Homily for 25 August by Fr. Kevin Walsh

Jesus’ listeners acknowledge that the words he speaks are hard for them to hear. Some choose to leave. This prompts Jesus to ask the twelve if they want to leave and the response given by Peter powerfully resonates within us as Peter tells Jesus: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life?”

Pause. Let’s not hurry on. Living in tough times one might be tempted to want Jesus to make everything easy but that’s not the way it is.

So we ponder Peter’s response and consider what it means for us to say: “To whom shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.”

The first and second reading give us messages that remind us, as does the monastic tradition, it’s not all about getting my way, having others do my bidding, getting God and everyone else to follow my plan. Joshua is offering in one sense farewell remarks that draw attention to God’s fidelity asking if there is a willingness to follow God’s way. He pointedly tells them – choose whom you will serve. It brings us to review how we engage with God. God gave his people the land of Canaan but they had to drive out the Canaanite people to occupy it and Joshua never quite accomplished that so his address brings him to have to acknowledge God has kept his part of the arrangement, confessing that his efforts have been wanting. It all brings Joshua to clearly say God is always faithful to us.

Paul is offering a teaching that has a very solid grounding in the lived relationships of spouses. To submit to another out of love for God is going to ask more of a person than they may want to give if their hope is for an easy path. It catches our attention that Paul says he is applying this mystery to Christ and the church. So this particular married couple or that particular married may want to reflect on Paul’s words from their particular and unique relationship, however Paul invites us to look at the church as the bride of Christ and see this passage as a call to become more, in the grace that is offered to us by Jesus, as the loving spouse of the believing people. Every married couple will tell you a marriage only survives if each one offers patience, forgiveness, encouragement, and support to the other. In what ways do we experience a call to be submissive to our spouse, Jesus?

So we return to Jesus and his twelve responding to the question – do you also want to leave, and we make this a contemporary dialogue between Jesus and us. There’s no question Jesus is inviting us into a relationship that is not for the duration of a couple of weeks, a couple of months or a couple of years. Everlasting. Eternal. For all time. In every season of this life and on through death and beyond death. Resist the temptation to think an abbreviated arrangement is being offered or see it as a limited time offer. Monastic living takes us into a much fuller understanding of time. We’re speaking of eternal here. The social order teaches us about making goals for the next week or decade. We are being invited into thinking not from the social order but from a faith perspective. As this passage brings us to understand, the relationship Jesus is proposing we engage in, it has to mean that the old way of living in relationship is over. It has to go and what is going to be is unfolding, but calls us to trust, because it isn’t all crystal clear. A career path and a vocation are not the same. As we consider the readings this morning, we see clearly God’s people in the Old Testament are on a journey to the promised land. As they go along, they come to realize that it is much more than traveling from one geographical location to another.

Faith brings us together this morning to affirm our belief in Jesus as the Christ who is offering us his own body and blood as the nourishment that will enable us to continue as we make this journey home to the Father. Think of the psalm refrain we we sang, ‘taste and see the goodness of the Lord’. The Lord is nothing but honest, this isn’t an easy path. However, it is clear that the relationship we are being offered will bring us into the everlasting life that God wishes to share with us for all eternity.