St. Dominic Catholic Church

Homilies

August 26, 2018 - 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

For five weeks we have listened to the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John.

First Jesus multiplied five barley loaves and two fish and fed a crowd of over 5,000.

The next day when the crowd caught up to him in the synagogue at Capernaum, he told them that they looked for him because they wanted more bread.

Contrasting himself with the manna that came down from heaven and sustained the wandering Israelites for forty years, he said, “I am the bread of life.  The one who comes to me shall not hunger, and the one who believes in my will never thirst.” 

Here, he fulfills what was said through the prophet Isaiah, “ listen to me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare.” (Is 55:2)

Here, he sounds like Wisdom in the book of Proverbs who said, “Come, eat of my food, and drink of the wine I have mixed!” (Prov. 9:5)

But he shocks the crowd by claiming, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven;…Whoever eatsmy flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day.” (6:51, 54)

 

This is too much for them to accept.

The language he uses is graphic, not the normal word used for human eating, but that which describes how animals devour their food.

The crowd evaporates, disgusted and confused, and Jesus asks the Twelve, “Will you also leave me?”

Our passage ends, not with the words of Jesus, but Simon Peter’s.

"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God.”

Earlier in the discourse, Jesus had said, “The work of God is this: to believe in Him whom He has sent.”  (6:29) 

So the Twelve believe in Jesus.

They may not understand what he is getting at, but they have seen and heard enough to know that nothing in this world surpasses being with Him.

 

This is the great challenge that Jesus gives us, and it is the challenge that every saint that has ever lived has accepted.

Not just to believe Jesus, but to believe in Jesus.

Simon Peter calls him, “Lord” – kyrios, in Greek.

This was an overturning of the Roman world in which Caesarwas lord.

When Simon Peter asks, “to whom shall we go?” he is saying, “I believe you’re God.”

Because God, and the relationship with Him, is the true goal of human life, and towards God is the direction that we are created to go.

 

The story of the Temptation in the garden of Eden identifies the warped reality that we have created, the “wrong turn” we all make.

The story of the fall describes the first act of idolatry.

This fundamental misdirection at the heart of our fallen nature is the desire to take the place of God ourselves.

“Eat this”, the Tempter promised, “and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.”

An idol is something or someone other than Godtowards which we go, and in which we place our trust.

We are not so much homo sapiens(wise men) as homo idolicus (idolatrous men).

God made us for Himself, He placed in us a desire for Him and his infinite goodness, truth and beauty.

But instead of ordering our lives toward Him, we look for the satisfaction of our infinite desire in His finite creation.

Instead of going to the Lord, we go all over, seeking the satisfaction of our hearts in all manner of things notJesus.

 

“It is the spirit that gives life,while the flesh is of no avail.” Jesus says.

But we are attracted by the flesh – by the things that are fleeting: pleasure, power, fame, wealth.

We don’t say with Simon Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”

If we did, we would never miss Mass.

We would never fail to come to this encounter with Jesus in his word and his body and blood, humanity and divinity.

Nothing would interfere with our daily prayer, in which we seek spiritual communion with our Creator.

 

Because we tend to be directed toward ourselves, rather than God, we cannot love properly.

God, who has need of nothing, is able to simply desire the good of another, without wanting something in return.

In this love, the Son of God became submissive – that is, he lowered himself to share our humanity and died for us.

When St. Paul says, “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ,” he is not saying allow your spouse to dominate you.

He is saying, “love like Jesus, God incarnate, loves.”

And this we can do only if we are “going to God,” only if we are eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood, only if he frees us from the idols that enslave us with their false promises of satisfying our infinite longings.

Only if we believe inJesus and make him the center of our life and the goal of our life.

This is what it means to truly be a Christian; anything less and we are lying to ourselves. 

Anything less, and we are spiritually dead.