Ordinary Time Sunday 21 (Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

[cappie]

This Sunday's Mass readings conclude a four-week meditation on the Eucharist.

The 12 apostles in today's Gospel are asked to make a choice -- either to believe and accept the new covenant He offers in His body and blood, or return to their former ways of life.

Their choice is prefigured by the decision Joshua asks the 12 tribes to make in today's First Reading.

Joshua gathers them at Shechem -- where God first appeared to their father Abraham, promising to make his descendants a great nation in a new land (see Genesis 12:1-9). And he issues a blunt challenge -- either renew their covenant with God or serve the alien gods of the surrounding nations.
We too are being asked today to decide whom we will serve. For four weeks we have been presented in the liturgy with the mystery of the Eucharist -- a daily miracle far greater than those performed by God in bringing the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.

In this Sunday's Gospel (John 6:60-69),  when Jesus finishes speaking about himself as the "living bread that came down from heaven," many people react with disbelief and disapproval. "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
 
While we would have expected those who were critical of Jesus to respond in that way, we would have assumed that his followers, who had just seen Jesus feed thousands with a few loaves and fish, would have accepted his teaching.
 
Instead we are told that many of the disciples of Jesus reacted negatively. Instead of applauding their teacher, they were murmuring about his message. "Who can accept it?"
 
As a result of the words that Jesus spoke "many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him." Jesus was abandoned by a good number of his disciples. That may have been a surprise to his apostles, yet apparently not to Jesus. He knew that his message would be rejected by many. As John tells us in his Gospel, "Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe."
 
Today many disciples of Jesus also walk away from him. They no longer gather with their fellow Christians to hear his word proclaimed and preached. They consider his voice just one voice among many vying for attention. They see the Eucharist as something far less than his very Body and Blood and not worth their attendance at Mass. They allow their moral standards to be set by a changing society with fluid definitions of right and wrong. They forget that the Cross of Jesus calls us to sacrifice for others and to put the will of God before our own.
 
Many Christians are walking away from Jesus since they find his teachings increasingly hard to accept and to live out in a society that keeps sinking deeper into sin, self-centeredness, consumerism, and immorality. A society that Pope Francis describes as having a "throwaway culture" where all things are considered disposable even the unborn, the poor, the powerless, the elderly, and the sick.
 
The more our society becomes post-Christian, the more it becomes secular, materialistic, narcissistic, and addicted to sensual pleasure, the more the teachings of Jesus and of his Church seem out of step and suited for another age.
 
As this happens, some people who claim to be Christians do the unexpected. Like many of the disciples of Jesus in Sunday's Gospel, they walk away. They no longer accompany Jesus. They decide to embrace the values of the society around them and reject those of Jesus Christ.
 
In the face of such faithlessness, may we never forget what Peter told Jesus when he was asked if he would also leave, "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."