August 4: Don't Look Back

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

It’s bad enough that the Israelites were grumbling against their leaders. But they also complain to God that they were better off as slaves in Egypt. After all God did to bring them to freedom, now they want to go back to slavery. Before we judge them too harshly, we might ask ourselves if we ever act like that. For us, it might be looking back on our slavery to sin.

We would never sin if there wasn’t something attractive about it. We might confess the sin and say we’ll never do that again, but we often can’t resist the memory of our past sins. As we hold on to the past, the temptations come back and draw us to repeat our offenses. Even though we know we are better off putting it behind us, we sometimes find it difficult to move on. Notice that the Israelites look back to their time in Egypt, while the people of Jesus’ time look back to the manna in the desert, yet none of them ever had manna! 

So how do we free ourselves from the past? Should we look to the future, instead? If we want to make the world, or just our community, a better place we can make plans. If those plans are ever going to work, we have to begin now. Jesus doesn’t say “Remember how good that manna was.” Or “Don’t worry; your children will get it right.” No, he keeps us focused on the present moment, telling us to believe in Him now, His Father gives us true bread today; Jesus is that bread of life.

Those words are just as true today. We may look fondly at Jesus’ birth, his miracles, and his death on the cross, but if we don’t let him be born again in us, if we don’t trust him to do wonders today, and if we don’t take up our crosses each day—we are missing the chance to experience Jesus in us and in the people we live and work with each day.

Tom Schmidt