Are You Feeding God’s People?

28 August 2025  Matthew 24:42-51

“…to give them their food at the proper time.”  Matthew 24:45

So why doesn’t Jesus fill us in on when He is coming again?

All of us determine our to-do list based on how much time we have. If we have a few very important things to do and not very much time, then many things get crossed off the list except for those very few things, and we focus exclusively on them. If we have more time, then we can put more things on the list. We can plan bigger projects, and do things in a more expansive way. If we have a little leisure to think things all the way through, we can do more. Good thinking takes time – it would be a good thing to know if we have it.

Time is the one thing we can’t make more of. So how much time do we have? Why doesn’t Jesus give us a clearer idea when He is coming again?

The only thing Jesus tells us is that He will come again at a time we do not expect. So, it would be a good thing if he found us doing what we are supposed to do. And the only thing He tells us about what we are supposed to do is that we are to provide for His household “their food at the proper time” (Matthew 24:45). He needs to find us feeding His people.

The feeding stories of the New Testament are not meant to portray the mission of the Church as a hunger program. We do not fulfill our calling as disciples by having soup kitchens and food pantries. All the feeding stories of the New Testament are signs of a much deeper and broader mission, viz., to make disciples of all nations. Feeding, in other words, means evangelization. In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) the Feeding of the 5000 is told in conjunction with the death of John the Baptist, a sign to all the powers of the earth that Jesus alone has power to provide enough and more for everyone. Herod only shot the messenger. Jesus is the message, and not all the kings there have ever been, or will be, have power to provide what He can. The institution of the Eucharist (Matthew, Mark and Luke), where Jesus feeds His disciples with His body, blood, soul and divinity, what Catholics call the “source and summit” of the Christian life, is Jesus giving His life to us, making a place for our lives in the life of God. When Jesus meets Peter after the Resurrection, and asks him three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” he orders Peter three times, “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep” (John 21:15-19). Jesus is defining to Peter what it is to be an Apostle. Feeding in the New Testament means making Jesus available to others.

There is nothing wrong with soup kitchens or food pantries. But they are not ends. They are means. They are a way of getting people’s attention so that they may be more willing to hear the real reason why we are here, viz., to make Jesus available to them.

And as long as we are doing that, planning that, thinking about that, praying about that, as long as Jesus is the inspiration, the means, and the goal, the pioneer and perfecter, of everything we do, then it doesn’t matter when He is coming back. It doesn’t matter because for us heaven will already have started. Jesus on our minds, Jesus in our ears, Jesus before our eyes, Jesus in our hands – “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when He comes, will find so doing” (Matthew 24:46-47).  

When is Jesus coming? “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Corinthians 6:2).  

Make Jesus available. Now.