First Reading – Joshua 24:1-2, 15-18;
Second Reading –
Gospel – Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69
Faith, a gift of God, serves to lift up our soul and spirit above material and corporeal contingencies. It is to this supernatural attitude that Jesus tries to lead his disciples. Faith is a supernatural virtue which resides in our intellect: faith requires some human support, that of our human knowledge, a knowledge which may consist of simple ideas, but which is often made up of more or less elaborate judgments. Faith is always a matter of choice. We choose to believe in persons, in institutions, in values and causes. All our real and good relationships, our good commitments arise out of such choices. This process of faith invariably involves certain amount of risk. To believe in nothing and go ahead as if nothing exists is the end of the path and thus a type of death. Our life in order to progress demands a risk of each one of us. In the Gospel we have Peter who makes the choice and the commitment on behalf of the disciples in a time of change and tension. He sees the wavering of their faith and commitment to Jesus and moving away from him and speaks boldly on behalf of the twelve of their loyalty and faith in him.
In the first reading of today, Joshua declares that he and his household serve only the Lord. The passage tells us that the people of God had just entered the Promised Land. For all outward appearances the conquest of Canaan was complete. The people already living there had their own gods, the gods who may have looked very attractive to the Israelites. Joshua has called together the elders, leaders, judges and scribes of Israel and presented them with a choice: either they could continue to serve the God who brought them out of Egypt and through the desert to the land where they were now settled, or they could adopt the gods of the Amorites whose land they had conquered for themselves. The choice was very crucial in the sense that the people had already shown their infidelity to God and to Moses. Under the leadership of Joshua and at the thresh hold of Promised Land they had to make the choice. Of course there was no real choice for them.
In today’s second reading Paul shows the Ephesians the right way, namely of unity with each other in Christ. He tells them to be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven them. Christ emptied himself even to death out of love for his Father and his brothers and sisters. Therefore, it was not surprising that Paul would tell Christians to be subordinate to one another. In the light of Paul’s statement about Christ, it becomes clear that husbands are to be just as subordinate to their wives as wives to their husbands, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. As the Church is subject to Christ, the husband is subject to his wife and wife to the husband. The husband will fulfill his role as the head when he serves his wife just as Christ gave himself in service to the building up of the church. All these truths have been revealed to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the writing of the sacred Scriptures.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus challenges first the Jewish audience, and then his own apostles, to make their choice of accepting the New Covenant Jesus offers in His Body and Blood or joining those who have lost their Faith and left Jesus, expressing their confusion and doubts about His claims. Today’s passage describes the various reactions of the people to Jesus’ claims. As Joshua spoke to his followers, Jesus speaks to the twelve apostles and gives them the option of leaving or staying on as disciples. Peter, their spokesman, asks Jesus how they can turn to anyone else – Jesus is the only one who has the message of eternal life. The apostles exercise their freedom of choice by choosing to stay with Jesus. In the Eucharistic celebration, we, like Peter, are called to make a decision, profess our Faith in God’s Son, then accept and live out the New Covenant sealed in Jesus’ Blood, in Jesus’ life, death and in Jesus’ Resurrection.
The same option or possibility of choosing for or against Jesus is repeated in the modern age. We should resolve to take a stand for Jesus and accept the consequences. We recognize, in our going to Communion our acceptance of that challenge to be totally one with Jesus. When the priest gives us Holy Communion saying, “The Body of Christ,” we respond, “Amen.” That “Amen,” that “Yes,” is not just an act of faith in the Real Presence; it is a total commitment of ourselves to Jesus in the community of which we are members. We must accept him totally, without any conditions or reservations. Christ’s thoughts and attitudes, values, and life-view must become totally ours, and must govern and shape our lives.