21st Sunday Ordinary Time August 25, 2024

Readings: Joshua 24:1-2, 15-17, 18, Ephesians 5:21-32, John 6:60-69

In today’s Gospel we are being asked to make a choice, as we are, to choose to follow Jesus or not. Will we choose to follow him for a while and see how things work out and if they don’t we can always opt out of our choice of him? So where do you and I stand? Jesus, like Joshua in the first reading, is offering us a choice: to follow him and serve God and therefore experience real life, joy and happiness. We can, as Christians choose to turn away from Jesus because we feel the demands are too much.

If we are honest, we can all say that at times when the demands of following Jesus were too much, we might have turned back but soon realised we were always loved and accepted and forgiven for whatever wrong we did and we started off again trying to be faithful. In our world today there are many reasons to turn away from Jesus including

1. An incorrect understanding of the gospel message
2. Negative witnessing by followers of Jesus, i.e scandalising behaviour from other Christians.
3. The powerful attractions of seductive world, which are not compatible with the Christian vision etc.

Ultimately faith is not simply a set of ideas to be held on to. It is a living relationship with a person, Jesus. This relationship – through the Mass, prayer, the sacraments and the help of the powerful Holy Spirit – we can grow and deepen our relationship. There are many people in our world who don’t follow Jesus: Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews etc. Many of them have been brought to a high degree of union with God through their faith. But we have chosen to follow Jesus. Experience teaches us that all Jesus promises in the gospels have been confirmed in our lives. No other vision has given me a meaning for life as the one of Jesus has.

Personally, I value his friendship, his accepting of my weaknesses and helping me to get up again when I fall. Like Peter, I too can honestly say “Lord to whom shall I go, you have the message of eternal life. I believe and I know that you are the Holy One of God”. What about you? Will you stay or go away?

Fr. Terry,