21st Sunday in Ordinary Time of the Year

Readings: Joshua 24:1-2,15-18; Psalm 33:2-3;16-23; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69

THEME: WHY THE CHOICE OF GOD?

a. MAKE YOUR CHOICE
Dearest in Christ, in the first reading, Joshua gathered the people of Israel, and urged them to choose between God and other gods. During the time of Joshua, Israel was still struggling to alienate herself from polytheism of their forefathers and the people surrounding them and to establish God as the only true God they had. It was never easy for the people. 

From time to time, they saw themselves falling back to polytheism or henotheism. It was in this circumstance that Joshua, towards the end of his life, just like his predecessor, Moses did, summoned the people in order to remind them that the choice of serving God must be constantly made. In speaking to the people of Israel, Joshua asked them to choose either the Lord God, or the gods of their forefathers or the gods of other nations (the Amorites). We can derive the following from these words of Joshua to the people of Israel:

1. Joshua made it clear to the people that they must belong to somewhere. If one is not serving the Lord, he/she is serving something else even without knowing it. Some people will tell you, “I do not go to Church again, and I do not belong to any altar. I will henceforth be on my won.” Man cannot be on his own, dearest in Christ. 

When you dismount the altar of God in your life, a lot of forces begin to erect many other altars in your life even without you knowing it. If you are not serving God, you are serving another thing. The question is: what are you really serving?

2. Joshua did not deny the existence of other deities worshipped by other people. That Israel held God as the only true God did not mean that it was so for other nations. Hence, they had to constantly be choosing either to keep one single altar for God, or to add other altars for other deities recognized by nations around them. As Christians, we must know that a lot of other forces exist. This will help us to know at whose side we are at each point in time.

3. There were deities previously worshipped by Israelites’ forefathers. But since the knowledge of One True God has been communicated and handed over to them, going back to the deities of their forefathers would mean going back to the days of ignorance of God and mockery of the Reality before them. Their forefathers worshipped those deities because they were not informed. 

Hence, they had so to speak no guilt because of the things they did during such worships. But for the younger generation to go back
to the worship of the deities worshipped by their forefathers, since they now lived in the full knowledge of the True God and have been brought to His Existence, it will be choosing between the True God and the mirage of their forefathers. 

b. WE CHOOSE YOU, GOD
After hearing Joshua’s speech, the people of Israel acclaimed, “”Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods; (Jos. 24:16 NRS). However, it was not enough for people to say, “we choose God”, because any decision or choice made has its motivations. The question then is, “what were the motivations behind the decision of the people of Israel, choosing God and not any other deity?”

 In Exodus 20:3-6, God commanded the people of Israel, his personally chosen people, not to have any other gods beside him nor bow down to any other thing outside himself. But in listing the motivations behind the people’s choice of serving God, they did not say, “we have to do that because God himself commands it”. 

They rather listed all their experiences of God, that is, the things they have seen in their lives which were nothing but God’s handwork: God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt; God who led and preserved them throughout their journey through the desert; God who fought for them against their enemies, including the Amorites.

Dearest in Christ, it is not enough to say, “I choose God”. If the motivations behind our choosing God, our choice of being Christians are not coming from our experience of God, our acknowledgement of God’s hands in our lives, then we do not have strong foundations to stand
our decision. 

c. EVEN IN DIFFICULTY, REMAIN WITH JESUS THE LORD!
In the gospel reading, many of Jesus’ disciples left him because they found it difficult to understand why Jesus would give them his flesh and blood to eat and drink. Jesus turned to the twelve and said to them “what about you, do you want to go away too?” Simon Peter then replied “to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know that you are the Holy One of God”. 

The motivation behind Peter’s and the other eleven disciples’ continuing following of Jesus was because they believed that only him has the message of eternal life. Hence, even if the teaching about Jesus’Body and Blood were difficult for them to accept, they could not live him because outside Jesus, every other thing is false. 

This is also true for us, dearest in Christ. Sometimes God brings something to us to challenge our faith and our following of him. What do we do in such situation? Do we turn back and leave, stopping our following of Jesus or do we, just like the Twelve, say to him “Dear Lord, even though I find it difficult to understand this aspect of my faith and your reality, even though I find it difficult to understand why so much suffering, difficulties and pain in my life not minding that I serve you with all my being, I am not giving up on you….I am not abandoning you…I will continue to follow you because outside you, everything is meaningless.”

Furthermore, Jesus did not bother that some of his disciples were leaving him. He did not even try to change his teaching regarding his Body and Blood or to make it lighter so that his followers would come back to him. He just allowed them to leave. Some elements of our faith, dear brothers and sisters, cannot be made lighter than they are. Some of us find some teaches of the Church and some Bible passages offensive that they would wish either to water them down or to remove such teaches completely. 

But Jesus shows us today that it does not work that way. In things concerning the truth, it is either one accepts it the way it is or he leaves
it and walks away. When we find somethings about life, church, and even God difficult to understand, the best attitude is not to turn away from God but to continue following Jesus like the Twelve did because not everything is meant to be grasped by out human faculties, but God knows the reason for everything that happens.

Rev. Fr. Henry Chukwuezugo Nnamah
Catholic Diocese of Aguleri.