Commentary
Sunday, 8/26/2018, Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
Who Do You Serve?
First Reading Commentary: Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b
After reminding the elders, leaders, judges and other officers of the twelve tribes of Israel of everything that the LORD had done for them, Joshua asked them to choose between serving the LORD or false gods. If Joshua were alive today, he could ask each of us that same question.
People of different religions, see and view God in different ways. No matter what our religion may be, Christian or Non-Christian, many of us claim to be religious or spiritual serving the one true God. But do we?
Are we serving God if we fail to go to church or wherever our place of worship may be? Some people say that they do not need to go to church to worship God. Oh really? If God did not mean for us to go to church, He would not have told the Israelites to make a temple. If God did not mean for us to go to church, Jesus would not have worshipped in the temple Himself. If God did not mean for us to go church, Jesus would have never said that, “where two or more are gathered in My name, there am I.” If God did not mean for us to go to church, Jesus would have never said to Peter, “Upon this rock, I will build my church.” If God did not mean for us to go to church, Jesus would not have instituted the Eucharist for us to celebrate together. God does mean for us to go to church and we fail to serve Him when we come up with excuses for not going.
Are we serving God when we sin? Sin goes against the grain of everything that God has planned for us. It is the work of the devil who wants nothing more than to destroy God’s plan and lead us away from God. So, when we sin, we do not serve God—we serve the evil one.
Are we serving God when we allow ourselves to get wrapped up in money and material possessions? For some people, having money is so important that to them, money has become what I call the modern-day golden calf. No matter how much money some people have; they just have to have more. No matter how many material possessions they have; they just have to have more. And what does that mean? They need more money. These people will take advantage of others for their own personal gain. As a result, no matter what level of spirituality they might claim; they serve money—not God. It is not religion that they practice, it is the deadly sin of greed.
Meditating on Joshua’s question to the tribes of Israel gives us the opportunity to look within and question ourselves. We can be like Joshua who said, “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” or, we can choose a false god.
The people listened to Joshua and remembered everything that the LORD had done for them and said, “Therefore we also will serve the LORD, for he is our God.” We would be wise to do the same.
Those are easy words to say but not such an easy task to fulfill because none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes and our mistakes are sometimes sinful. But God in His infinite wisdom, unlimited mercy and absolute love is always there for us. He never gives up on us and never stops giving us the opportunity to be with Him. This is another reason why we should go to church and it is the reason why the Son instituted the Sacrament of Confession and we serve God well when we use it.
Together as One
Second Reading Commentary: Ephesians 5:21-32
Today’s first reading addresses the issue of service to God. Today’s second reading from the Ephesians addresses the issue of service to each other, specifically in marriage.
In today’s world, many people, especially women, have a problem with Paul saying that wives should be subordinate to their husbands. One should not ignore what Paul said first, “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” It is the reverence for Christ which is the point of Paul’s message throughout this reading.
First, we have to understand the spiritual meaning of the word “subordinate” in this message. It has nothing to do with one giving orders to the other or one doing what the other says out of strict obedience. The issue here is: service. It is all about a man and a woman serving each other, doing for each other to make each other happy and standing by each other as one facing life together.
Paul wants us to understand that a man and woman should serve each other in a Christ-like way. This is why the Sacrament of Matrimony is one of the two sacraments of service. The other is the Sacrament of Holy Orders which a man receives when he is ordained as a deacon, priest or bishop.
Paul says, “For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church.” Once again, we cannot allow ourselves to get caught up in the words or we will completely miss the point. The husband is not the boss of his wife but he is the head of his household because in the eyes of God, it is the husband who is responsible for the well-being of the family—household. It has been that way since the very beginning with Adam and Eve.
God commanded Adam to not eat of the forbidden fruit before Eve had been created and that is why the man is responsible for the household in the eyes of God. It was because Adam did not accept his responsibility and because Adam tried to blame Eve together with the fact that Eve tried to blame the serpent that Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Refer to chapters two and three of Genesis.
The wife should never try to interfere with the husband’s responsibility. Just as Paradise was lost to Adam and Eve, bad things happen when the husband does not accept his responsibility as head of household. Bad things will also happen if the wife does not listen to her husband or if she challenges his position as head of household. It is God’s way and if things do not go God’s way, bad things will happen!
But, I must say it again, the husband is not the boss! That is not the way that it works. Marriage is a partnership and neither partner is the boss. But there is a certain level of authority that goes along with the husband’s responsibility.
Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her.” Even though Christ is God the Son and we should serve Him, Christ humbled Himself by taking on humanity for the sole purpose of serving us by taking our sins to the cross. Collectively, we are the bride of Christ in heaven. Husbands should be no less dedicated and committed to serving their wives than Christ is to serving all of us.
