The ones who walk away, and those who stay
The ones who walk away, and those who stay
A homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Readings: Joshua 24:1–2a, 15–17, 18b, Ephesians 5:21–32, John 6:60–69
Today’s readings are about choices—the hard choices we all have to make.
We just heard from two people with similar names. That name is Yeshua in Hebrew. Yeshua is where we get both Joshua and Jesus.
So what does Joshua have to say to the people of God in the Old Testament today? Remember, that Joshua was the successor of Moses. He saw the Israelites worshipping false gods and betraying the Lord. So he offered them a choice: if you don’t want to serve the Lord, then serve the gods of Egypt or Canaan or wherever.
We have no shortage of false gods either. We like to think we don’t practice idolatry because we’re not melting our jewelry into a golden calf, but we have idols all the same. Money, power, politics, celebrities, and the most unforgiving of all gods, our own appetites. Idols are everywhere.
So Joshua said: make a choice, but added “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” That’s one of the most striking lines in the entire Old Testament. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
Jesus asked the people to make a choice as well. The choice was to follow him and his hard teachings, and he did it in a particularly shocking way. He told them they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, or they have no life within them.
In today’s gospel he goes ever further, and says even the flesh is not enough, unless you have the spirit as well. Flesh and spirit together, though, give us Jesus. The incarnation. True God. True man. Salvation. And he offered it all to them.
And they just–couldn’t. In the time of Joshua, people probably walked away as well. But the people in John’s gospel had just seen Jesus multiply enough food to feed thousands. They saw a miracle, but they wouldn’t follow him any further. The spirit was not with them, and so when he talked about his saving flesh, his eucharistic body, it was too much. They left.
And then he turned to Peter, and asked if the apostles will also walk away. Peter says, “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.”
That’s it. As simple and as direct as the words of Joshua. Thousands saw the multiplication of the loaves. A tiny handful stayed behind, and followed the path all the way to the end.
These choices aren’t limited to the Judean countryside thousands of years ago. These are choices we made this morning, when we got up to come here. Choices we’ll make after we leave mass, and tomorrow, and in every moment for the rest of our lives.
Saying yes to something–means saying no to something else.
How many hard sayings have we heard? I hear something I don’t like, or I’m asked to do some task I don’t want to do, or learn some unpleasant truth about myself, and I turn away. The thing I hear is true, or the task is right, or the thing in my life needs to be changed, but I just don’t want to know.
So when we’re faced with those hard choices, we already know the answer. The path each of us must follow is already written on our heart. It was etched there permanently at our baptism.
That path was going to wind, and twist, and pass through sunlight and shadow, but it was always meant to end in the same place, when our eyes close on this world for that last time, and open again on the face of Christ.
The right path is here, but we still follow paths of our own choosing. People are still walking away from Jesus. Look at the number of Catholics who no longer practice their faith, including many of our own loved ones. We have to keep seeking those lost sheep, and telling them what Jesus tried to tell them in the Gospel today, which is this:
The bread I multiplied for you? That’s not the food you need. I AM the food you need. The real bread? It’s my body and my blood. It’s going to become my presence here in the world, and if you eat it, you shall never die. This isn’t a parable or a metaphor. It’s really my body and blood, just like the bread I multiplied, only it’s me, and it will feed you–forever.
And they walked away anyway. I don’t blame them. I don’t. We know how the story ends—we know about the resurrection—and it’s still hard to take.
The world has been walking away from Jesus and his eucharistic body from the very beginning, and it will go on walking away.
But back then, on that day, the core of his followers remained—and they went on to see him rise from the dead. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, they told others the story. They explained what this great man–who was more than a man–had told them about the bread of life. And they spoke the words, just like Father will speak them in a moment, and this time, people didn’t walk away. Or if they did, as I did and maybe as you did, they came back.
Do we ever ask ourselves why we come back? With all challenges of life and all the scandals in the church, it’s certainly easier to walk away. But we’ve chosen the better part, because we know this is where He is present. We’ve chosen the one who has the words of eternal life. The holy one of God. And now it’s our turn to stand and follow him, to tell others the story, and let the world know that we and our houses will serve the one true God—and no other.