Homily:
21st Sunday of Ordinary Time – Cycle B
A
few years ago, I made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Of all of the amazing things that I saw and
was able to experience, one of the highlights was my visit to the Basilica of
the Annunciation in Nazareth, which was built over the site of Mary’s childhood
home and was the place in which she received the message from the archangel
Gabriel, announcing that she would become the mother of God’s Son. I remember reflecting about my experience
there. “In that place,” I said to
myself, “the God who created everything, and whose existence cannot be
contained even in the vast universe, somehow encapsulated himself in human
flesh.” For me, among all of the other
experiences on that trip, standing in the place where the “Word became flesh
and dwelt among us” was an awe-inspiring moment.
I
remember reflecting on the absurdity of it all: that God, who is limitless,
would subject himself to the limits of his creation simply out of love for what
he had created. Nonetheless, as we’ve
been reading in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, I’m often struck that this
same Son of God then took the absurdity even further by claiming that for
anyone to have life within them they had to eat his flesh and drink his
blood. On the surface, it’s a crazy
statement, right? I mean, Jesus is
asking his followers to be cannibals: to eat human flesh and drink human
blood! Although our familiarity with it
may mean that it no longer strikes us as odd, we need to grapple with the fact
that this statement from Jesus is polarizing: either he is who he says he is
(that is, the Son of God) and, thus, we have to give credence to what he says,
or he’s not (and, therefore, he’s a madman) and we should run away immediately.
Perhaps not many of us have thought about it
in these terms, but this is one of those things about which, as Christians, we
cannot be neutral: rather, we need to decide on which side we are. If you need some help deciding on which side
you are, I will offer this criteria: that if Jesus is crazy about one thing
then he’s crazy about everything; but if he’s not crazy about everything, then
he’s not crazy about anything. I think
that it’s safe for me to say that we don’t think that he’s crazy about
everything. Therefore, he must not be
crazy about this one thing, and so we have to give it credence, no matter how
crazy it sounds.
And
so, when Jesus says, “I am the living bread” and “the bread that I will give is
my flesh for the life of the world” we have to strive to believe that he is
talking about the Eucharist: for the bread that we present is not “living”
bread: that is, bread that is alive, as if it were something out of some
B-rated horror film. No, it is not
“living” bread until it is given life when, through the words of consecration
at the altar, its very substance changes and it becomes the Body and Blood of
Jesus. Although it still appears to be
lifeless bread, it is in reality the flesh of Jesus, who lives; thus, it
becomes “bread that lives” and makes it possible for us to eat his flesh
without becoming cannibals.
On
the surface, of course, this is still incredible and, frankly, it cannot be
accepted outright. If any otherwise
rational person came to you and said, “I promise you that you will live forever
if you eat my flesh and drink my blood; and, by the way, you’ll be able to do
that if you eat this thing that looks like bread and drink this cup filled with
what looks like wine,” you’d immediately doubt all that you knew about that
person. Accepting something like
this—something that pushes you beyond the bounds of understanding—comes only
after a bridge of trust has been built with the person who is making this
claim. Just look at our Gospel reading
today: “Many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard;
who can accept it?’” it says. And later
it goes on to say “as a result of this, many of his disciples returned to their
former way of life and no longer accompanied him.” These disciples had been only loosely
connected with Jesus and had not yet built a “bridge of trust” with him. Therefore, when he made this seemingly absurd
claim, their fragile faith in him was shaken and fell apart. They concluded that he must be crazy and so
they turned away from him.
The
twelve Apostles, on the other hand, stayed with Jesus. They had experienced so much more from him
and, therefore, had built a bridge of trust that supported their faith. And so, even if they didn’t understand what
it was about which he was talking, they refused to write him off as a madman,
but instead recommitted themselves to him: “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.”
So
where do we go from here? You know, I am
convinced that those who leave the Church must not be persons who believe in
the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.
Otherwise, how could they walk away from it? Peter and the other Apostles believed that
Jesus was the Holy One of God and so could not be swayed to abandon him, even
when he taught such incredible things.
In the same way, it does not seem possible that someone would
acknowledge the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist and yet still feel as
if he or she could go somewhere where it is not.
Nonetheless,
many have walked away; and the great tragedy is that many of those have walked
away because of the sins committed against them by leaders in the Church: men
who they called “Father”. This is an
enormous tragedy: first, because it discredits the Gospel, but second because
it turns people away from the Eucharist: the Eucharist, which is the event in
which we literally commune with God, offering him our sacrifice of thanksgiving
and praise, remembering the great work he has done to bring us to salvation,
calling down the Holy Spirit to strengthen us for our mission on earth, and
partaking in a sacred meal, which is a foretaste of the eternal banquet in
heaven.
My
brothers and sisters, I get it if some of you (or some people that you may know
who are not here) find it hard to look at the failures of bishops and priests
and not think “Can we really trust these men who have failed us so
horrendously, and, therefore Christ and his Church?” I urge you, however, to remember Christ’s
words: that “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood,
you do not have life within you” and, thus, to hold in tension the sacred
actions of the priest, in which he stands in the person of Christ so that his
Body and Blood and his healing mercy is made present to us, with the worldly
actions of the man, weak and fallible as he is and subject to the attacks of
the evil one: holding him accountable for his failures while supporting him in
his efforts to grow in holiness. This so
that not one more of us would be separated from this foretaste of the eternal
banquet, which strengthens us and preserves us for eternal life.
I
pray, therefore, my friends, that we would make it our task to seek out our
brothers and sisters who need this grace from the Father to believe that Jesus
is truly present in the Eucharist, in spite of the sometimes serious failures
of the men through whom it is provided; and to help them, with our prayers and
companionship, to open their hearts to this grace, so that we all might be
joined together at this Holy Table, the foretaste of the eternal banquet
prepared for us in heaven, to feast on the Bread of Life: Our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – August
26, 2015
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