God's Hand in Our Lives - 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

I remember a few years ago, when my wife and I were on a family vacation in Old Forge. We had decided to rent a boat and spend the afternoon on Fourth Lake.  After about an hour when we found ourselves in the middle of this fairly large lake, we encountered a young man whose kayak had tipped over and had been in the water and struggling for some time.  His kayak was nearly submerged and he was almost impossible to see him on the water unless you were very close to him.  Because he was quite weak it took us some time to get him into our boat.  Once in our boat he explained he was not experienced in Kayaking and overturned due to a large wave.  He had tried but couldn’t right his kayak.  He had been in the water a long time and was experiencing mild hypothermia.  He said he had tried many times to signal other boats, but no one saw him.  He said our boat, however, seemed to be on a direct course to him.

  Who do you think placed us on that course??
 
We hadn’t expected to encounter this individual, it wasn’t what we had in mind.  We hadn’t expected to interrupt our time of relaxation on the water to bring this individual to safety and medical care.  However, God often has other plans for us.  I think of our Gospel reading in much of the same way.  As we heard in the gospel last week Jesus sends out the disciples two by two. Sending them with no processions, but empowering them in to spread the Word of God, and heal those they encountered.  The story continues in this week’s Gospel with Jesus who is ever compassionate and seeks to provide rest and comfort for his disciple’s after their successful but tiring mission.  He desires to bring them to a deserted place, a place to gather themselves, and provide physical and spiritual renewal.
 
Together they get on a boat and start their journey.  However, like many of our plans God, intervenes.  They traveled to their destination only to find a great crowd of people awaiting them.   Jesus sees this great crowd and is overcome with compassion for them, and like the shepherd He is, He begins to teach them. Jesus demonstrates His great compassion with action. He speaks with them, teaches, and seeks to heals them, to meet their needs.  He certainly would have been justified to ignore or send the crowd away, he had already spent much time with them, but he didn’t send them away!  He understood their need, they were looking for someone to encounter them, to reach out to them, heal them, to listen and help!  Someone to be their shepherd!
 
Today, we all are called to be followers of Jesus, to be disciples and to be shepherds.  Being a shepherd is not just reserved for those ordained, all of us are called to be a shepherd, to care for God’s people.  However, being a shepherd can be difficult and often can take us away from our own plans.  We are called to be shepherds even when it is difficult or opportunities come at inconvenient times or places.  In our first reading from Jeremiah we are also cautioned that we need to be good shepherds and lead others in God’s way rather than our own way or using our own agenda – and this is can be hard!
 
 In the mission that God has given us, we need to pay attention to the needs of others and to how the Gospel and the Spirit of God is directing us.  If we do this, God will open our eyes just as Jesus caught a glimpse of the suffering and beauty of all humanity in the great crowd he faced.  God indeed has a vision and mission for us. He wants to open our eyes. God will give us some moment, some insight;. some event that will help us see with greater clarity, and help us to be transformed. However, we must strive to be open, to use our eyes, ears, and hearts to the working of God.  We must always be aware of those who society often pushes to the margins, the poor, the marginalized.  God is there at the margins, and we can learn much about ourselves and our society by how we treat these precious people of God.
 
As we prepare ourselves to gather at this table and be fed.  We recognize especially in this summertime, that we need to take time to be alone, to take time to be with others close to us, to allow ourselves to rest and be rejuvenated.  Our society worships busyness!  We need to take time, to put aside the demands to answer that call, send that last email or text message, post our latest picture.  We all need to take time away for rest, prayer and reflection.  God wants us to care for ourselves.
 
However, at the same time God has a mission for us!  Opportunities to enter into this journey may come when we least expect. Times when it may be inconvenient,  times when we have something else on our agenda. 

God is calling us! God will give us some insight, some clarity if we let Him! 

Will we take time to listen, and recognize God’s voice and call in our lives??