21st Sunday Year B

See Commentary on (John 6:60-69) John 6:59-71


Homily 1 - 2006

It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.  John’s reflection on Jesus’ significance is perhaps puzzling.  John’s language is often a kind of code language and he loves playing with opposites. Here he is contrasting spirit and flesh. What does he mean by spirit? by flesh?

Flesh for John is usually human nature as it is, of itself, unredeemed; it’s human society as we unfortunately experience it –  people at war - destroying, oppressing, fighting - our world divided between poor and wealthy, free and unfree.  At the beginning of his Gospel, John had said: The Word of God became flesh, and dwelt among us - became one of us as we are, one of our world carrying on as we do. 

And John had also said of this Word: In him was life, and that life was the light of all people... to all who received him he gave power to become children of God.  By the Word of God becoming flesh as Jesus, flesh became open to spirit. The unredeemed could become redeemed. A world of people destroying themselves could become a world of people appreciating, respecting and even loving each other.  There was another energy – life - abroad in the world, another vision,  another possibility, another hope.

This brings us to another way that John uses (and contrasts) flesh and spirit.  He sees them as filters through which people view themselves, and others, and the world and society generally.  To view it according to the flesh is to view it in an unenlightened, ignorant, distorted and distorting way; to view it other than through God’s eyes, as it were, and so to miss the truth, the depth –  genuine reality.  To view ourselves, others, our world, according to the spirit is to view things through God’s eyes, to see us, others, our world as Jesus saw them, knew them, to see their truth, their meaning.

By becoming flesh as Jesus, God has given to those who want to see a breath-taking insight into the value of every human person, and of human society.  God has taken on this humanity of ours in all its need: our brokenness, our bloody-mindedness, our ignorance; and by becoming flesh, has given us new dignity, worth, possibility,  and hope.

In our world today, some of us see according to the spirit; some according to the flesh. We are not surprised (it takes a lifetime to see consistently according to the spirit); but it is sad that so many people do not know or appreciate or respond to their own dignity or that of others.  They do not know or hope that our world could organise itself differently, on the basis of mutual respect and justice, and not simply on the basis of national interest, consumerism and power relationships.

Today the Church observes Refugee and Migrant Sunday. It also happens to be the fifth anniversary of Australia’s heartless treatment of those asylum seekers on the Tampa. Those who still see according to the flesh so often see refugees and asylum seekers as threats to our comfort Zone, burdens on our economy, unwanted nuisances, and therefore to be excluded and degraded. Worse, they so often seem to presume that they could well be terrorists. We are not surprised, but sad.  Those who see according to the spirit see them as brothers and sisters in need: need of protection - justice, and peace - as welcome with rights to life and justice equal to our own.

Eucharist is a powerfully earthing sacrament. Jesus is present among us as flesh and blood - like yours and mine. We receive that body of his, crucified, because he stood up for his vision of (and his hopes for) a humanity redeemed because he called it forth from its ingrained self-destructiveness, aggression and fear to another  possibility.

Through the Eucharist the flesh of Jesus becomes the vehicle of spirit and of life.  It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.


Homily 2 - 2009

Most of you here today are parents. If you're not, at least, you have had parents.  As good parents, as you brought up your children, you told them very clearly what you expected of them; you laid down the rules; you expected them to be obeyed; and there were sanctions if they were not.  It is a bit similar in the workplace. The boss gives the orders, expects them to be kept, and there are sanctions if they are not.

But that is not the way that parents deal with each other. Nor is it the way you behave with friends. You don't assure the peace and harmony of your relationships or friendships by giving each other a set of rules, and applying sanctions when they are not observed. Nor is it the way you behave with your grown-up children.  Why the difference - rules, commandments, for some - but not for others? And which is better? Keep that question in the back of your minds as we continue.

Today's Gospel brings us to the end of chapter six of John's Gospel that dealt with Jesus referring to himself as the bread of life, the bread that came down from heaven, and telling people that, by believing in him, they could experience what he called eternal life.

The action all happened during the Jewish Feast of Passover, celebrated this time up in Galilee, out in the bush. Jews celebrated Passover each year. It was their equivalent of our Easter.  At Passover they remembered how, centuries before, they had escaped from slavery, and were shaped into a wonderful people by God, who, through Moses, gave them the commandments and spelt out a whole other way of living.  Jews were proud of their Law. They rightly saw themselves as superior to the pagan people and cultures that surrounded them. The Law for them opened up a wonderful way of life - it nourished their spirits, just as God had nourished their ancestors with the Manna  (what they had come to call the bread from heaven).

It was to Jews like this that Jesus said that he was the true bread come down from heaven. He said that he opened the way to eternal life; and he said people would live that life to the extent that they believed in him. What was he saying? Effectively, he was claiming that the way of life spelt out by Moses, the way of life based on the Law and the commandments, wonderful as it was, streets ahead, as it was, of the cultures and customs of the non-Jewish people surrounding them, somehow wasn't enough.

There was a whole other way of living possible, a more fulfilling and satisfying way, whose values and expression resonated into eternity. It wasn't the way of Law or commandments, any more than rules or commands are the way of two spouses who love each other or of two friends: It is OK for the children, it is OK in the workplace, but not OK with adults who love.

