A Chance to Choose

by Fr. David M. Knight

August 25, 2024

Twenty First Sunday of Ordinary Time  

Lectionary 122 

Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b/Eph 5:21-32 or 5:2a, 25-32/Jn 6:60-69  https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/082524.cfm

Inventory: 

How do you feel when you are asked to declare the stance you have taken toward something? Happy or annoyed? Anxious or enthusiastic? 

Input 

In the Opening Prayer we ask God to “make us one in mind and heart.” The source of the unity we ask for is our common, shared “desire for what you promise.” We recognize it in each other when all of us visibly “seek the values that will bring us lasting joy in this changing world.” But for that we have to agree on what they are. And that is not very common. 

Democrats and Republicans don’t agree on the values that will bring joy to our country. “Liberals” and “Conservatives” (terms meaningless in their vagueness) don’t think the “others” agree on the same values they do. What do Christians agree on? Does it depend on whether they are Democrats or Republicans, Catholics or Protestants, more “liberal” or more “conservative”? If so, where does God come in? 

No wonder we pray in the Prayer Over the Gifts, “Merciful God... grant peace and unity to your Church!” But why is our hope for this based on the fact that “the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ made us your people”? Did his death erase our differences of opinion? Or is this connected with the Prayer After Communion: “May this Eucharist increase within us the healing power of your love, May it guide and direct our efforts to please you in all things”? 

It will be fun to see if the readings cast light on this. 

“Decide today...” 

Joshua 24:1-18 is what bullfighters call the “moment of truth.” It is the moment when the matador, leaning over the horns of the bull, risks his life on the action he is about to take. He is about to drive home the sword. If he succeeds, the bull dies. If he fails, he will be gored. 

Bullfighters live for this moment. 

When Joshua was “old and advanced in years.” and “the LORD had given the Israelites rest from all their enemies round about them” (chapter 23), Joshua “gathered together all the tribes of Israel” and asked them to choose. After reviewing the history of God’s saving action in their lives, he said: 

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 in whose country you are dwelling. As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. 

“Choose whatever you wish, but declare yourselves.” Our unity as a people depends on seeing in each other recognized commitment to God. And on sharing a common “desire for what he promised” that makes us together “seek the values that will bring us lasting joy in this changing world.”  

Joshua says, “Declare yourself.” Was this challenge or opportunity? 

When does the Church give us this opportunity in daily life? Do you recognize the times and ways you are called to declare yourself at Mass? What are we saying, how are we identifying ourselves when we begin and end the celebration with the Sign of the Cross? When we all introduce ourselves in the Penitential Rite as members of a community of sinners? How is the presider identifying us when he says in the Greeting, “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father, and communion in the Holy Spirit be with you all”? 

Do you recite the Gloria as a Christian “pledge of allegiance”? Does your way of listening to the readings show you are a disciple, a committed “student” of God’s word? Do you recite the Profession of Faith as a personal declaration of your decision to believe? Do you deliberately reaffirm your Baptism by putting yourself symbolically on the altar with the bread and wine at the Presentation of Gifts? Is it for you an act of public re-dedication to mission?  

Are you surrendering yourself to be “lifted up” with Jesus in the host during the Eucharistic Prayer? Do you say, with him and in him, “This is my body, given up for you!”—for all those for whom Jesus offered himself on the cross? Are you pledging your “flesh for the life of the world” in life-giving ministry? 

Are you aware of declaring your participation in everything expressed in the Eucharist when the cup is passed to you and you “drink to the Covenant” in the blood of Christ? Does your eating at the table of the Lord with everyone else assert your acceptance of them as members of your family? Is the whole Rite of Communion for you a preview and an affirmed act of hope in the “peace and unity of the Kingdom” that will be perfectly established at the “wedding banquet of the Lamb”? 

Do all these declarations make you more conscious of your faith, more confirmed in your hope, more committed to love? Does the Eucharist “increase within you the healing power of God’s love”? Does it help you “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord”? 

The “crux” of the question 

In John 6:60-69 Peter makes the same “confession of faith” in Jesus as Messiah that the other Gospels report. And although the context seems different, it is basically the same. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, the “doctrine of the cross” that “scandalized” Peter comes after his confession of faith. In John, it comes before.viii 

The basic problem is, people expected a Messiah who would give them a prosperous, pain-free life on earth, and Jesus didn’t come for that. He came to give a life and joy beyond all human imagining. But we can only enter into it by “dying” with Christ and in him, through baptismal incorporation into his body on the cross. A mystery. Totally incomprehensible to everyone at the time, including Peter and the disciples. Jesus said it: “It is the spirit [grace] that gives life; the flesh [nature] is useless.... That is why I told you no one can come to me unless it is granted by my Father.” 

This mystery is what Eucharist celebrates and makes present. At Eucharist we are in Christ’s body lifted up at the consecration-elevation when the presider repeats his words, “This is my body, given for you.” Without the crucifixion, there could be no Eucharist. Had he not given his flesh on the cross, Jesus could not give us his “flesh to eat” at Mass. Without joining him on the cross, we cannot join him at the table. The “curse” of Christ’s death and the blessing of Eucharist are one and the same. We accept both or neither.ix 

When many of his disciples found this too hard to accept and “broke away,” Jesus challenged the Twelve like Joshua: “Do you want to leave me too?” That is when Peter came through:  

Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe; we are convinced that you are the Holy One of God! 

Yes! We build our lives on that. 

Love is oblation  

Ephesians 5:21-32 (or 5:2, 25-32): Many people today react to the line: “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord” the way those in the Gospel reacted to Christ’s teaching about Eucharist: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” For that reason the liturgy allows a “chicken” option that skips verses 21-24. But the alternate version adds verse 2, which resolves the problem: “Live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God.” The unexpurgated version begins: “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” 

Paul is simply saying that every Christian, man or woman, should be “given up” for every other, as Jesus was on the cross. Spousal love, he says, is the best image of Christ’s love for us, who are his Church, his Bride. Spouses minister to each other, each preferring, when possible, to say to the other as to the Father, “Thy will be done.” 

Insight: Do you see how Baptism and Eucharist are both “dying to live”? 

Initiative:  Welcome opportunities to declare your Christian stance. Begin with Mass.

Reflections brought to you by the Immersed in Christ Ministry

www.ImmersedinChrist.org