(Jean Jacques Henner)
"Do you also want to leave?"
"Do you also want to leave?"
Joshua 24: 1-2a, 15-17, 18b
Eph 5: 21-32
Jn 6: 60-69
A
recent television commercial for a well-known cell phone company created a
scene between two people talking to one another on their phones. As the commercial progressed, they stood
farther and farther apart. Then their
distance was from state to state, country to country. As they held the phones to their ears, they
asked: “Can you hear me now?”
The
obvious implication was that no matter how far away you may be from each other,
the phone transmission will always be clear and understandable. So, if you want
your communication to be reliable, subscribe to this carrier. Life, however, and even conversation between
two friends, doesn’t always go so easily.
The
Gospel for this Sunday is a lesson in a similar exercise. We come to the culmination of the last
several Sundays. Jesus faces the rejection of his most intimate teaching - that
his actual presence is gift to us as food. That we share in that food under
the signs of bread and wine he gave us on the night before he died. This teaching is both personal and mysterious
(Spirit and life) as well. Yet, he hopes that we “can hear me now?”
The
crowds around him grossly miss the point of his words. They see all things only in the physical. Jesus’
wish that they “. . . eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood . . .
,” as we heard in last Sunday’ Gospel (Jn 6: 51-58), is more than they can
bear. So this week we hear, “This saying
is hard. Who can accept it?” Like their ancestors of old in the desert, they
were “murmuring” and this time God once again provides more than they deserve –
he gives the body and blood of his own Son to all who can accept it. This food
for eternal life, Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist, is beyond the material and
in the realm of the spiritual but also true and substantive. Yes, a call for us
to stretch our faith.
It
is hard because it demands that we expand our understanding and “think outside
the box” as is jargon today. In faith,
we acknowledge there is a greater reality Jesus speaks of: “The words I have
spoken to you are Spirit and life . . .” (Jn 6: 60-69) he reminds the crowd. Jesus could only hope that his listeners could
“hear me now.”
As
the crowds abandoned him, thinking such odd claims were beyond the pale, Jesus
turns to his own Apostles and inquires: “Do you also want to leave?” We can
hear the anguish in his voice.
What
do the Apostles decide? Peter proclaims:
“Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life . . .” We may
assume that Peter spoke on behalf of all of them and at least for that moment,
their loyalty to Jesus was clear but it was fragile and we know what happened
on the night of the Last Supper. How fickle we human beings can be! Yet, he
keyed in on Jesus’ point about spiritual words.
Peter could hear him now.
Our
first reading from Joshua 24: 1-2a, 15-17, 18b may be a key for us who are
called to daily make a choice like the crowds to stay or leave. Joshua challenges
the tribes of Israel and Shechem : “If it does not please you to serve the
Lord, decide today whom you will serve, the gods your fathers served beyond the
River or the gods of the Amorites . . .”
He sounds frustrated that many waffle back and forth.
Joshua
and his family stay with the Lord, as Peter and the twelve also did, because
they realize there is nothing better. They have found the true, life-giving
God. The crowds before Joshua comply with him: “Far be it for us to forsake the
Lord for the service of other gods . . .” And they remember what the Lord had
done for them in their desert wanderings; the miracles he worked on their
behalf. In today’s increasingly secular
culture, our choice may be more and more challenging but no less
essential.
Many
people leave the Church either for a short time or altogether. Many others remain and the population
increases as time goes on. Some remain
in the Church but feel it is their mission to reform and persistently point out
all the faults and failings of the hierarchy or particular members. Others leave for a time due to discouragement
from life problems but eventually return, maybe. Some just find the positions
of the Church out of touch or misguided with modern life and more than they can
bear. Some just say, “I’m not fed here.” But there is no doubt that today, we
as Catholics, must make a choice as to what sort of Catholic/Christians we want
to be.
A
well-known insight of our late Holy Father John Paul II may help us to
understand how the Church is like Jesus in today’s Gospel. The Pope wrote: The Church imposes nothing she only proposes. (Redemptoris Missio).
The point of our Holy Father is that true faith demands freedom of choice. It’s about proposition not imposition.
Jesus
stood his ground. He did not call the
crowds back. He proposed this teaching
on the Eucharist then he turned to his trusted twelve and offered them a choice.
He respected their freedom. No coercion on Jesus’ part. Yet, we might assume
there was a smile of gratitude on his face when he heard Peter’s words.
Some
present day positions of the Church are hard.
We don’t fight over the nature of Christ or the Trinity any more. The
clear positions today on family life, marriage, divorce, birth control, and
abortion are lighting rods in today’s secular culture that sees an individual
measured only by his/her “rights” or feel that the immoral methods of such
organizations as Planned Parenthood, especially their free flowing abortion practices, are the way to go for “reproductive
health.”
Where
do you go to find the words of eternal life? Have we become so selective that
we are creating God in the image of man? Or, can we resonate with the words of
Peter and the crowds of Joshua – Where else can we go? What’s better than this?
For
us Catholics, and for those who have left either for a short time or for long,
often we hear, “I came back because of the Eucharist.” Maybe the positions of the Church, rooted in
the teachings of our Lord, are not so hard after all and worth
contemplating?
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