The world these days presents many of us with a dizzying array of options. It can be paralyzing to choose from so many opportunities. Today’s reflection reminds us that now more than ever we need the wisdom to discern—and that a critical guide to our discernment is Jesus’ call to give our lives completely to loving one another.

August 25th, 2024: Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
Joshua 24:1-2, 15-17, 18b
Psalm 34:2-3, 16-21
Ephesians 5:21-32
John 6:60-69

Whom Will I Serve?

A reflection by Ann Penick

I believe the readings this week indicate the importance of using wisdom and discernment. I understand discernment as the ability to know the difference between the real deals and the fakes. It is the ability to see the goodness of God wherever it is found in the world. Jesus is the real deal. He invites us to discern: taste the bread from heaven and see God’s goodness.

For the past number of Sundays, Jesus has been challenging the disciples. This Sunday he is even more challenging. Jesus talked of ascending, of eating his body and drinking his blood, and of the Spirit giving life. This confused many of the disciples. Yet, Jesus was clear this was not cannibalism in any way, but a deepening of the tradition of the divine gift of manna. Still, many disciples rejected this. They threw up their hands saying it was too hard to continue following Jesus. Why does Jesus articulate these difficult truths? Whenever a passage in the Scriptures does not seem to make complete sense, it’s usually because it has a deeper meaning and should not be taken out of context or taken literally. Jesus is requiring the disciples to have a total commitment of faith—and loses a lot of them because they don’t understand and this seems too much of a burden. It’s a radical choice. Jesus challenged the audience to believe in the one true God who had manifested in these sacred gifts of nourishment. For those disciples who remained, Peter speaks for them (and for us), saying we will not forsake Jesus, who has the words of eternal life. And, alas, we have nowhere else to go for such a gift!

Joshua confronts the people of Israel in the first reading with the same kind of choice Jesus gives the disciples. The Israelites were tempted to serve other gods because they were in a new land occupied by a people who worshipped idols. Joshua challenged them to serve only God, and they accepted the challenge (at least at that time!).

The second reading is from the Letter to the Ephesians and opens a whole Pandora’s box! The language and indeed the whole message seems very troubling! “Wives be submissive to their husbands…” Yikes! Ouch! Gender power grab. Inferiority. Abuse. Patriarchy. This all needs to be unpacked in a whole other conversation and reflection about context, Mediterranean cultural and social norms during Biblical times, and that deeper meaning behind the language which cannot be reduced to a literal understanding.

Here is my take on why the Church has, for this Sunday, placed this reading with the passage from Joshua and the gospel. The primary message is that followers of Jesus are called to serve by laying down their lives for one another. This is radical choice.

Jesus challenges us to remain faithful to the one God. We don’t have to look far to see there are many in the world who worship other gods—the gods of power, money, unbridled pleasure, total comfort, absolute security, and self-interest. Picture yourself as one of Jesus’ disciples at the time when Jesus asked, “Do you also want to leave?” Would I be one of the disciples who returned to their former way of life, or would I have stayed?  Can there be a middle ground?

What does Pope Francis say was the obstacle or the reason those disciples left Jesus?

"Jesus’s words enkindled great scandal: he was saying that God decided to manifest and accomplish salvation in the weakness of human flesh. It is the mystery of the incarnation. The incarnation of God is what provoked scandal and presented an obstacle for those people—but often for us, too. Indeed, Jesus affirms that the true bread of salvation, which transmits eternal life, is his very flesh; that to enter into communion with God, before observing the laws or satisfying religious precepts, it is necessary to live out a real and concrete relationship with him. Because salvation came from him, in his incarnation.
This means that one must not pursue God in dreams and in images of grandeur and power, but must recognize [God] in the humanity of Jesus and, as a consequence, in that of the brothers and sisters we meet on the path of life. God became flesh…"

Angelus for the 21st Sunday Ordinary Time B, August 22, 2021

Both the first reading and the gospel invite us to decide whom we will serve. It takes wisdom and discernment. The decision is based on our knowledge and experiences of what God has done for us, and our relationship with Jesus. Sometimes we follow Jesus without full understanding or without complete conviction. But, like Peter, we know that there is no other to whom we would rather go.

My hope is that despite the allurement of a changing world we will be able to discern the peace of God’s Reign which this world cannot give. The choice that confronted those disciples now confronts us: Whose values will we live—the ones of the world or the ones Jesus presents before us? Will we stay with Jesus or not? May we decide—along with Joshua and the people of Israel, and with Peter: “We will serve our God!”

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