for us in America
today.
They aptly describe our food situation.
We have an abundance of food, and too few laboring to
ensure that it’s distributed fairly.
That leaves the matter of driving out demons.
Matthew doesn’t mention it here, but Jesus did have a
good answer to those Pharisees.
An answer that echoes through Appalachian Kentucky.
The motto of my native state.
United we stand—Divided we fall.
The Pharisees said Jesus drove out demons by the power of
the Prince of Demons.
Jesus answered that that was crazy talk.
A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.
Those words too, carry an additional, direct message for
us in America
today.
Tuesday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time
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