Homily: 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Yesterday,
the Church celebrated the feast of St. Bartholomew, the Apostle. Bartholomew is also known as Nathanael, as
that appears to have been his proper name, while Bartholomew is likely his
surname (“Bar-Tolmai” or “Son of Tolmai” in Hebrew). The calling of Nathanael Bar-Tolmai is
recorded in Saint John’s Gospel. The
Apostle Philip, a good friend of Nathanael’s, encouraged him to come to meet
Jesus. Nathanael, although skeptical of
Philip’s claims about Jesus because of Jesus’ origins (“Can anything good come
from Nazareth?”), nonetheless goes to meet him.
When Jesus sees Nathanael, he says to him, “Here is a true child of
Israel. There is no duplicity in him.”
What
did Jesus mean by that? There seems to
be a double meaning in what he said.
First, it might be a play on the fact that Israel, originally known as
Jacob, used duplicitous means to obtain the birthright from his father Isaac
over his older brother, Esau. He tricked
both his brother and his aged father (with the help of his mother!). Nonetheless, after God had tested Jacob, he
gave him a new name—Israel—and made his sons into the twelve tribes who would
become God’s chosen people. That Jesus
called Nathanael a “true child of Israel” was an acknowledgment of Nathanael’s
Hebrew ancestry. That Jesus said “there
is no duplicity in him” was a compliment indicating that he saw in Nathanael
greater virtue than even the ancient forefather of the Tribes of Israel had. It’s as if Jesus might have said, “Even Israel
was duplicitous; but in Nathanael, there is no trace of duplicity!”
This,
then, points to the second meaning: that Jesus recognized in Nathanael a spirit
of authenticity not matched by many others.
This, I believe, means that Nathanael had an exceptional desire to live
authentically to what he professed to believe, striving never to show by his
actions anything contrary to what he professed by his words. Perhaps at one point in his life Nathanael
found himself in a compromised position: one in which he recognized that the
way he was living his life did not correspond to what he professed to
believe. Perhaps then, he had heard
again the admonition of Joshua to the ancient Israelites, which we heard in the
first reading: “If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom
you will serve…” And, like the ancient
Israelites, Nathanael decided: “far be it from [me] to forsake the Lord for
service of other gods… Therefore, [I] also will serve the Lord, for he is [my]
God.” From then on, Nathanael strove to
live that commitment authentically for the rest of his life (which he did, all
the way to his martyrdom while evangelizing in western India).
I
myself feel a great sympathy to Nathanael, as I too was once confronted with
this “crisis of authenticity” in which I recognized that the way I was living
my life was not corresponding to what I professed to believe. I was tortured by this lack of authenticity
and decided that I would no longer compromise my beliefs by my behavior or my
behavior by what I falsely professed to believe. Therefore, I too had to decide if I would
serve the Lord (and, thus, strive to change my life in order to live
authentically to those beliefs) or if I would serve myself—a god of my own
making—and thus abandon the faith in which I was raised. Thankfully, God intervened in my life and
showed me that serving Him would be the true path to the fulfillment my heart
desired. Perhaps it’s obvious, but I
decided to serve the Lord and so I stand here today.
In
our Gospel reading, Jesus’ disciples find themselves in one of these “crisis”
moments. Jesus has been teaching them
this powerful teaching about who he is and about how he will give himself over
to us all so that we might live with him forever. Jesus proposes some difficult teaching
without a lot of qualification and so the disciples’ must decide: “Do I
continue to follow Jesus, in spite of this strange teaching which I do not
understand?” or “Do I turn away because this teaching is just too difficult to
accept and follow?” Unlike the
Israelites in the first reading, we see that the disciples were not unified in
their response: many chose the latter and “returned to their former way of life”,
while the Apostles, led by Simon Peter, chose to remain with Jesus, in spite of
the fact that they didn’t really understand.
Let
me assure you, I have great sympathy for the disciples who turned away. They did not have the benefit of knowing that
Jesus was going die and rise from the dead.
They did not have the benefit of the Holy Spirit illuminating their
minds and hearts to the truth. They did
not have the benefit of nearly two-thousand years of tradition to explain the
meaning of Jesus’ words in the light of the Last Supper and, therefore, the
Eucharist. They did have the benefit of
having seen his miracles, but that just emphasizes the radical nature of Jesus’
teaching: that it was so unfamiliar that it could turn people away even though
they had witnessed him do miraculous things.
The Apostles, on the other hand, had the benefit of having close,
personal relationships with Jesus. Thus,
in spite of the strange teaching, they could continue to follow him, trusting
that all would be made clear in the end.
We
enjoy all of the benefits that those disciples lacked, however, with one exception:
we can’t look Jesus in the face as they did.
Nevertheless, the benefits we enjoy are more than enough for us to
believe all that Jesus taught: most importantly, that he has given us his flesh
to eat and his blood to drink so that we might live eternally with him. As wild as that sounds by itself, Jesus
revealed that this living bread would be given to us in the most ordinary
means: his flesh and his blood under the appearance of simple bread and wine.
Nevertheless,
even though the Lord has made this teaching more “palatable” for us (pun
intended), we are still confronted with the same question: “Will I believe and,
thus, serve the Lord?” or “Will refuse to believe and, thus, serve some other
god?” While most of us, most weeks, won’t
come here in some crisis that demands a life-altering answer, all of us are
called to renew our answer each time we come here. When the priest elevates the host or the
chalice and we say quietly, “My Lord and my God”, or when we come forward to
receive Holy Communion and the minister presents the Blessed Sacrament to us
with the words, “The Body of Christ… The Blood of Christ”, and we answer, “Amen”,
these responses need to be a renewal of our answer: “Yes, I believe and, thus,
I will serve the Lord” if we are to live our faith without duplicity—that is, authentically
like St. Bartholomew strove always to do.
This
is one of the main reasons why we have been reading this important passage from
the Gospel of John over these last weeks, and it is one of the main reasons why
we are in the midst of a National Eucharistic Revival here in the United
States: to renew our belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament
and to renew our commitment to live authentically from this belief by serving
the Lord and sharing this truth with others.
Our God has given us life and it is the greatest gift! To believe is to receive that gift. Then, as gracious recipients of a gift that
never diminishes no matter how often it is given, we are called to offer that
gift to others. Perhaps this week and in
the weeks that follow, we can think about, and try to connect with, one person with
whom God might be calling us to walk so as to lead them to receive this awesome
gift from God. What a great gift to God
it would be, right? To bring one of his
beloved home to him!
Friends,
as we offer this sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving today, and as we renew
our commitment to serve the Lord, let us give thanks for these weeks of
reflection on the Eucharist in the Gospel of John and for the National Eucharistic
Revival that we are living. Then, in
thanksgiving, let us be ready to take Jesus with us into our homes and
communities to share this great gift with everyone.
Given in Spanish at St. Joseph Parish: Rochester, IN – August
25th, 2024
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