We all – or at least most of us – sometimes suffer from the sense of being completely inadequate to the tasks in front of us. We find ourselves faced by some huge challenge: like parenthood, or studying some complex subject, or sudden changes in the workplace: either being promoted to more responsibility, or finding ourselves unemployed and having to scramble to make a living. Or, certainly, like finding ourselves trying to nurture and grow small faith communities. And this challenge just seems so much more than we are equipped to deal with. We have no idea how to turn this baby human into a healthy and responsible adult — or indeed this work department, this church community, this exam, or whatever our challenge is.
And it’s easy to feel paralysed by that sense of overwhelm. “There is no point,” we say to ourselves, “I will never be able to walk up that mountain, so I will stay here at the base.”
But in today’s readings for Mass, we encounter another possibility. The gospel account in John (Jn 6:1-15) tells the story of the miraculous feeding of the multitude in Galilee – itself a repeat of a much earlier narrative about Elisha, in today’s Old Testament reading of 2 Kings 4:42-44.
Faced with an overwhelming and unachievable goal, Elisha’s servants (in 2 Kings) and Jesus’ disciples (in John) are told in no uncertain terms just to start feeding people anyway. And both groups found that, once they had actually started doing the work that the Lord had put in front of them, they inexplicably found that they had the resources to seem them through.
When you are faced with overwhelming goals. When you feel that you are not strong enough, wise enough, rich enough to do what needs to be done in your life and in the lives of the people around you. Start doing it anyway. You are enough. You are where you are because that is where you are called to be right now. But it is not where you will stay. Start doing the work, and you will be enough.