Weekly HOMILY for August 26, 2012: 21th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B -- Master, to whom shall we go?

21^st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

St. Francis De Sales Church

August 26, 2012

 

Master, to whom shall we go?

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

“This saying is hard”

“This saying is hard; who can accept it?”

Jesus has just finished teaching about the Eucharist.  He has made some amazing statements.

Like, “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6.51).  And again, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6.54).

So, some of the people, not surprisingly, say: “This saying is hard; who can accept it?”  These words got me thinking this past week.

I paged through the gospels and realized that today’s is not the only hard saying.  There are others.

Hard Sayings

For example, right at the beginning of the story about Jesus, the angel of the Lord explains things to Joseph. 

The angel tells Joseph that “it is through the Holy Spirit that the child has been conceived” in Mary (Matthew 1.10).  This is a hard saying. 

It goes against all we know about how children are conceived and born.  And yet, could it not be so? 

Would the almighty transcendent God who is the origin of the vast universe and the origin of the amazing complexity of the human body be limited to our ways and to what we know? 

Could not the divine become one with the human or emerge in humanity in a way that is beyond our imagination? 

So, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”

And then there is Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness.

He tells us to forgive “seven times seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18.22).  This means that we are never to stop forgiving, to forgive without limits.

This again is a hard saying.  Common sense tells us not to be a doormat, to stand up for ourselves, and eventually just to be finished with an offensive or hurtful person.     

And yet, when we don’t forgive – and certainly, we will remember and we usually cannot forget – but when we don’t forgive, whom are we really hurting? 

Aren’t we hurting ourselves at least as much as the other person by just being eaten up with loathing and vengeance and hate?

So, once again, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”

And then there is Jesus’ saying, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10.39).

Again, another hard saying.  Aren’t we supposed to be responsible for ourselves and our life?

Isn’t it a good thing to seek my fulfillment in life?  And yet, how many of us who have focused so much on what I want in life end up feeling empty?

How many of us who are so successful feel that there is still something missing?  And on the flip side of it, how many of us who give of our life to and for others and their well-being – maybe to your children or the parish children in the faith formation program or to the hungry in our community or in Baltimore City – how many of us who do this really find inner fulfillment and really find our life?

So, once again, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”

Conclusion

There are other hard sayings.

There’s the one on turning the other cheek (Matthew 5.39) and the one on loving your enemies (Luke 6.27) and the one on being great by being the servant of all (Matthew 20.26) and the one on those who humble themselves being exalted (Luke 18.14) and the one on the first being last and the last being first (Matthew 20.16).  You can probably think of others.

And yet, when we examine each of these, just maybe, maybe there’s really something here.  So, today, to return to where we started, maybe Jesus, maybe God can break through and emerge in our midst in a piece of bread and a cup of wine.

Maybe this can be the way for Jesus to be present.  And maybe this is why he says that this is his flesh and blood and if we have communion with him in this way, we have eternal life.

So, maybe, in the end, might we answer Jesus’ question, “Do you also want to leave?” in the same way Peter does?  “Master, to whom shall we go?”