What Jesus invited to was not a better, a more enlightened, law code, but a deep relationship between adults.  The way of life he proposed called for people to believe in him - not to believe theological statements about him - but to believe in him; to trust him; to entrust themselves to him, to commit to a process where, over time, their minds and hearts and wills would synchronise with his.

It was a union so intense, so urgent, so personal, so engaging, so transforming, that he used the expression eating him; eating his flesh and drinking his blood; and, through the Eucharist, he enabled us to do precisely that. He said that, by doing that, they would discover the heart of God because he, Jesus, was the human expression of God: he had come down from heaven, and he would soon ascend to where he was before.

Most of his contemporaries could not buy that. They complained. They could not let go of the security that their Law and commandments gave them even to look seriously at his claims. They could not trust that intensely engaging with Jesus would lead to something more wonderful, more fulfilling, more beautiful. They preferred the non-responsibility of childhood, the clarity of work-place expectations, to the risks and, sometimes, the lack of clarity, involved in surrendering in love.

Wasn't Peter's response great? His response to Jesus' question? What about you? Do you want to go away too? ... Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life, and we believe, we know that you are the Holy One of God.


 Homily 3 - 2015

The politicians seem to have moved on for the moment from their same-sex marriage debate – but the Church is still keeping marriage before our minds.  Today’s Second Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians is full on. As I was reading it again during the week and thinking it over, a few things crossed my mind. 

Over the past weeks people have sometimes spoken of traditional marriage. But what are they referring to? How traditional is traditional? Early Christian communities were diverse. Some had a preponderance of Jewish converts; some were almost exclusively former pagans. Both cultures had different views of marriage. In both groups, for example, while divorce was simply taken for granted, in the Jewish culture women could not divorce their husbands. It was Jesus who had called his listeners back to what he saw as the plan of God intended in the Book of Genesis. For both Jews and pagans at the time, children were the prime focus of marriage – though today’s reading from Ephesians makes no mention of children and focuses rather on the relationship between husband and wife. At the time, many Christians thought that the world would soon come to an end with the return of Christ, and so procreation of children seemed somewhat superfluous.

Initially, Paul had made much of the equality of all Christians as children of God and saw master/slave, Jew/pagan and male/female relationships as no longer hierarchically ordered. It was not long after his death, however, that former attitudes reasserted themselves. Today’s excerpt from Ephesians, despite an effort to bring wives into the picture, when it came to language, could not help itself from prioritising the male and the male’s place in the family unit.

What all three readings are clear about today, however, is that commitment is an essential constituent of love. As today’s First Reading indicated, right from Israel’s early history, Joshua clearly proclaimed his commitment to the Lord whom he loved. The leaders of the other Hebrew tribes determinedly joined with him. When Jesus came among us and spelt out the demands of discipleship, Peter, drawn by his love for him, beautifully proclaimed his commitment – despite his inability to understand him fully. And, though he did not use the word, the author of the Epistle to the Ephesians made clear that married love sacramentally united disciples in the very Body of Christ and so committed them to each other for life.

Commitment has fallen out of favour in recent years. Which is a pity. Commitment/faithfulness provides the necessary context for love to be stretched, safely, and so to grow. It is a requirement for genuine human/spiritual maturing; and it is so necessary for stable and fulfilling married life. Yet in married life it can be tricky – because marriage is a commitment to an intensely intimate relationship between two people, which makes its potential for true fulfilment, but also for damaging hurt, to be that much greater. The relationship can be entered into when one or both partners are relatively immature and less able really to commit themselves or even to assess wisely their compatibility. For the sake of personal survival or for the safety of the children, it may at times be necessary for the partners to separate. Yet that should be a last resort. With help, difficulties can often be faced and overcome – and the context that sustains the motivation to succeed is precisely the determination of both partners to commit themselves to each other and to their shared project. When there is no readiness to commit, failure is virtually inevitable.

Commitment can be learnt only on the job, it seems to me. And the learning begins best early in life. A supportive environment of maturely committed others helps the learning process; though, given the stressful nature of modern living, professional help may at times be necessary. It is not weakness to seek help, but a genuine sign of real maturity and growing commitment. Commitment and maturity are both necessary to attain a healthy level of true love and fulfilment – whatever our vocation or state in life.


 

Homily 4 - 2018

I remember in the early seventies being strongly tempted to leave the priesthood. I felt that the Australian Church was unwilling to open itself to the spirit of the Vatican Council. It felt like a dead weight dragging me down. I did briefly consider other options; but finished up, fortunately, a bit like St Peter in today’s Gospel, “Lord, to whom shall I go. You have the message of eternal life – and I believe, I know you are the Holy One of God.” I shall be eternally grateful for the leadership Peter showed on this occasion. It is what has helped to keep me on board right across the years of my priesthood, and still helps me in the present situation as we keep reeling from the fallout of the disastrous reality of clerical sexual abuse and the hopelessly inadequate ways we endeavoured to deal with it.

