August 26, 2018

Twenty First Sunday in Ordinary Time

Deacon Kevin O'Boyle

How so you make decisions? Any decision – not just religious ones. We are all faced with decisions in life—from the time we pick one toy or group of friends over another through the choices of adolescence to the adult decisions to marry and how to live as family—to the faith we believe in; all of these things involve decisions. They may be big or small, but it is important that we build methods in arriving at a decision.
 
In our first reading today, Joshua presents a decision, and a rationale for making it. The Israelites were about to take possession of the Promised Land and there is a resident god who the locals follow. So, Joshua asks, who will you follow—the resident god, or the Lord? Joshua reminds the people of the great things that their God had done for them and says he will follow the Lord. Here Joshua is relying on the people’s lived and ancestral experience, and gives the example of his decision, all to encourage them to make the decision they do—to follow the Lord.
 
Our second reading is perhaps one of the more controversial ones in modern time. Paul speaks of the relationship of husband and wife, but he is really suggesting the relationship of love between Christ and His Church, and urging couples, and for that matter all members of the body of Christ to relate to each other in love. Paul posits the question, how are husband and wife to act towards each other—and uses the relationship of Christ and His body the Church as the answer. Building or finding a model is yet another way to make decisions.
 
Finally, in our Gospel passage, Christ posits to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”  and Peter, speaking for the group, gives his answer, “Master, to whom shall we go”. For his rationale, Peter relies on things they already know or believe—that He had the words of everlasting life, and that they are convinced that He is the Holy One of God. A reliance on past determinations and logic—yet another model for decision making.
 
So, what does all this mean to us today? Apart from convenient methods of decision making for life’s crossroads, these passages present for us ways to respond to tests in our own faith lives. When our faith is challenged—and just about every believer is from time to time—we are offered models to bring us back. Sometimes a challenge arises out of a time when God did not seem to answer a prayer the way we wanted Him to respond. First, we should remember that God always hears and responds to our prayers in our best interest. God always has a fuller picture of reality than we do. He knows the outcomes of any response. We could then do well to remember all the things that God has done for us in the past—just like Joshua called the Israelites to do. If we really look at that, how could we turn away from the faith.
 
When we enter a new relationship, or things turn badly in an old one, and we try to determine how to act toward another, we might remember Paul’s model of the Body of Christ, and how we are all to treat each other as members of that body.
 
Finally, when faced with a challenge to an article of faith, like the Twelve were in the Gospel, we too can rely on the things we have come to believe in the past, that Christ is the Son of God. If we believe those things, then belief in the thing that is troubling us should become easier.
 
We live in a world where, at the moment, many seem to be calling the Church for the sins of many of its key members—and rightfully so. But if these things, even for a minute call us to question what we believe, our readings today give us a few ways to step back from a bad decision. It is something to think about this week. God Bless.