MARRIED TO THE WORD OF GOD

SUNDAY, TWENTY FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Josh. 24:1-2,15-18; Ps 34:2-3,16-23; Eph 5:21-32; Jn 6:60-69

To whom shall we go

The Gospel of today brings the long discourse on the necessity of eating the body of Jesus Christ and drinking his blood for our salvation to a close. Because the whole discourse is about communion in the life of the Saviour, which is the true meaning of salvation, our Lord led the people listening to him to the point where they have to make a decision that will commit them to the covenant relationship with God. As we have often hinted, God’s dealing with us is in covenant relationship. The word of God, by its nature, is a covenant of God with those who receive it. In the discourse, which commenced with the feeding of the five thousand men with five barley loaves and two fish, our Lord uses the imagery of food and drink to drive home the intended union between the Eternal Word made man and those to be saved by his incarnation. The imagery has reverse and obverse functioning or meaning. The Lord uses the union achieved between us and the food we eat to teach or illustrate the union intended between the Eternal Word and those saved. On the sacramental level, the eater assimilates the food, which becomes part of him. But on the level of reality, we, the eaters, are assimilated by the Eternal Word of God, and we become part of him. The first is on the material level, and the latter is on the spiritual level.

The inability to understand these levels of functionality of the imagery used by the Lord confused the people. The people understood the imagery only materially. “‘This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?’ Jesus was aware that his followers were complaining about it and said, ‘Does this upset you? What if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before?” Our Lord prompted their minds to rise to the spiritual and divine by these words. A mere grasp of a word coming from God is enough to command our obedience and faith. Hence, the sign was worked before the discourse, giving them a foundation for their faith. But they did not see the sign but only enough food for their satisfaction. The sign was to be a bridge, taking them from eating to being assimilated into the divine. To help their spiritual assimilation, the Lord referred to the spirit as the operator. “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.” That is, look to the spirit and be assimilated into God, not to the flesh that goes bad with food taken unless preserved by the spirit.

The total allegiance we need to give to the word of God as spirit is what Joshua demanded from the tribes of Israel in the first reading. “Then Joshua said to all the people, ‘If you will not serve the Lord, choose today whom you wish to serve, whether the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are now living. As for me and my House, we will serve the Lord.” The reception of the word of God removes every freedom to choose, for the only real choice open for us to enter into life is to embrace the word of God. Not to choose the word of God is to die. Joshua presented a choice to the tribes of Israel that was not a choice but a seeming choice. We have no choice when we hear the word of God; we either embrace the covenant of God and live or reject and die. This is expressed by Peter for all the faithful. “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.”

For all who have said yes to the word of God and entered the covenant of life, St. Paul explains the nature of this covenant in his letter to the Ephesians. He used the marriage covenant between husband and wife to approximate the union attained between the believer in the word of God and the word. “Husbands should love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her to make her holy. He made her clean by washing her in water with a form of words, so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless.” By receiving the word of God and believing in what we have heard, we are given a new life which is the same as that of the word of God. The spiritual word purifies our carnal minds and continuously transforms them to approximate the mind of Christ. This is the reality of the marriage between us and Jesus Christ our Lord. It is in our contemplation of his words and being transformed into the same mind and Spirit with him. It is a mystery whose sacrament is marriage between a woman and a man. The Eucharist is the sacrament of this transformation and spiritual marriage with Jesus Christ.

Let us pray: O God, who cause the minds of the faithful to unite in a single purpose, grant your people to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, amid the uncertainties of this world, our hearts may be fixed on that place where true gladness is found.