I think it has helped me understand and sympathise with those who have left the Church of recent years, particularly the fathers and mothers of young children. And it leads me to admire and to be grateful to those of you who keep hanging in. It would not surprise me that Peter’s comment to Jesus has helped you, too, in your choice.

You might have noticed in today’s Parish Bulletin an insert containing the text of a letter written last week by Pope Francis. Interestingly, he has written it specifically to “The People of God”. That includes everyone in the Church, but I think it applies especially to you, the laity. I wonder why he wrote to you. Since he has been Pope, he has written and spoken to the bishops on a number of occasions. I wonder if he feels somewhat disappointed with the responses of many [most?] of them.

Anyhow, importantly, this letter is addressed to you; and to read more into it may simply be a case of projection on my part.

Basically, Francis sees the issue of clergy sexual abuse, what has happened and what needs to happen, as an issue involving the whole Church. He wants the whole Church, you, me, the bishops and cardinals, to see this, not just as one issue among many, but as the one crying out to be addressed.

Some people have criticized the letter for being short on practical measures of accountability and sanctions, especially of defaulting bishops. I felt that first, too, but on reflection, I think that is a mistaken reading. Francis is calling firstly for something much more basic. He is calling for a changed Church. Without that, other changes would simply be cosmetic.

To simply hope that the problem will go away in time would be disastrous. To think that it can be resolved by more effective rules and regulations, sanctions, commissions, etc, indispensable as they are, is wishful thinking. He calls us all to radical conversion. He surprised me by calling us, in fact, to prayer and fasting – whatever can impress on us the magnitude of the challenge facing us. What we are facing is the Mystery of Sin – capital “M” Mystery and capital “S” Sin.

A major expression of this Mystery of Sin, according to Francis, is what he calls clericalism. This is what he wrote: “… clericalism … tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in people’s hearts. Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, … supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today”. And he then went on to write, “To say “no” to abuse is to say an emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism”.

Our indispensable starting point is to see as Sin, as our Sin, not just the terrible abuse but the cover-up, and the general mood and attitudes that allowed it. We have to be appalled by our Sin, before any of us will really do anything significant about it. “Prayer and penance” – perhaps not such a quaint suggestion to start with after all. I wonder how many of us will really listen.


 

Homily 5 - 2021

Some of the TV footage presently coming out of Afghanistan haunts me — seeing people milling about in utter confusion, desperate and hopeless, against a background of relentless, restless small-arms fire. It puts me in mind of Mark’s description of the wretched Jewish crowds who had followed Jesus into the wilderness on the occasion that he fed feed the 5000+ of them with two loaves and five fish. Mark had commented: “They were like sheep without a shepherd”— utterly desperate, rattled, people without leadership, without a vision.

Five weeks ago we had the same incident narrated in John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel version of the same Gospel incident. There, John had remarked how, some little time after the feeding, the crowd had [unsuccessfully] wanted to make Jesus a king. Today we had the conclusion of Jesus’ encounter with them after a second day of trying to teach them: “The Jewish crowd objected strongly … many of his disciples turned away and went around with him no more.”

What had he said in his teaching that had brought about such a radical reversal of mood? Jesus had seen that simply teaching them was not enough. Though at times what he said was striking, it had not led to improvement on their part. They needed to move beyond the familiar and to change — radically.

Jesus held out the possibility of a different lifestyle, indeed of a wholly new “life”, that he referred to as “eternal life”, a life that would gradually recast their perceptions, their values, their commitments, their experience, so transforming them that eventually he could “raise them up on the last day”.

That change would not happen simply by their listening to his teaching. They would need to learn to “believe” in “him”, to trust him, to entrust themselves to him. It would call for genuine interpersonal relationship, involving not just “head” or memory, but heart, soul, mind — an experience more like “falling in love” — gradual, deep, totally transformative — as constitutive of us and as real as the food with which we nourish ourselves.

He drew on the image of bread to state that he was “the bread come down from heaven” — not unlike the manna that had nourished the Hebrew slaves as they escaped from Egypt centuries beforehand, but greater still, so much so that “whoever come to him will never hunger, whoever trust themselves to him will never thirst”. By entrusting ourselves to him, in person, we would steadily find all our other desires and needs losing importance or being met in other ways. We would find ourselves abandoning our former obsessive competitiveness and our instinctive hostility to relate to people spontaneously with respect and attentiveness.

To justify such a depth of commitment to himself, Jesus revealed to his hearers that he had originated from God; that he was indeed “the Son of God” or, as Peter would call him in today’s short passage, “the Holy One of God”; and that he had in fact “come down from heaven”, and that some of them even would live to see him return “where he was before”.

Since he was speaking of real loving commitment that could very easily lead to suffering, he briefly looked forward to his final Supper with his disciples where he would anticipate in sacrament his imminent death on the cross. There, he would take the bread, break it [as the Roman military would break his body on the cross]. He would then give it to his disciples saying, “This is my body broken for you”. Finally, when he would take the cup, he would say, “This cup is the new testament in my blood which is to be shed for you”.

In the light of that Last Supper [which no one else, however, at this stage knew about — apart from the later readers of John’s Gospel], Jesus concluded his message: “My flesh is true food and my blood true drink”.

“It is the spirit that gives life”. How much we need it!