Field Mass

Quite some time ago, a good number of years, really, I was watching the Johnny Carson show, at about this time of year, and the opening line of his monologue really sort of caught my ear. He said that Fall had officially begun, but that in Los Angeles, it was always a little difficult to tell that that was the case. About the only way to know for sure was when someone would come around, take away the green plastic plants, and put out some brown plastic plans.

Well, I laughed at the time, I'm sure, but I also couldn't help thinking that there was something a little bit sad about that line. Because it is true, really. So many people in our culture, across the country, not just in Los Angeles, play out a style of life in which they are really cut off from any sort of close contact with nature. They live and work and play in little caves of concrete and steel, in artificial light, artificial air, artificial heat, even artificial cold. They may be casual observers of the flow of seasons, but most people in our culture are no longer intimate sharers in that process. They are no longer a part of it.

Well, that is most certainly not the case around here. Really, the style of life that we enjoy here is one of the few remaining in which the relationship between human beings and nature is so close and so clear. The change of seasons, and the clemency or severity of those seasons affects us very immediately, affects what we do, how we think, how we feel. There is very little that is artificial about the environment in which we live. It is real indeed, as unpredictable, and as unmanageable as reality always is.

Should anyone ever be in danger of losing sight of the fact a large part of coming to live at home in the real world is simply a matter of learning to offer a trusting acceptance to what goes on around him, such a person should come and live in North Dakota for couple of seasons.

A trusting acceptance. The ability to see good in the circumstances in which we have been placed by the hand of the Father. And that is the heart of it, really. The sample fact that everything we have, everything we are, is from God, designed by Him, created by Him, and given, simply, freely given, to us. That is the first truth laid out for us in Scripture, the truth of creation. In the beginning there has nothing... and God stretched out His hand over that nothingness, and said "Let there be light... and land... and water ... and life." And there and it was good. In the opening verses of his Gospel, the evangelist John re-states that same truth. "Everything that is, is in God, and without Him there is, simply enough, nothing." So that is the first truth of our lives as well, and if we do not understand that, then we do not truly understand anything. The first word that we must use in describing our lives, and everything that makes them up, is the word "gift".

So this morning as we gather amidst all of this beauty, natural goodness, we must feel a strong sense of gratitude. If the open hand of God is difficult to see, to sense in some corners of our lives, surely the touch of that hand is clear in a harvest of food. The fact is, no human skill, no technique, no machine, no chemical, can ever make anything grow. The best that even the most skillful farmer can do, after he has drawn on every resource he has, the best that he can do is simply wait for the divine mystery of growth. In the coming together of earth and rain and sun, and a living seed, it is a process that is beyond human ability to control, even beyond human ability to understand that produces food. A process which we did not design, nor begin, but which we simply accept. And so as be gathered for this celebration this morning, we brought with us in procession some of what that process has yielded, some of the fruits of that harvest. We bring them as they were offered to us, as gifts, freely given, gratefully accepted, freely returned.

But it isn't just food we are given. And we would fall short of reality if we did not recognize that as well this morning. In the first chapter of his gospel, in a passage called the Canticle of Mary, Luke pictures Mary expressing the gratitude she felt at having been chosen to be the mother of Christ. "My soul glorifies the Lord," she said, "because He has filled the hungry with good things." And with that Canticle, a kind of full cycle is completed. Just as at the beginning of Scripture, our first inspired insight into the nature of God is that He is the Creator, the provider of all good things, so too at the beginning of the New Testament, our time in the history of salvation, in the first few days of Christ's earthly life, He too is named the provider, the giver of good gifts.

And throughout has preaching, Christ refers to Himself, as to the Father, as the One Who feeds His people, the One Who knows the hungers His people feel, and Who satisfies those hungers. We would be shortsighted indeed this morning if we were to be aware of anything less than that. As we bring our gifts to the altar, let us be sure that we recognize them for what they truly are... not only themselves good gifts that satisfy our hunger for food, but symbols, expressions of other gifts we have been given, the many other, deeper hungers that God has satisfied in us.

Ignorance is a hunger, and God satisfies it with the truth, the knowledge of Him, and the intricate wonders of His world. Meaninglessness is a hunger, and God satisfies it with a deep sense of purpose in our lives. Lowliness is a hunger, and God satisfies it with the intimate companionship of family, and friends. Fear is a hunger, and God satisfies it with the security of salvation, the sure knowledge that nothing that can ever happen to us, no matter how frightening, not even death itself can ever be anything more than a temporary inconvenience.

So many hungers, so many needs in us, and not a one left unanswered. The hunger for freedom, for involvement, for beauty, perhaps one of our deepest and most unrecognized hungers... and to each God responds with a range of opportunities for personal growth limited only by our imagination. Daily opportunities to become a part of one another's lives, opportunities to grow in a sense of awe at the power, the beauty of creation, opportunities to grow in the ability to be caught up in thought, in dreams, in laugher, in tears.

The hunger for food, and the way in which God satisfies that, is obvious. We don't have search very hard, it takes no great sensitivity on our part to be impressed with the abundance of that gift. But perhaps we do need to look a bit harder, to become a bit more sensitive to the way in which He satisfies these other hungers. Perhaps we do, from time to time, really allow ourselves to become so taken up with our experience of need, that we simply don't ever look up, look around us, and see with what goodness God has offered to answer that need. After all, even the gift of food needs to be harvested before it can fill us. We have to reach out and pick it up, we have to go to where it is. No one would be foolish enough to simply sit in one spot, and expect the harvest to come in on its own, and then blame God when it doesn't. So too with every other good thing He offers us. If there is any way at all in which we are still hungry, perhaps it is just because we haven't yet made the effort to take in the harvest. Sometimes that harvest is difficult. Sometimes it takes patience and perseverance before we can fill ourselves with God's gifts. But most of the time it isn't. Most of the time the goodness of God in satisfying our hungers is pretty obvious, as obvious as a field of wheat. All we need to do is look around us, recognize it, and accept it, gratefully.

So this morning, at this celebration of goodness, let us resolve to do just that. Let us began again, more strongly than ever, to actively seek out that goodness, and center our lives around it. In things, in people, in ourselves, all around us, there is an infinite wealth of wisdom, and beauty, and virtue, far more than enough to satisfy any hunger we may ever feel. It has all been given to us. Our lives are a series of rich harvests. Christ's promise is not an empty one. Ask for what you need, and that need will be filled, freely, in full measure, till your cup overflows.

Homily preached at a Mass celebrated in a farm field on 28 September 1986.