Homily for the Week of August 26, 2012

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time - B 2012 First Reading: Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 34:2-3, 16-17, 18-19, 20-21 Second Reading: Ephesians 5:21-32 [2a, 25-32] Gospel: John 6: 60-69 Each of us came to church today for different reasons. Many of us did because we believe it is the right thing to do each week. But others may need a special favor from God for ourselves or others, or this weekend may be a special occasion for us, or maybe we start doing something we may put off doing for a long time. But for all of us today we want to hear Jesus offer us words of comfort, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, healing and joy. But we may also want to hear Jesus advise us how to love better and how to make difficult choices. This week a person stopped by to pick up a copy of her Baptism record. The name of her mother on the document reminded her of her grandmother who came from Italy. She started telling me about her grandmother. She said her grandmother was often confused by Americans’ pursuit of quick happiness, Her grandmother commented on all the industrial bakery-made bread, asking, “Why do people eat these things? They have no taste.” The grandmother would proclaim that life was too short to eat anything but good bread or to drink anything other than good wine. She said that every Saturday night of her childhood was spent with her grandmother making their own bread, their own pizza and their own pasta for the family. Indeed, why do we settle for the quick and easy and not invest our time and energy in something that really pleases. Most of us remember the time spent with our grandparents and family. Making bread and fixing meals from scratch every Saturday night was about far more than eating. It was about growing together as a family. It was an experience in learning how to “abide” with one another. The invitation from Joshua to the people of Israel was to make a choice about whom they would serve, that is, whom would they choose to live with? The invitation from Jesus, though spoken in the reverse, is the same: “Do you also want to leave?” This is the choice we must make, and we must make it continually. Whom do we want to serve? The answer to this question provides the primary orientation of our lives. Jesus is all too often rejected by those who find His words too much to bear. We have been listening to the “Bread of Life” section of the Gospel of John for six weeks. In John, John presents Jesus as a person who talks to us directly and accepting very few excuses, no rationalizing and no fudging. It is all black and white, tough and direct. John lets us hear from Jesus that unless we receive the Eucharist in Holy Communion we will have no life within us. But contrary to what we may think, Jesus was not speaking about life with His Father after death. Jesus was speaking about the here and now. Jesus was offering us something special right now. At one time or other you may have heard about what are called in our Catholic religion as the last things. The last things are 4 things that we believe happens at the end of our life. These are death, judgment, heaven or hell. But what you may not have thought much about is that these last 4 things which we are waiting for God to do in the future are already part of our lives right here and now. In the Gospel today Jesus says to Peter: The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. That means that if you and I believe and live the way we believe, we already have life. We do not have to die physically to achieve it. In our second reading today from St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians about wives and husbands is a difficult one. Paul actually zeros in on ordinary human relationships. Paul is actually trying to explain to us how we are to live in relationship with one another in order to have a quality life. There is a Biblical rule of thumb that the bigger the problem the more verses are given to it. The section on husband loving their wives three to four times longer than the part about wives loving their husbands. The weight of the reading is directed toward husbands. This is to be our relationship with our religion. That is why Jesus often calls those who followed him as His body. You and I are his body on earth. Few of us want to hear that our relationship with the Jesus should be so intimate that no one can think of me without thinking of the Jesus. Conversely, no one should be able to think of the us who are here today without thinking of Jesus' presence among us. And that intimate relationship with Jesus is expressed especially when we receive Holy Communion. Many of Jesus' followers left Him because of His direct and unapologetic preaching that we must receive the Bread of Life in order to be the Body of Christ. The Apostles knew this was hard, too, but they had discovered the truth, Master, to whom shall we go?' We, too, must choose. Will my choice be what I want or what God wants? Jesus never promised that being a disciple would be easy, but He did promise that being a disciple would be worth the effort. As we saw from the Gospel today, our faith is not just knowing facts about Jesus or God or the Church. It must be lived. All the saints can tell us that God leads us in our faith by small steps. Today, God may be asking us to take the next step.