+ J. M. J. +
Homily Outline for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Today we come to the climax of Jesus’ teaching on the great mystery of the Eucharist.
People grumbled at this hard teaching, and He responded by re-emphasizing His
point: we are to gnaw His flesh and gulp His blood, they are true food, and
without them we have no life within us. EVEN
Jesus’ own disciples struggled with this teaching, “This saying is hard, who
can accept it?” If Jesus was going to
step back and render symbolic His statements, here was His chance. Many times
He had pulled the disciples aside to explain the significance of a parable, but
not today: “Does this shock you?” He said, and turning to the Twelve, his
closest collaborators, these men He has called by name and formed with love and
patience, turning to them He said, “Do you also want to leave?”
Let that sink in for a moment: Jesus
is not only ready to see the crowds turn away; He is not only willing to see
the disciples turn away. Jesus is willing to have the Twelve turn
aside if they will not accept this strange and unsettling teaching: unless
we eat His Body and drink His Blood, we have no life within us. Jesus is Himself the Truth, and He can only
speak the Truth, and so He must teach those He loves the Truth, even when it is
difficult, even when it is surprising, even when it is likely to be rejected.
Jesus teaches us with such courage
and fortitude, with such love, because He is preparing us to enter into the New
Covenant in His Blood. A Covenant is not merely a contract, an exchange of
services; rather it is a permanent co-mingling of lives, a bond even unto
death. A Covenant draws us into commitments that are beyond our unaided power,
to a love that is stronger than death.
God sealed a covenant with Abraham, and with Moses on Mount Sinai. God
called the People of Israel to Himself and told them that He would be their
God, and they would be His people. When
Joshua gathered the tribes at Shechem after they had entered into the Land, he
once more placed a decision before them: God has chosen them, would they choose
the Lord? Joshua had made his choice,
“As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
God called them to be a Light to ALL
nations, and in the fullness of time, God came Himself into their midst. In Jesus Christ a New Covenant was sealed between
God and His people in the Blood of the Cross.
Jesus offered no animal, no grain offering, no tithe—He offered Himself, Body, Blood, Soul,
and Divinity on the Cross for us, thus bridging forever the chasm opened up by
our sins. By His stripes, by His
passion, we have been healed. God has
united Himself to us definitively, once for all, and what God has united, no
man can divide.
This is the awe-inspiring context for
St. Paul’s words to the Ephesians. Some claim this passage has been abused as
an excuse for men to mistreat their wives, while in our own time many have used
it as an excuse to ignore the Church’s teaching on marriage. Neither abuse of this passage has anything to
do with what St. Paul is teaching, and his first words make that clear: “Be subordinate to one another out of
reverence for Christ.” In the Greek
and Roman worlds, a woman was the property of her husband, and could be readily
dismissed at his prerogative. St. Paul rejects
this inhuman cultural situation and tells husbands and wives that they are to
surrender themselves to each other out of reverence for the Lord who
surrendered Himself to us. If anything,
it is men who are called to task, “Husbands, love your wives even as Christ
loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her.”
How did Christ love the Church? On the Cross, He offered Himself unto the
last breath, unto the last drop of sweat on His lacerated brow, unto the blood
and water that poured forth from His pierced side. Jesus offered Himself unto
the carrying of the Cross, unto His dying on the Cross, unto the cold and
silent tomb, and even unto Gehenna itself, where He shattered asunder the gates
of Hell. My brothers in Christ, whether you are a husband, or a boyfriend, or a
single man, or a boy, this is what our faith calls us to, and Jesus walked
before us on this path. Sisters in
Christ, how would you respond to a man who laid down his life completely, unto
the last breath for you? Could a man who
emptied himself completely for his wife ever lord it over her? Could he ever mistreat his wife and claim to
be following Christ? He could not.
This, then, is the covenant God has made
with us. He has wedded Himself for all eternity to His Bride, the Church, and
sealed this covenant by His own blood on the Cross. He submitted Himself to all things, to all
suffering on our behalf, and at every Mass this sacrifice and banquet feast is
re-presented. We are drawn into the sacrifice
of Calvary, and we are drawn into the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Marriage is the metaphor, and for most of us,
it is the path God has called us to.
Marriage is in great trouble in our land, perhaps your own marriage is
in trouble, but the path to healing and
truth passes through this altar from which we receive the Lamb of God, He who
takes away the sins of the World. This
Lamb’s teaching is mysterious, at times it is hard, at times it is not apparent
how it fits into our deeply wounded world.
And, yet, we are called to make a decision: the same decision Joshua put
before the Chosen People… the same choice Jesus put before the crowds, before
His disciples, and finally before the Twelve.
Will we leave Him? Will we follow
idols, or will we follow the One True God?
As he did so often, out of his own
weakness, St. Peter models for us the way forward, “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.”
Peter does not say, “Lord, it all makes sense to me, so I’ll follow
you.” He could not have understood in any full way how they were going to eat
the Lord’s Body and drink His Blood, but
he made the choice, he cast his lot with the Lord, he made the same choice
that Joshua did. May we make that choice
today, either for the first time, or once again. May Joshua’s words be our own, “As for me and my household, we will
serve the Lord.”
+ A. M. D. G. +
No comments:
Post a Comment