12 February 2022 Mark 8:1-10
Saturday of the 5th Week in Ordinary Time
SCANDALOUS CUPIDITY
If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance.” (Mark 8:3).
God has created human beings as organic creatures and so they need to consume food to remain alive or they would collapse on the way as Jesus senses the possibility of it in the multitude. The lives of millions of people on planet earth today are threatened by such collapse due to hunger and starvation. What is the cause of the scandals of hunger and starvation? God created planet earth in a way that it provides everything needed to provide food for its living creatures. Some fatalists accuse God as the culprit of these negative phenomena, asking the question, “why people are suffering with hunger and malnutrition if God provides. Some others consider population as the cause of starvation?”
Recent studies of the United Nations tells that planet earth has everything to feed its more than 7 billion people with sufficient food production. But there are more than 900 million people who go through starvation and who is the culprit? God or humanity? The culprits are the greedy nations and people who produce food in overabundance and do not share with the needy. In other words lack of generosity and compassion or cupidity of a greedy minority.
Life in the animal kingdom will reveal the abundance of God’s generosity. There are no starving animals in the jungle and one animal will attack another only for food because there is no greed among animals. Whereas human beings would attack others even if their stomach is full. There may be hunger among the indigenous people, but there are no starving among them. Unfortunately, to our shame there are starving people in the cities.
The compassion of the Lord and the generous gift of disciples – two fish and seven loaves- solves the hunger of the people and saves them from a collapse. Miracle of multiplication is not simply a matter of Divine goodness but also a matter of human participation. Jesus could use His divine power to produce food for everyone or bring down food from the skies just as the rain of manna for Israelites. God’s generosity surpasses ours, but it does not bypass ours.
Three lessons:
- Never label God as the culprit of starvation. Because starvation is fundamentally a scandal (man made evil), not a disaster.
- God’s generosity surpasses ours, but it does not bypass ours. So think of how I can be an instrument of God’s mercy in my own possible way and possibilities (just as the disciples did).
- Prayer for the conversion of the greedy so that they may turn their hearts to the needy. Amen.