Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024
Ordinary Time • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 7 viewsIn Joshua we see remembrance as the basis of commitment with forgetting being at the root of Israelite failure. This is true John as well, for the people forget the bread and even forget the manna as being from heaven as they try to grasp the significance of Jesus’ being the bread from heaven that must be eaten. Not remembering, they turn away. But Peter remembers his past experience with Jesus and commitment and on that basis, not that of understanding, stays firmly committed. So we must remember our experience with God especially in dark places and remember the story of God’s dealing with us, especially the gospels, when approaching the Eucharist. We may not fully understand, we may not experience sound and lights we will be fed, our commitment strengthened and in the end understand and grasp it, even if that “end” is when we experience him face to face.
Notes
Transcript
Title
Title
Remember and Commit
Outline
Outline
I remember listening to a sermon in Switzerland
I remember listening to a sermon in Switzerland
The preacher had asked if there were any there who would have trouble with his speaking in dialect. Of the three who did have trouble, my wife did not understand the question, a German man was reticent to be the only one to say yes, and I thought it would be interesting to try. The sermon confused me for a while because he was talking a lot about carburetors, i vergaesse, and the it hit me that he was talking about forgetting, ich vergasse.
That is the issue in Joshua. Joshua remembered and reminded the people of all God had done for them, declared his decision not to forget but to commit, and asked them to decide. The people are impressed with Joshua, recite the history after him, and make their commitment without a commitment to keep the memory and commitment alive.
Thus Judges, the second part of Joshua-Judges, is about how the people forget, end up in extreme difficulties, then remember and return to God, are delivered, only to start going into cognitive decline as soon as the deliverer/ leader/ person who knows God is dead. We have the repeat the history of God’s goodness to us in the past that brought us to our call, individually and collectively, or we will forget.
That is behind the crisis time in John ch 6
That is behind the crisis time in John ch 6
The people wanted an ongoing supply of bread, perhaps the ability to “do the works of God” themselves. They fortuitously move the conversation to the miracle of the manna, trying to get Jesus to do something the same or similar. Jesus tries to move the conversation to his being the manna in person - it is his person who is life-giving, not temporal manna, which did not last to the next day. They forget that the manna was “bread from heaven”, not of earthly origin, which is the connection to Jesus’ being bread from heaven. They even seem to forget the miracle of the loaves in their horror at Jesus being living physical bread. They think on the human plane, not the spiritual plane. So rather than asking, “Tell us more. Explain how this can be. What do we need to do to obtain you in this way?,” they leave, abandon the attempt.
Only the Twelve remain, not because they understand, but because they remembered their experience with Jesus that led to their commitment: “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.”
And that is the true for us as well
And that is the true for us as well
I was listening to Fr Stephen Gladberry tell his story on the Evangelism and Culture podcast. His wonderful farm childhood was shattered when his father and a sibling were killed in a car accident and the rest of the family injured. He at 8 became “the man of the house,” although a grandfather and uncle helped run the farm. His largely assumed Catholic faith took him through that and other later crises - he could look back and remember, even if he could not understand.
There are things in our lives we do not understand or have some understanding in hindsight. But if we have a history with God we can remember we can walk through the dark until we either experience him again in this life or see him at the end of life.
Pope Benedict XVI’s posthumous work What Is Christianity? has an essay “The Meaning of Communion” suggests that transubstantiation may not be the best language to understand the Eucharist, that we may need a new term as was coined for the being of the Son in the 4th century. But understanding what goes on in a realm we have only just begun to experience is not necessary. What is necessary is to remember what God has done for us, to make it our daily bread, and to let it renew us in our commitment. A fuller understanding may come in steps in this life, but full understanding will only begin to dawn when we live in the dimension Jesus lives in.
So remember. Remember your personal experience with God and keep going back to it. Remember God’s history with us as the people of God, especially the gospel narrative. And live it afresh daily, especially when you are feeling in the dark.
The need is not to understand, but to experience him even if it is without bells and whistles. And the need is never to forget, but to ruminate, remember, and on that basis to move forward in our commitment.
