My brothers and sisters in Christ, each of our readings today teach us one important spiritual truth about who God is.  This spiritual truth is difficult for us human beings to fully understand but it is essential for us to comprehend if we really want to be happy.  The great spiritual truth that our readings teach us is this:  God is grace, grace- gratia, God is free gift.  God does not need us, nothing we do adds to God.  Even creation itself wasn’t necessary, God did not get anything by creating the universe, in fact, God holds the whole world in his hand.  Nothing adds to God, God is full and complete in Himself.  Living a moral life does not add to God, God doesn’t need anything from us.  Even our praise to God, Scripture says, adds nothing to His greatness, but it profits us for salvation.  We do not earn anything from God, our good moral acts does not compel God to give to us.  Everything God does is because God loves us, it is a free gift.  We do not earn God’s love, God does not owe us anything.  This is a truth we have probably heard before, but it is hard to live, isn’t it?

This truth that God does not need us,that he is grace, free gift, is difficult for us human beings to accept.  And understandably so, after all we live in a very contractual society.  We are used to calculating the cost for everything- and everything costs something, nothing is free.  We are so used to thinking that if I give this amount of money, then I get this.  If I give less, then I get what is less.  But if I give more, I should get more.  Our lives are full of contracts; we are used to a ‘this for that’ mentality.  But if we try and apply this concept to God, then everything goes out of whack.  It is easy to tend to think, if I pray, if I live this certain way, God then must give me this.  And we get upset if God doesn’t give us what we think we earned, and thus God owes us.  However, the opposite can also be true.  Conversely, we can get upset when God is generous to another person especially when we think that we deserve it more than they do.  Or even when God is generous to us, it can be difficult for us to accept because we think we don’t deserve it.  Again, everything God does is free gift, simply because God loves us.   My brothers and sisters, our relationship with God cannot be seen as a contract- this for that.  We cannot think that we can earn God’s love or grace, that God owes us.  Nor should we not accept God’s gracious love because we did not earn it.  I know this is difficult, and sometimes this ‘this for that’ mentality makes us think that God’s generosity is just too good to be true, that there must be a catch; and so we caution ourselves and we try to read the fine print in our relationship with God, hesitant to dive in head first.    Rather, each of our readings reveal, and our faith tells us that God really is that generous. 

Isaiah in our first reading tells us, “all you who are thirsty, come to the water.  You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat”.  Sounds too good to be true, all we have to do is come?  “Come, without paying and without cost”.  Yes, Isaiah says that this gift is free, we don’t have to try to pay for it, and we don’t have to earn what it costs, it is free, we just have to come.

Our Gospel tells us that when Jesus saw the vast crowd his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.  He had compassion and loved them, and so He cured all the sick and relieved all the people’s grieving and feeling of helplessness over their loved ones.  Why?  Not because they earned it but simply because God wants to give his love and they came to Him.  Does it sound too good to be true?  Then when it was evening and too late for them to go home to eat, simply out of love for them, God again is generous and multiplies the 5 loaves and 2 fish and feeds the 5000.  God feeding the 5000 is always seen as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist we receive at every Mass; listen carefully to what Jesus says and does in our Gospel in order to feed the crowd- for He says the same thing at the Last Supper when he gave his Body and Blood, and they are the same words and gestures Jesus says through the priest at every Mass.  “Taking the loaves, looking up to Heaven, he said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples”.  Sound familiar?  Good, it is supposed to.  But do you think the disciples and the crowds thought it too good to be true?   Do you think they thought the multiplication, that them all eating and being satisfied, and the 12 baskets left over couldn’t possibly be real?  Did they believe God’s love and generosity is too good be true?  No of course not, they simply received God’s gracious gift, and they ate it.  Then why do have a hard time believing in the Eucharist- do we think it is too good to be true?  Do we not believe God would love us enough to do as He said, take and eat, this is my Body”?   Is it really that hard to believe that “only say the word, and we shall be healed”?   Why is it so hard to believe in God’s complete generosity?  Is it because we think it can’t possibly be that good because we didn’t earn it or deserve it- that we are so unworthy of it?  But yet our faith tells us and our souls proclaim, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word, and I shall be healed”.  Why do we limit God’s love and mercy by our unbelief and by our not accepting it?

My brothers and sisters, our 2nd reading says, “nothing can separate us from the love of God”.  St. Paul is, “convinced that neither death, nor life, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.  Wow, what a powerful statement, but listen again to that last verse, it reads, ‘nor any other creature will be able to separate us- what that means is that nothing can separate us. God, the Creator, doesn’t separate us, nothing can stop God from giving to us.  It also means no other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, that is, no other creature except ourselves.  We can separate ourselves from God’s love, we can limit God’s gift of self, and that separation is called mortal sin.  Every mortal sin cuts us off from receiving free gift of grace.  Notice that nothing prohibits God from giving, because God’s generosity is neither earned nor owed, nothing can stop God from giving because God is gift itself, but we separate ourselves from receiving.  What that means is that the Eucharist is still the Eucharist; it is still God’s free gift of himself simply because he loves us.  Nothing, the Church teaches, not even the unworthiness of the priest (thanks be to God), nothing prohibits God from being able to give, but we do limit our inability to receive.   And if we do receive Communion in mortal sin, that is, not in the state of grace, St. Paul says, we receive in vain, we bring scandal upon the truth and bring judgment upon ourselves.  It is still the Eucharist, but the effectiveness of the grace is not received.  And thinking we can receive His love and mercy without wholeheartedly coming to Him and confessing out sins is impossible because we are not open or able to receive the love of God because we have cut ourselves off from it.  So nothing can separate us from the love of God, except ourselves and our not fully coming to Him. 

To summarize then, God is love freely given, God is grace unearned; we are challenged to let God be God and not limit what we can receive.  Let us not limit ourselves, but let us come to Him wholeheartedly, and fully give ourselves over to God’s immense generosity.  Let us not think God’s love and mercy is too good to be true, but let us believe what God said, but let us simply, come and receive the fullness of His generosity.