August 24, 2003
Joshua 24:1,2,15-18 + Ephesians 5:21-32 + John 6:60-69
On this final Sunday with the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel we discover what it’s all about. It is not about food. It is not about bread. It is not about flesh or blood. It is about covenant. Now we can understand why those people listening to Jesus responded as they did: why they walked away returning to their former life, why they shook their heads and murmured, why they found it hard to believe. Jesus is inviting them into a covenant, an intimate relationship with God that brings them to the edge of decision, and that is exactly where Joshua is in the first reading today. “Decide today who you will serve.” Joshua says to the assembly gathered to renew the covenant. The choice to be in covenant with God means rejecting all other gods. Every alliance must give way. Nothing is more important than serving God. Those people who walked away did not do so because they did not like the menu at the heavenly banquet. They returned to their former way because getting to the banquet was going to ask more of them than they were willing to give.
The Sixth Chapter of John’s Gospel is about Covenant. Hear and understand the ancient liturgy we glimpse in the first reading. The Book of Joshua that relates the gradual conquest of Canaan and the assimilation of those who lived there concludes with the ceremony we hear today. Those newly joined to the faith of Israel were incorporated in the ceremony we read today while those who have strayed or lost their resolve are invited to renew the covenant God has offered them. But it will require a single minded commitment to the God of this covenant.
This is what Jesus offers in John’s sixth chapter. A deliberate faith commitment and a bond of mutual trusting love were required of those who would serve as disciples of Jesus. It does not mean that disciples have an absolute and equivocal grasp of doctrine. It does not mean that all empirical data has been examined and understood. It means that disciples will trust only one to sustain them, to bring them through this life, to provide care and love them. It means a completely different way of looking at one’s self and others. It means a totally new relationship with all others, a relationship that leads to unity. To help us grasp this vision of what Jesus intends, the Church gives us a section of Ephesians: a section that raises eyebrows today just as the words of Jesus raised them before. It is a teaching that may well cause some to turn away, many to murmur, and some to say: “This is hard.”
When that happens, it is because, just like in the Gospel, listeners don’t get the point.
The second reading is about covenant. It is not about marriage. Those who think it is about marriage miss the point just like those who thought talk about flesh and blood was about chewing on meat.
This whole set of readings today, and this whole series for the last five weeks is about unity. The Covenant we are offered in Jesus Christ makes us one with Him and each other. The gift of the covenant of marriage is that two partners become one. Anything that would destroy unity is to be rejected. That means domination, paternalism, abuse, — all destroy unity. There is no hierarchy in marriage, only equal partners with different gifts and duties. The partners to this kind of covenant commit themselves to live lives and nurture a relationship that strives to reflect and cherish the unity that comes in Christ. That is why Paul insists that husbands and wives are to be subject one to another and imitate Christ in their lives together.
Covenant, whether in marriage or our relationship with God is an invitation to intimacy. But intimacy is a problem for our age because we live in a time that is fearful and uncomfortable with intimacy. To avoid it, the immature escape into sex and pretend that they have found it. To refuse it some simply turn to themselves and never risk trust with another. But intimacy is what God desires to have with us, and the sacrament of this altar is about that intimacy. It is about getting close, so close that you become part of the other.
A covenant is always sealed and celebrated with a feast. Savor today the feast of God’s Word. Hear Joshua’s choice to serve the Lord, and his challenge to decide whom we shall serve. Hear Paul call us to unity as church. And hear John’s Jesus ask us: “Do you also want to leave?” If you choose to stay, If you choose this covenant, If you risk this intimacy with God and unity in this church, then you must forsake all others, set aside anything that divides, and risk losing yourself for the sake of finding Christ the Risen Lord. This food Jesus gives makes us a sacrament: a sign that is effective for salvation, a sign of a promise made and kept for eternal life. For that gift, where else can we go?