To Whom Shall We Go? – 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Joshua said to the people, “If it does not please you to serve the LORD, decide today whom you will serve” (today’s first reading)

We each have a choice to make.  Do we want to serve God or not?  

It would seem the obvious answer would be we will serve the Lord.  That’s Joshua’s answer when he responds to his own question with, “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

It is also the answer of the people, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD for the service of other gods.  For it was the LORD, our God, who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt, out of a state of slavery.  He performed those great miracles before our very eyes and protected us along our entire journey and among the peoples through whom we passed.  Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.”

They remembered, at least in this moment, all the things the Lord had done for them.  Remembering the Lord’s saving actions in their lives, they say they “will serve the Lord.”

But do they?

How many times throughout history have God’s people ceased to serve the Lord?  Sometimes people make a deliberate choice to do something that they know goes against what the Lord teaches us.  Have you?

At other times we can make a choice that turns us away from the Lord that we are not even aware of.  I think some of our most dangerous choices are the ones where we don’t even realize that we are making a choice that goes against the Lord.  This can start us down the slippery slope to outright sin.

It is not always easy to embrace what the Lord teaches us.  In recent weeks we have been hearing from Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse in chapter six of the Gospel of John.  He identifies himself as the living Bread that came down from Heaven.  He tells us that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood. 

Many of those who were present that day said, “This saying is hard, who can accept it?”

What Jesus says is hard to understand.  Thus, it is hard to accept.  “Does this shock you?”  We think it should be easy to follow Jesus.  In a world that rejects Jesus, following him is not easy.  In a world that wants proof for everything, it is not easy to accept what is beyond our knowing.  Are you willing to put forth the effort?  You have to make the effort but you don’t have to do it alone.  When you strive to follow Jesus, He will give you the grace you need.

It is hard to accept what Jesus teaches on his Real Presence in the Eucharist.  “As a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”

After they left, Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”

Of course, it was Simon Peter who answered with one of his better responses, “Master, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have to come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

Peter doesn’t claim to understand all that Jesus taught.  In fact, I think that in his response, he implicitly admits he doesn’t understand but he explicitly says that he does have faith, faith that Jesus Christ is “the Holy One of God.”

Do you claim to understand everything the Lord teaches us?

I don’t and I don’t expect to.

What I do know is that “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit he saves.”  I listen to the stories in the Bible of how God has saved his people over and over.  I think of how the Lord has blessed me.  From this, “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall be ever in my mouth.”

We all have choices to make.  We don’t always make good choices.  When we make bad choices, we repent, confess our sins, and are grateful that Jesus loves us so much that He gave his life for us on the Cross.

Jesus Christ is “the Holy One of God.”

Peace,

Fr. Jeff