21st Sunday In Ordinary Time
23 August 2009
First reading Joshua 24:1-2,15-18
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel together at Shechem; then he called the elders, leaders, judges and scribes of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Then Joshua said to all the people, ‘If you will not serve the Lord, choose today whom you wish to serve, whether the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are now living. As for me and my House, we will serve the Lord.’
The people answered, ‘We have no intention of deserting the Lord and serving other gods! Was it not the Lord our God who brought us and our ancestors out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery, who worked those great wonders before our eyes and preserved us all along the way we travelled and among all the peoples through whom we journeyed? What is more, the Lord drove all those peoples out before us, as well as the Amorites who used to live in this country. We too will serve the Lord, for he is our God.’
Psalm or canticle: Psalm 33:2-3,16-23
Second reading Ephesians 5:21-32
Give way to one another in obedience to Christ. Wives should regard their husbands as they regard the Lord, since as Christ is head of the Church and saves the whole body, so is a husband the head of his wife; and as the Church submits to Christ, so should wives to their husbands, in everything. Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy. He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words, so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless. In the same way, husbands must love their wives as they love their own bodies; for a man to love his wife is for him to love himself. A man never hates his own body, but he feeds it and looks after it; and that is the way Christ treats the Church, because it is his body – and we are its living parts. For this reason, a man must leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one body. This mystery has many implications; but I am saying it applies to Christ and the Church.
Gospel John 6:60-69
After hearing his doctrine many of the followers of Jesus said, ‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’ Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, ‘Does this upset you? What if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?
‘It is the spirit that gives life,
the flesh has nothing to offer.
The words I have spoken to you are spirit
and they are life.
‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the outset those who did not believe, and who it was that would betray him. He went on, ‘This is why I told you that no one could come to me unless the Father allows him.’ After this, many of his disciples left him and stopped going with him.
Then Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe; we know that you are the Holy One of God.’
Reflection
By Gharri Tulabut
One time my friends and I were having a discussion on the topic of forgiveness. One of us confessed that whenever he prays The Lord’s Prayer, he finds it very hard to utter the lines “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sinned against us.” Often, it’s either he just speak the words softly or hurriedly so that they wont stick to his mind. Or sometimes he would not pray the Lord’s Prayer at all. Why? Because he knows that there’s someone he hasn’t forgiven but there he was asking for forgiveness. He knew God’s conditions that we would be forgiven the way we forgive others. My friend was fully aware of this. That the measure we use for others is the one God will use for us (Lk 6:38). It’s one of the many truths that Christ taught us. But how did my friend react to this truth? I think you will agree with me that the right thing to do is to forgive so that the next time he faces the Lord in prayer he will not be ashamed to ask forgiveness anymore. But he chose just to skip the prayer because of his guilt. It was easier for him to ignore the Lord’s teachings than to forgive. He could not accept the truth and walked away.
This is just a simple example of how we Christians when facing an inconvenient truth would rather ignore the teachings, or twist them according to how we want them to suit us. Like when we learned that on the last day, Christ will judge us by what we have done to the least of our brethren, we say as long as I have faith, I will be saved. Or when we justify not declaring the right taxes by saying everybody does it and we ignore the fact that it is stealing. Or when we give so many reasons to justify abortion i.e. it will be worse to let the child live a life of poverty and just ignore the fact that abortion is killing. Or when we don’t reject pornography as we encounter them everyday thinking that it is okay nowadays. This is a reason why many of us just choose to be passive Christian, non-practicing. Some even go to the point of just saying “as long as I do not do wrong to my neighbors I will be okay” as a way of justifying our rejection of Christ’s teachings.
In today’s Gospel, many of Christ’s early followers were shocked by His declaration of truth. Many chose to go the old ways and not follow Jesus anymore because they could not accept what He was teaching them. But the disciples stood firm on their faith. They chose to accept the truth and have spread the Good News about Jesus.
How do we handle the truth? Do we embrace it or do we walk away?
Lord, Give us the strength to always seek, accept, live, spread, and not walk away from the truth. Amen
Let’s Walk The Talk
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