Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 25, 2024 - Joshua 24:1-2A, 15-17, 18B; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69
For the next couple of minutes, it’s going to appear like I’m talking about politics, but I’ll be talking about theology. And it’s going to look like I am preaching on the second reading, but I’m really preaching on the first reading and the Gospel.
Each of the four people involved in the current race for the presidency has a different religious background. Tim Walz was raised Catholic and then left the Church and became a Lutheran. Donald Trump was raised in the Presbyterian faith, and he has since adopted what the Fundamentalists call the Prosperity Gospel. If you do good in this world, God will reward you. Which is easily flipped into the very ugly idea that, if you’re doing well, it must mean that you are favored by God. Kamala Harris is a Buddhist and a member of the Black African Baptist Church. Now who did I leave out? J.D. Vance began his life as a Fundamentalist Christian, became an atheist in his college years, and finally was converted to Roman Catholicism sometime late in college life. So, none of the four have real authority to speak about what the Scriptures mean about certain things.
So, let’s take a look at that second reading. Many people avoid it, ever since the Feminist Revolution in the 1960’s, because it begins with, “Wives, be submissive to your husbands.” But the key words in that whole passage are “as” and “so.” The two least important sounding words. As and so. Because St. Paul created a comparison. Remember when you were in fifth grade in grammar school, and you did four is to eight as sixteen is to thirty-two. Right? That’s what Paul is trying to say. ‘Christ and the church’ is to ‘husband and wife.’ And just like we did with fractions, you can flip the equation upside down and across from each other. But you have to understand why Paul has this passage in Ephesians.
In the first century in the Greek and Roman world, there was no such thing as companion marriage. All marriages among the upper class, all marriages, were arranged marriages. And they had only two things that governed them - heredity and inheritance. Having descendants and passing on property. That’s all that mattered. And, in Roman law, a man could not commit adultery with another married woman without suffering civil penalties, but he could have as many mistresses as he wanted, and the wife could have nothing to say about that. Also, the wife, in her own right, could own property, although the father chose her husband and gave the husband a dowry. She could run her own business if she wished and was able to do that. But there was no understanding between husband and wife that they owed each other any kind of affection or loyalty except what was publicly required. Of course, like all of the peoples of the world since the beginning of time, many of these men and women did actually fall in love with each other after the marriage was arranged. This is the civilization that Paul is facing and trying to convert.
Paul himself comes out of a religious tradition in which the Torah controls everything. In the Torah, all marriages are also arranged. But, in the Torah, a man who committed adultery against his wife and a wife who committed adultery against her husband could be stoned to death. So, with that tradition as well, there’s nothing about companionship, love or affection. And so, St. Paul says that it is our membership in the Body of Christ, that is ours through Baptism - through the Sacrament of Baptism - that requires us to treat each other with dignity, justice and affection within a marriage.
Now, keep in mind that, when St. Paul was writing, there was no such thing as a Catholic marriage. There were no Catholic wedding ceremonies until the ninth century. Up until then, all marriages were civil marriages. Some were blessed by a priest, but not many. And so, the Sacrament of Marriage, as we know it today, emerges gradually. But the foundation of the Sacrament of Marriage is found in this passage of St. Paul in which he roots the relationship between men and woman in the Sacrament of Baptism.
So, with that in mind, let us turn to the first reading and the gospel which are about commitment and the particular form of prediction. And St. John, in his gospel, never has a prediction of the passion and death of Jesus. What Jesus predicts is that the Son of Man must be lifted up - the same word as ascend - and for John it was all one motion. The eternal Word of God descends into human life as a genuine human being. And, at that point, from the very beginning of his life, begins the journey back to God, which would be an ascension through the Cross to the Father. And so, where the other gospels talk about predictions of the passion and death, John talks about descending and ascending. So, when Jesus says, this morning, “What will you think if the Son ascends the way he was before,” he’s including the crucifixion. And that’s the hard saying that people can’t accept.
Remember what happened in Matthew’s gospel after Jesus asks Peter who the people are saying he is. And Peter says, “Well, some people are saying John the Baptist has come back to life. Other people are saying it’s Elijah.” And Jesus says, “Well, who do you say?” And Peter says, “You are the Christ, Son of the Blessed One.” And Jesus compliments him. Right after that, right after that, Jesus tells the twelve that he must suffer and die and rise on the third day. And Peter says, “God forbid that should happen to you.” And Jesus says to him, “Get back into my following. You’re behaving like a Satan.”
That is the basis on which John wrote the passage you heard in this morning’s gospel. And so, the hard saying is never about Holy Communion. The hard saying is about the Crucifixion. And what does Jesus say to Peter about the Crucifixion after he says, “Get back of my following?” He says, “Those who want to follow me must take up their cross and follow me.”
You know, it would be ridiculous for me to preach to a congregation like this, where almost everybody is a grandma or a grandpa, about marriage. You’ve already been through all of the challenges and struggles that marriage brings with it. But it’s important to recognize that what St. Paul was saying in his letter was revolutionary. It was meant to stir the pot and to change entirely peoples’ point of view. And you can bet that it was met with a great deal of resistance in Roman society, among the upper classes who chose to be converted to Christianity to follow the way of Jesus. It would have been great resistance. It would have been for them a cross to change the way of looking at marriage from a financial and social contract to something that had to do with actual commitment.
And so, in all of our lives, no matter where we are in our lives, we sometimes come upon some teaching of Christianity and specifically of Catholicism, that becomes a challenge for us either intellectually or emotionally or morally. And what do we do then when that happens? Jesus turns to each one of us and says, “Do you want to walk away?” What we have to say back again is, “This is a hard saying, but to whom else can we go?” Whether we’re 16 or 60 or 90, when that bump in the road comes, where something in our faith doesn’t make any sense, challenges our intellect, or challenges our emotions, to whom shall we go?