Paul also says, “…husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” There are two reasons for this. We know from Genesis 2:21-23 that woman came from man. Not only should a husband love his wife and serve his wife but, all men should respect women because from the beginning, women is God’s gift to men.
Not only did God create woman from man but the male species is nothing without the female and mankind cannot continue to exist without women. That’s the way God planned it and that’s why a man does not love himself if he does not love his wife.
When a man marries a woman, they become together as one in the same way that we are one with Christ as individual parts of the Mystical Body. To make this point, Paul quotes Genesis 2:24.
We human beings have a habit of wanting things our way and always scheming of ways to change God’s plans to serve our personal human desires. I will say it again: if it is not God’s way, it will not work. The institution of marriage is all about love. It is a direct reflection of God’s love for us—a love so deep that He served us with the Son’s Blood. Marriage is all about a man and a woman serving each other and standing by each other as one.
Is It Too Much to Serve the Lord?
Gospel Commentary: John 6:60-69
The Bread of Life Discourse was too much for some of the disciples who were following Jesus to handle. The whole idea of Jesus saying that they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood in order to have eternal life was just too much. And so, they murmured among themselves.
Our Sunday gospels for the last three weeks have been from John 6:22-58, the Bread of Life Discourse. Is it too much for us to handle? If it is too much for one to accept, it can only be due to disbelief because of a lack of faith or the result of spending too much time being caught up in the words and thereby missing the message.
I suggest that if you have not read John 6 up to this point and have not seen my commentaries for the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth Sunday’s in Ordinary time that you take the time to do so. You will get more out of today’s gospel if you do.
Jesus knew who the disbelievers were and He knew who would betray Him. Let’s stop there a moment. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows our thoughts and what we are going to say before the words come out of our mouths. He knows what we are going to do before we commit the act. God is all-knowing because there is nothing that He does not know. We cannot fool God or con God and it is a futile wasted effort to even try. It is better to accept what God says and does in faith and then do as He asks.
Jesus asked the disciples, “Does this shock you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” John does not tell us what any of the disciples may have said back to Jesus and it is not important. The important thing here is that Jesus put them on the spot by questioning their faith. He made them think about their way of thinking—in a human way as opposed to in a Godly way. He made them have to agree to accept what He was telling them if He gave them tangible proof of who He was by allowing them to see Him ascend into heaven.
But a non-believer is a non-believer is a non-believer but a person of faith needs no proof. And so, Jesus said, “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.” Read that line again and notice that “spirit” is not capped. That’s because Jesus was talking about our own spirit which gets to enjoy eternal life in heaven provided that our name is written in the book of life and we accept our invitation to the banquet—the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. With faith, our spirit gets to live forever but without faith, our spirit will die.
Nothing of the flesh will get us to heaven which also means that nothing of this world or of this life will get us to heaven. If we live our lives according to the flesh, we will miss out on our opportunity of experiencing eternal life in heaven. The disciples were supposed to get that message but sadly, some of them did not. Some of us don’t get it either. All one has to do is look around at what is going on in the world today and it is easy to see that a lot of people either miss the message or just don’t care.
Remember the First Commandment? It is the same as the First of the two Greatest Commandments. Simply put, love God with everything! Being All-Knowing, God knows if we love Him and if we do not love Him; we have big problems! Keep that in mind as you meditate on Jesus saying, “…no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.”
Faith in God does not come without loving Him first and grace from God does not flow without faith. One has to believe in the Trinity to accept the fact that the Father’s grace is the Son’s grace because the Father and the Son are one. Catholics understand and believe that Mary is the Mediatrix of all Grace which means that all grace from God passes through Mary. That’s because she is the mother of Jesus and therefore God’s saving grace comes through Mary.
John tells us that many of the disciples left the company of Jesus and returned to their former way of life. We are just like those disciples when we sin. Christians follow Jesus but we return to our own ways with sin. How blessed are we for having a God who is All-Merciful and forgiving? But do we serve Him? That is the key question of the day.
Jesus asked the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?” Were the Twelve the only ones left? I doubt it. Jesus had to drive the point home to them because they were to be the first priest and bishops of the Church. They would be the ones to lead and build the Church after the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. As leaders of the Church, they would serve the laity and this was another part of Jesus grooming them for what was to come.
Peter was one of those people who often times did not stop to think before he spoke but sometimes he said just the right thing and put it more eloquently than anyone else could even try. I will leave this commentary with his words which were an absolute commitment to serve. Peter said, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”
