Twenty First Sunday of The Year: Lord To Whom Shall We Go?

When a person makes serious error of judgement, you hear him say “I did not have a choice”. Do we really have choices in life? Israel Zangwill, a Jewish scholar, once said of his people “We are not the chosen people, we are the choosing people.” We always have one major option in life, to choose between options, and we are always confronted with the challenge of making choices. This has been the experience of human life from the cradle of creation. Eve and Adam had this challenge; Eve chose to listen and obey the serpent, and Adam preferred Eve his wife (the gift from God) to God himself. (Gen 3, 1 – 8). Abraham chose to sacrifice his only son to disobeying God (Gen. 22). Mattathias and his seven sons chose to fight than profane the culture of their land or to accept the offer of riches from a pagan and corrupt ruler (1Mac 2, 15 – 28). Maria Goretti chose death to sexual misconduct with Alessandro. Gandhi of India chose non-violence approach to secure the political independence of his people. There are very few situations in which we have no options. One example is who will be our biological parents. Apart from this, we always have options, and we always have a choice.

Today is a day of making an important choice. For five Sundays we have been reading chapter six of the Gospel according to John. The teaching of Jesus Christ from the first verse of this chapter is like a young man falling in love with a young woman but has difficulty describing what he feels and what he can offer. Jesus started by feeding the multitude so that nobody may go hungry (17^th Sunday). In doing this, he drew our attention to another kind of hunger that ordinary food and drink cannot satisfy, it is hunger for love and acceptance; hence he tells us not to work for the food that does not last but work for the real bread of God, and he is that bread (18^th Sunday). He is gradually telling us, his “soul mate,” what he can offer. On the nineteenth Sunday, this bread becomes his flesh and the wine becomes his blood that anyone who eats and drinks it will live forever (19^th Sunday). His offer is not going to be temporary thing. It is a profound expression of love whereby the two persons involved not only know each other and be there for each other but live in each other as the food and drink we take diffuse into our bodies and become part of us. The 20^th Sunday is about total self-offering of Jesus Christ to us; he says “take and eat.” This time it is no longer the forbidden fruit that kills but the bread that give everlasting life. All the while, we have been having mix feelings as we listened to this lover-God playing all the verbal romance. Today, he wants to conclude by leaving us with two options: either to accept his offer and stick around with him or go our ways. Joshua, the patron of the military and the finest field commander in the Jewish history lying down on his bed, an old man, and looking back to the past, he did not want to be remembered as the bravest field commander who brought his people to the Promised Land but as a prophet who brought his people to choose God again. Hence he says “choose for yourselves today whom you will serve…” We can now understand why Zangwill says “we are not the chosen people; we are choosing people.”

Today, we, the Church live in changing world, changing time and culture. Yes we have encountered pride, anger, frustration, sicknesses, family crises, worship of money, abuse of drugs and sex, silliness, pettiness, cowardice, injustices, faith denials, and betrayals, lost of jobs and loved ones, abuse of power here and there. And sometimes many voices that are contradictory to our faith. What will be our choice? To whom shall we go to when difficulties besiege us and the Word of God does not make much sense to us? What will be our choice when our husbands or wives become “unbearable” or the boss in the office makes our job so difficult? What do we do when we experience scandals in the Church and from people we trusted? Whom shall we go to when our parents abuse us, and the society does not care; when the adults around us have no good example to show us and those we consider friends desert us? Whom shall we go to when we feel lonely, unloved, not cared for, not accepted, hated, falsely accused and unjustly detained? Shall we give up in life and commit suicide instead of being patient and keep trying?

In such moments we do not only want to remember that Christ still loves us, but we also need the wisdom in the words of Joshua: “as for me and my household we will serve the Lord,” or the word of Peter, “Master to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe.” Jesus Christ is offering us everything about him. He is ready to die to prove how much he is committed in loving us. The Eucharist is the proof of love that becomes us. It is the sacrament that does not just make Jesus, The Christ, present among us but also lives in us. However, it takes two to make friendship and love happen. We should remember that we become like what we choose. God chose us out of his love but he cannot force us to choose him too. We can only be truly chosen people when we choose Jesus Christ. If we choose him we choose peace instead of violence; love instead of hatred; humility instead of pride; truth instead of falsehood; self-sacrifice instead of selfishness; we choose forgiveness instead of bitterness and revenge; gentleness instead of arrogance; fidelity instead of cheating. The Eucharist is the sacrament of love relationship. This is a mystery. Paul says in the second reading “This is the great mystery; it applies to Christ and the Church.”