21st. Sunday (Year
B)
(Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18; Ephesians
5:21-32; John 6:60-69)
In our readings today we are
reminded of the fact that in the course of our lives decisions -- both difficult
and definitive – may sometimes have to be made:
If it does not
please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve, the gods which
your fathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
country you are now dwelling. As for
me and my household, we will serve the LORD.
Many of
(Jesus’) disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer
accompanied Him. Then Jesus said to the
Twelve, "Do you also want to leave?"
This is because God the Father made
such a decision when He willed that His only-begotten Son should take human
flesh to free us from the tyranny of sin and death, thereby obliging us who will
to be Christians to make a reciprocal decision in acceptance of His offer of
salvation. With God, His decision is
sublime and final; we, however, are weak human beings hindered by our native
ignorance and personal sinfulness, with the result that any seriously binding
decision of ours has to be repeatedly renewed and personally re-affirmed if we
are to live it out to fulfilment. Any
such decision can be sincerely made only on the basis of right-love motivating
the choice, and persevering-commitment enabling us ultimately fulfil our
original decision.
Now, such love and commitment are
the two qualities St. Paul had in mind when giving his converts guidance with
regard to the Christian institution of marriage:
Be subordinate
to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Words which he then develops for his
immediate purposes by emphasising the predominant failing each of them needs to
face:
Wives should
be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is head of his
wife just as Christ is head of the church, He Himself the saviour of the
body. As the church is subordinate to
Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself
over for her.
Jesus seriously requires such
subordination, such commitment, on the part of His disciples, as you heard in
the Gospel reading:
It is the
spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken
to you are spirit and life. But there
are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who
would not believe and the one who would betray Him. As a result of this, many (of) His disciples
returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him. Jesus then
said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”
Jesus would have none of those
disciples who claim the right to re-negotiate, so to speak, their allegiance to
Him if any unforeseen difficulty should arise to trouble them as a result of His
teaching or in the course of His leading.
Their commitment had to be total:
Simon Peter
answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. We have come to believe and are
convinced that You are the Holy One of God.”
For His part, as St. John tells
us:
Jesus knew,
before the feast of Passover, that His hour had come to pass from this world to
the Father. He loved His own in the world and He loved them to the end.
(John 13:1)
Such was the commitment and love St.
Paul also expressly recommended to his converts entering marriage by those
words:
Be subordinate
to one another out of reverence for Christ.
How sad is it not that these days an
alternative, shortened, second reading is offered, needs to be offered, today
for some who want to give only a limited, personally approved, hearing to Gospel
teaching? Yes, St. Paul was a truly selfless and totally committed -- mind and
heart, body and soul -- disciple of Christ; and his writings are a loving
presentation of His Lord’s Gospel to the proud and pagan world whose descendants
are still with us and, in a certain measure, still among us!
Of course, those who choose to flee
all binding commitments, be they religious or personal, say that we do not know
what the future will bring; and how therefore, can we, at any given time,
reasonably commit ourselves to some way of life or mode of conduct by
accepting now responsibilities that later on may bring unwanted pressures. They argue that no one can reasonably
be expected to pledge themselves to some present relationship that will not
allow them to take advantage of future opportunities that may arise. We need to be able to avoid, or at least free
ourselves from, future difficulties, and take full advantage of future
possibilities.
To all that worldly selfishness and
revolutionary rationality, the Catholic proclaims: I live by Faith in Jesus Christ the only-begotten
Son of God become, for us men and by the power of the Holy Spirit, Son of Man;
in His one and holy Body, which is Mother Church on earth, I live and love by
His Gift of her teaching and sacraments.
The future is not, for us
Christians, something totally dark, hidden, and unknowable. We believe in God, a God Who is good, and has
created us -- personally and individually -- for a purpose and with a
future. We believe that human beings,
made in the image and likeness of God, are called to guide their lives towards a
goal being offered them by God; a goal promised most surely, and revealed --
though darkly as yet, and as in a mirror -- to all believers in Jesus; for whom,
indeed, it is a goal even now being gradually effected and brought to fulfilment
in us, with us, and for us, by the Holy Spirit.
