Below is the text of Fr. Joel’s Homily:
Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b
Ephesians 5: 21-32
John 6:60-69
Choices and decisions. That seems to be what comes across clearly as we listen to the Word today. Joshua challenges the whole people: Choose whom you will serve. Jesus has spoken; his words are seen as hard by some. Will you stick with him despite hard words or will you leave him at this point. Choices. What kind of relationship will ground a family, a husband and wife? Apparently, the Christian needs to live in the self-sacrifice of Christ. That is the value that is the action that guides all forms of relationships, even the intimate relations between wife and husband.
Today we finish our listening to the Gospel of John where Jesus identifies himself as the Bread of Life. (This year, Jesus’ Bread of Life discourse was interrupted last Sunday so we could celebrate a resurrection feast–something of a disadvantage in hearing all of what Jesus has to say). Now, today, we are allowed to hear the response to Jesus’ words. For the first time we get to hear the disciples’ response. They, too, begin to murmur and complain. And their complaint is that this is a hard saying. Who can accept it?
We have to ask ourselves, what is the hard saying Jesus has spoken and what makes it difficult to accept. If we are familiar with what Jesus has been saying up to this point, we can hazard a guess that it has something to do with Jesus giving his own flesh and blood to eat and drink. This is very graphic language and nowhere else in the New Testament is the relationship between Jesus and his followers put so sharply. It is so sharply put that it is almost offensive. For who really wants to hear about eating somebody’s flesh and drinking somebody’s blood. Of course, if we put it in the context of the Eucharistic meal we are familiar with, then it makes some sense. And we can understand it.
Just what is hard here? Is believing that Jesus identifies himself with the simple food of bread and wine so difficult? It does set off Christians from believers from other traditions. And it also marks different grades of Christians among themselves.
What makes such a saying hard? It might have something to do with the contrast between life and death. The choice in the end is a matter of life or death. Jesus has been telling us all along that the bread that will give life is his flesh for the life of the world. What will give sustenance and life to you and I and beyond to the world itself is his own death. It is in his dying that he will become life for the world. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to most people that the death of a person will bring life to others. In general, most people don’t approach death as a source of life. Jesus hints that the food he will give will be the product of the real flesh and blood offering of himself. Just as the sacrifices of the temple involved real flesh and blood, so Jesus’ own death will involve his flesh and blood. When Jesus starts talking about death in such a new way this is disturbing. And so some followers start leaving. When the leader starts talking about dying in some generous act that will be of service to the whole world, this is something utterly new. The implications of it for us are drastic as well.
When the Gospel reports that many followers leave Js at this point, it is only reflecting what happens when Jesus actually meets his own death. The story is clear, the twelve, apparently faithful, are certainly not united at that point. One decides to make money and is paid to hand him over. The leader of the group denies Jesus and the rest pretty much run away. The prospect of Jesus dying suddenly changes the nature of people’s fidelity. Who will stick with a dying hero? If Jesus’ way of life leads to death, what might happen to you or me?
All the words we have heard from Jesus’ Bread of Life teaching have been about God’s revelation that we will find life in the midst of death. What Jesus has been talking about is a new kind of life that does not come to an end. But this new kind of life without end is only had by sharing in the very death of Jesus. To share in the flesh given for the sake of the world is to find yourself on the road to life. Remember how many times Jesus says that the bread given before did not save from death. Your ancestors ate this bread but they are dead. Eat my bread and you will live forever. Whoever feeds on me will live forever.
If we live our lives from a perspective that tries so hard to keep life and death separated, far apart from one another, then this is a hard saying of Jesus. To accept Jesus’ word means to accept that God has filled death with life. If we accept Jesus’ word then we no longer try to keep death and life apart. Instead, we are willing to believe that God can take care of us, can feed us with a death that is filled with life. The broken body of Jesus, Jesus life spilled out, is what we share in. And by sharing in it, we touch life at its deepest level.
There is no doubt that Jesus is talking about his disciples gathering to remember him in the breaking of bread and the drinking from the cup. Jesus is talking about Eucharist. He is talking about what we are about right now and each Sunday. He is offering to us again and again, the hard thing he was about—it is in dying that one lives. He is talking about the foolishness of the cross; the symbol of oppression and violent death becomes the place where God shows his wisdom, expresses his love. In the Bread and Cup which is Jesus’ life blood poured out for the sake of the world, there is a power and a spirit that does not die.
At the Eucharist, we are establishing a link with a life and power that do not end. At the Eucharist, we are setting the course and direction of our lives. It is not just a question of whether Jesus is present to us or not. He is present. But what kind of presence is he offering us? And are we willing to accept that? Are we willing to accept that God has filled this man’s death with Spirit and power and love? Are we willing to accept that a life freely given for the sake of others is the only model and pattern for our life here?
We are like the community Joshua has assembled; we are like the disciples who have followed Jesus up to this point. But now there is a choice to be made, yes and a hard one. There are options. Joshua spells them out: you can look to the past, to the good old days, where you thought it was safe (do what your ancestors did), or you can live in the present and allow the values and norms, the lords of your society and culture, like individualism, consumerism, success, self-righteousness, and my-way-is-the-only-way be what you follow, or you can reverence Christ and hand over your life in self-giving out of faithful love so that others may be cherished, set free and nourished in the Spirit.
The Eucharist is a dangerous act. It is an act of faith that God fills death with life in the shape of self-sacrificing love. It is an act of faith that says that God does this completely in Jesus, who is God’s Holy One. It is an act of faith that says: in this eating and drinking, I am making a commitment toward living forever, for in this bread and cup lie the love and freedom all humanity longs to know.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB