21st Sunday of Ordinary Time
Aug. 26, 2018
John 6: 60-69Josh 24: 1-2, 15-18
Collect
Nativity, Washington
“Do
you want to leave too?” (John 6: 67).
How
many times have you heard that this is a period of crisis? There’s a crisis in the Middle East! There’s a crisis in Korea! Every 4 years the Democrats and the
Republicans tell us we’re facing the most important election of our lifetime;
it’s a political crisis! We have an
economic crisis, an immigration crisis, a leadership crisis. We have a vocations crisis, an abuse crisis,
an episcopal crisis. The Church is in
crisis!
In
today’s gospel there’s a crisis—maybe 2 crises (that’s the plural). A crisis is a decision point or a time of
judgment.
Christ Teaching in the Synagog
(source unknown)
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He
turns to the 12, his closest disciples, his friends. For them, as for the mass of disciples, it’s
a decision point. Will they listen to
what Jesus has been saying? Can they
believe he’s the Bread of Life, that the spirit gives life and the flesh is
useless? Will they remain with him? (cf.
6:67)
There’s
a famous line in the Marx Brothers movie Duck
Soup, spoken by Chico: “Who ya gonna
believe? Me or your own eyes?” Bring that to our gospel: “Can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
(6:52) Is Jesus truly “the bread that
came down from heaven,” and “whoever eats this bread will live forever”?
(6:58) Or is he only a carpenter from
Nazareth who’s been out in the sun too long?
Simon
Peter, as usual the leader, the most perceptive of the 12, or at least the most
impetuous, answers for all of them—or maybe all except Judas (cf. 6:64): “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (6:68).
Certainly
Simon doesn’t fully comprehend what Jesus means in his teaching about the Bread
of Life, about his Body and Blood. But
he knows Jesus well enuf to trust him implicitly. He makes a fundamental decision: Jesus, I’m sticking with you. Jesus, you will lead me to eternal life.
In
the 1st reading, the Israelites also had to make a fundamental decision, which
Joshua, successor of Moses and their leader in the invasion of the Promised
Land, put before them. Will you revert
to the worship of “the gods your ancestors served beyond the River” (Josh
24:15), i.e., in Mesopotamia, whence Abraham had migrated? Or will you adopt the worship of the gods of your
new neighbors in Canaan—the Amorites and other peoples? Or will you adhere to “the Lord your God, who
brought you up out of the land of Egypt”? (24:16) The gods beyond the Euphrates and the gods of
Canaan were visible—idols—and enticing in their fertility rites, and not
morally demanding; whereas the God of the Sinai covenant is invisible, chaste,
very demanding, and intolerant of deviations.
Joshua left them free to choose—as tribes or clans—but compelled a
decision (24:15).
So
does God compel us, speaking to us thru his Son Jesus Christ, thru the voice of
the Church of Jesus—I mean the authentic voice of the Church, not the
misleading voices of false shepherds—and thru the events of our own life
experience.
I
just made a retreat in which the preacher warned us against what he calls the 8
Ps of the false self, 8 temptations that try to convince us that they’re our
way to happiness and fulfillment. All of
us to some extent buy into 1 or more of them:
power, prestige, possessions, productivity, popularity, people, pleasure,
and praise. Those, of course, are the
idols, the false gods, that we worship—against which Jesus challenges us to
choose, to make our fundamental decision.
As
we’ve seen again in recent weeks—Church history has shown it repeatedly—even the
clergy are susceptible to the enticements of the 8 Ps. But St. Paul cautions us, “Whoever thinks he
is standing secure should take care not to fall” (1 Cor 10:12).
At
the beginning of Mass we prayed in the Collect about our fundamental
decision: “amid the uncertainties of
this world, may our hearts be fixed on that place where true gladness is
found.”
For
our personal experience has shown us time and again, hasn’t it, that power,
prestige, possessions, productivity, popularity, people, pleasure, and praise
are very uncertain matters, as fleeting as the morning fog, as unsatisfying in
the long term—even in the medium term—as an ice cream cone. Our hearts want more—true gladness, lasting gladness.
St. Peter
(St. Waltrude Collegiate Church, Mons, Belgium)
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Don’t
be sidetracked, then, by the glitter you see with your physical eyes or easy
teachings that tickle your ears; to quote St. Paul again, “The time is coming
when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will
accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and they will
turn away from listening to the truth” (2 Tim 4:3-4). The world around us is full of baloney: in politics, in public morality, in economic selfishness,
in the fear of people who differ from us, in slogans like “Grab all the gusto
you can,” “Look out for #1,” “Get the other guy before he gets you,” “Greed is
good,” “I did it my way.”
Jesus,
instead, tells us that our joy—our “true gladness”—lies in serving others, in
fidelity, in putting God 1st in our lives, in establishing a firm and trusting
relationship with him. “Master, to whom
shall we go? Where else can we go? You
have the words of the eternal life.” You
are “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
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