In other words, we Christians and
Catholics believe that the future is more than sufficiently knowable, it is
supremely desirable, and ultimately attainable for all who believe in Jesus and
are willing to commit themselves in faith and trust to His promises and to the
guidance of the Spirit He has bequeathed us in the Church He has given us. And this attitude of self-commitment is so
essential to Christianity that we believers have been given, as our mother, she
of who it was said:
Blessed is she
who believed, for there will be a fulfilment of those things which were told her
from the Lord. (Luke 1:45)
In our Gospel reading we heard that
when the Jews rejected Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist, He then, as if to
confirm His teaching, went on to say:
What then if
you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?
There we can see how sure is the
foundation on which our faith, our love and our commitment, is based. Jesus is able to speak of the future, of the
heavenly future prepared for and awaiting us, because He himself originally came
from there, and has, as His words foreshadowed, ascended back again to receive
as Son of Man that glory which already belonged to Him as Son of God living for
all eternity in the presence of His heavenly Father. His words, therefore, are not to be assessed
as are the words of ordinary men who do not, indeed cannot, know what the future
holds: they speak of a future which is ahead of them in time …. a future
of as yet some unknown number of days, months, or years ahead of them but which
will find them, and perhaps surprise them, still firmly rooted in this earthly
state … they speak of an earthly future only.
We Catholics and Christian disciples
of Jesus, however, believe that such an earthly and temporary future is but a
preparation for the real future which is on offer to mankind and is promised to
the believers in Jesus’ Good News, a future not without earthly consequences,
but one that will ultimately bear full fruit in an eternity of Heavenly
fulfilment or a Hell of loss and punishment according to our preferences and
choices made on earth.
Since Jesus has ascended to heaven
in the glory of the Spirit, His words, which are still living and life-giving
among us, are, consequently, no ordinary words but spiritual words:
It is the
spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail. The words I have spoken
to you are spirit and life.
People of God, in the first reading
Joshua put clearly before the Israelites a choice they had to make; and we are
in a like situation today. For, in our
society, Christianity can easily be subjected to public derision, while the
Catholic Church is, not infrequently, hated.
We are urged to choose a life more commonly acceptable, one which,
because of some retained Christian aspects, is regarded as a good and
praiseworthy life: for example, a life lived for personal family and friends,
for children and the poor, even for the world’s underprivileged. However, such a sort of life can remain
deeply selfish, answering to no higher authority than ‘sincere self’, envisaging
no eternal future or hopes for eternal blessedness with One greater than
self. Consequently, it can be a life
weakened and disfigured by lack of commitment to any values that might obstruct
its steady course towards present success, accompanied by public approbation
and, perhaps above all, self-approval; a life which, more frequently
these days, may be sealed by nothing better than a personally chosen ‘shuffling off this mortal coil’ in
suicide.
Our Christian faith and Mother
Church, on the other hand, call us to a life of greater personal commitment: a life of willing
subjection of self initially to one other than self, in view of One infinitely
greater than self; a subjection, a commitment, a devotion, recognizing and
answering to the God Who is present and to be found in all and yet transcends
all; and ultimately a commitment of self to God Himself in and through His Son,
Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ Who now lives eternally with His Father in heaven and -- by His Spirit -- with
us and for us in His Church to the end of time. Our Christian faith and Mother Church urge us
to a life of commitment, to a selflessness before our God and Saviour, which, by
a process of spiritual osmosis, will inevitably show itself in the ordinary
things of our everyday lives: in marital love and commitment, sincere and
lasting friendship, unfeigned neighbourliness, and penetrating down even to our
most mundane social obligations, such as doing an honest day’s work and living
as good and responsible citizens.
In making life’s choices, we must
never forget the truth expressed in the words of Joshua:
If it does not
please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve, the gods which
your fathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose
country you are now dwelling. As for
me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Whatever we choose, we will always
be servants, because that is our nature.
If, however, we make the right choice, we can serve the Lord Who is so
good that He intends, after our faithful service here on earth, to give us a
share with Him in His heavenly lordship and glory. His word is true, His promise is sure, and
His Way is straight; in all our needs His Spirit will be with us, and for all
our endeavours the Father Who now awaits us will embrace and reward us as His
adopted children in Christ Jesus our Lord.
