It is the last Sunday of our excursion into John 6. The full truth of Christ’s teaching has to be reckoned with. Those who think His language intolerable reacted strongly to Him. How could He? How dare He?
We can appreciate the Jews’ reaction because we also have a similar experience. We are more and more conscious of past injustice and the world has embarked upon a noble quest to redress historical wrongs. Coupled with the need to right past wrongs, we seem to be in a state of being offended by the past. Recently an actor remarked that it is no longer possible to make comedies because they would offend people. These days, nobody can say anything without somebody being offended.
Remember the scene where Jesus He drew in the sand? He was surrounded by a horde ready to stone an adulterous woman. He looked up and saw no one except the outcast. He comforted her gently by saying that since nobody dared to cast the first stone neither would He condemn her. But most crucially, He did not simply let her go. Instead, He challenged her to sin no more. In short, Jesus comforts but He also challenges.
This is important because we have a Jesus who tried to convince the crowd against crowning Him King. Instead of providing earthly strength, He would grant them the stamina for eternity. The only criterion was for them to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. They could not accept Him. But Jesus was not offended that all but the Twelve abandoned Him.
Christianity is a religion of the cross-roads. We have to choose. And in some cases, our choice will offend even the gentlest of people. A good example is the teaching of St Paul in the 2nd Reading. According to the Apostle, the glue that holds together a couple is the love of Christ. In this relationship, a wife is to obey her husband. A husband is to love his wife. In this era, what many would find objectionable is the instruction for a woman to obey her husband. In an epoch where equality is everything, how dare a priest preach this?
The barrier to appreciating this Pauline teaching is the word “obey”. Many are unable to see beyond such a subjugating connotation of the word. What if the obedience is actually one side of the coin only? If a wife is to obey a husband, the reciprocal demand is that the man should sacrifice himself for the wife. Obedience and sacrifice are two sides of the coin of mutuality. Both are engaged in mutual self-donation. How cool is that? If a man demands obedience from the wife, he should be the first lay down his life for her. A man whose idea of life is to sacrifice for his wife is not going to be a tyrant.
In the 1st Reading, Joshua presented the people of Israel the option of how they want to live. It was no longer Moses who headed them but as they were poised to enter the Promised Land, the people must choose. Our challenge today is not really about choice. The word “choice” suggests that one can choose. Closer to the truth is not that we choose or can choose but rather it is God who must choose.
Apart from being easily offended, our ultimatum to God is that He should acquiesce to our lifestyle. We determine how we should live and God’s role is to be the rubber stamp. Remember how Jesus who sent the woman away also challenged her not to sin.
But look at opening act at the recently concluded Paris Olympics. They parodied the Last Supper of Christ in the name of diversity and inclusion. The last time, a cartoonish made fun of another major religion, cities got burnt in Europe. To add insult to injury, the spokeswoman gave a press release where she seemingly “apologised” to those who felt offended. Judging from this episode, God is supposed to accept the way we live and not the other way round. God gives us commandments and I am quite certain that they are not DEI, that is, diversity, equity and inclusion. The commandments may support the values of DEI but make no mistake that they are not the diversity, equity and inclusion of sin. In fact, all the commandments exclude sin of any kind from our behaviour.
It was not just the crowd who found Christ’s language intolerable. His Disciples too. Many of them could not stomach the truth in Christ’s command to eat His Flesh and drink His Blood. All of them abandoned Him. Jesus did not run after them to correct their misconception. Instead, He turned around to Peter and the Eleven and asked if they too would like to depart from Him.
Peter spoke for the Eleven and thereafter, through the centuries, his voice rings out for the Church: “To Whom shall we go, you have the Word of eternal life”. The Church has stood and continues to stand as the instrument to make present Christ so that those who receive Holy Communion regularly, might have access to eternity. The reality remains that each one of us might not always make the decision for Jesus Christ. We will fumble, fail and fall which means the decision for Him has to be made again and again and again. To choose Him is an act we must renew on a daily basis. This last bit of John Gospel is no longer about the establishment of the belief in the True Presence but rather it becomes our reckoning. Where do we stand? With God or without Him?
